Painter, installer, arts instructor has long resume
Megan Martens-Haworth can’t remember a time when she wasn’t creating art and exploring her world in a visual way.
She grew up in Upton, Wyoming. A hefty scholarship brought her to Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming. From there she went to Minnesota State University where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and ceramics. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in painting from Washington State University. She has taught art in Italy and France and is a tenured instructor of fine arts at Spokane Falls Community College.
“It’s an awesome gig,” she said, “I love my job.”
Her resume is long; her exhibition history is a list of more than 30 galleries and museums as far away as New York, and she has received dozens of awards, honors, and grants.
Her work is stunning and thoughtful. “When I make art, I need an anchor, a thought to guide me,” she said. “I work with memories, but I don’t want them to be too specific to me. I want them to resonate within my viewer.”
She creates installations, like her Family Tree Chandelier that hangs from the ceiling with objects tied to red threads, and paintings in acrylic or oil on panels or canvas. Her subject matters are studies of human interactions, places, things and times in her life that moved her.
“I want to inspire and stir something within the viewer, to create something that makes people think, not to deal with my life through my art, but to invite others into my experiences of things,” she said.
Usually her collections contain a common theme, like her series of imaginary children spurred by recurring dreams of children, or her “Survey Says Sexy” that came to fruition after she showed photos of herself to others, asked them to select the sexiest images, and then painted the most popular ones.
Since becoming a mother 19 months ago, her focus has shifted a bit, perhaps even taking after her daughter’s less structured nature.
“Recently I have tried to loosen my approach to making art by being a little more impulsive and making work without thinking about it too much,” she said. “I find that the problem-solving that happens in the moment is an aspect of creating that I am enjoying.”
Her latest collection of oil paintings is displayed at Kolva-Sullivan Gallery in an exhibit called “Shuffle” that includes chocolate, flowers, balls of light, soaring birds deliberately blurred, “Cats of the Past,” stars and a landscape marred by intentional rubs of nothingness. Perhaps the exhibit’s common theme is elemental, familiar yet new.