MegMathews: Contact

I feel a connection to and longing for the activities of generations before me, but questioning how these things fit into a contemporary context. I feel that most young women in my generation have received fragments of information about things that my mother’s generation was taught by their mothers. Messy stitches and freehanded quilt blocks reference my understanding of these crafts: connected to them and removed from them at the same time.

I am constantly working out ideas about the female’s need and desire to feel beautiful. The idea of beauty is central to the idea of feminine identity that I have been exposed to. In living the Christian faith, I have learned that beauty does include the physical but that it is also much more than that. Beauty is powerful and has the capacity to heal and create change. There is something about beauty that calms us, captivates us, and inspires us. I know that my own perceptions of beauty have also been shaped by mass media as well: it is unavoidable. These sources often tell women that flaunting their sexuality and being super model thin is beautiful. These messages, though filtered through what one knows to be true, still enter into the mind and therefore affect perceptions of beauty on some level. These ideas, like the traditionally female crafts, create more expectations of what a woman should or should not be like, look like, and act like. It seems that this sense of expectation is not a new thing and has taken on different shapes and forms throughout time.

In the use of text in my work, I am interested in a sense of ambiguity. While sometimes I will use text in a clear way, other times I will cover this text and make it less decipherable. Making artwork that is deeply personal is vulnerable: at times I do not even want people to look closely at my artwork because I feel like I am being examined. At other times I long for people to connect to my work, to look closely so that they might uncover some bit of truth or find something that resonates with them. Through this masking of text, I am speaking to this idea of vulnerability and this tension of opposites: wanting to reveal and wanting to hide.

As I continue to journey through life, I desire to learn from and gain inspiration from new people and experiences. I love to create artwork, and I want to continue to do so for the rest of my life. It is inside of me: it cannot be avoided.

In this body of work, I have been exploring ideas of domesticity, memory, and tradition. Since I have recently moved, I have been thinking of the idea of home a lot. The reality of my present situation has been the spark for this work. I view my artwork as a part of my life: it is not separate.

While working through these ideas, I have focused on activities and memories that take place around the home. An activity as ordinary as doing laundry can be loaded with memories. I remember being my mom’s helper when I was a little girl and following her up the stairs, catching any laundry that fell from the basket. Doing the laundry was also part of my “coming of age story”; I remember doing my laundry in college for the first time and feeling a strange sense of independence. Doing the laundry is an activity that is ritualistic; this weekly cleaning is much like a spiritual cleaning of the self in its necessity and ritual-like qualities.

I am interested in traditions that are passed down and how these change from generation to generation. I find myself in a situation now, while pursuing my MFA, where I work with my hands for several hours everyday. It seems that for much of the population, this outlet is missing. Time spent preparing a meal or quilting by the fireside is now replaced with hours spent commuting, working, browsing the Internet, and watching TV. People are often busy and tired.