March 19, 2006




Meghan Samson
sculptor
"A collection of distressed confessions"

28" in Diameter 5" high
pit fired stoneware clay with wire

Meghan studied abroad in Ascoli Pacino Italy with Scott Schneph and Grant Drumheller in 2004 in addition to receiving her BFA in Sculpture and Ceramics in 2005. She is an emerging artist who has already received recognition with a scholarship to study sculpture at the famed Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village Colorado studying with Rick Parsons and Linda Benglis. We have had her work in a very successful exhibition last September with Judith Heller Casssell and the response was overwhelming. She has a statement to go with her art and I would like to share it with you.
My work is inspired primarily by nature and how my personal experience relates to the visual language of nature. I am fascinated by the metaphoric qualities found in organic forms. The way a root will pierce through the soft earth, and how the ground opens up and peels back around that. The beauty of a rotting tree that is decomposing and transforming into its surroundings. When lightening burns through a tree, splitting it and exposing its inside. These are images that convey such strong emotion much like humans experience. I also am interested in organ-like forms for the same reasons. These things that live inside of us which are all kept neatly packaged up beneath our skins. Yet they too, like the Earth, are part of a complicated working system which can be damaged, and sutured, split open and exposed and pierced through both metaphorically, and physically. I relate my experiences with this imagery in my work, because I believe that the visual language of art can sometimes be stronger than words themselves.
Meghan's work packs a visual punch and yet there is something so very real about it that it feels quite at home in my home. I have two works of hers hanging from their fire pit blackened wires right next to me each day when I work on my computer. They are part of my black and white wall which I will show you another day. They are inspiring and honest. Just like Meghan. She also works her sculptures out first in little engravings and creates prints from them. We have been carrying them at the gallery and I just love them.
If you want to catch a little more of Meghan's work she has been making large decorative ceramic vessels for our upcoming Art to Wear/Home Decor show on April 15th at artstream. Her sister, Katie, who is an interior design student in Boston is bringing along her goodies too! Don't miss it!
The word for the day is ... delight ... as in something sweet, a surprise visit from a friend, and a good feeling inside.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Delightfully wonderfull! Like hanging cocoons...

Susan Schwake said...

yes, or wooden shoes, or seashells... there are so many things organic or natural which they resemble in one way or another!
--susan

Tongue in Cheek Antiques said...

You answered my questions and completed my thoughts,
Little shoes, or in the eye of the beholder!

Unknown said...

It's funny that I've come back to your blog again in the oddest of ways (but not really, because you are NH based). I searched "Grant Drumheller" because he was my old prof and a favorite mentor and low and behold here I am again! Meghan's work is superb.