We were lucky to catch up with Meg Dickerson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Meg, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

After completing my undergraduate degree I pursued a job in that field, international business. After a few years with too much stress in my life, I starting taking art classes at the local community college as a way to unwind. I took a ceramics course not expecting much beyond a creative break. But from the first time I worked with clay, something clicked. I was drawn to tits tactile nature, the way it responded to touch, and the slow, grounding rhythm of the process. What began as a casual outlet quickly became a deep passion.

My first teacher was trained in the Leach/Hamada tradition of making. With her guidance, I, too followed in that decades old way. I threw myself in to learning everything I could about this material. I spent summers honing my skills at Penland School of Craft studying with folks who shared this tradition. Ceramics offered me a language that felt truer than words and that shift marked the beginning of my career as a ceramic artist.

Most recently I completed a post baccalaureate in ceramic sculpture at UMASS Dartmouth studying under Rebecca Hutchinson. This program helped me develop a narrative voice through this new sculptural body of work. My work now reflects a more personal and environmental themes, using clay as a way to speak about systems – human, ecological, and emotional – that are in tension or collapse.

With out that strong, traditional foundation in clay, I could not have undertaken this current sculptural body of work.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have worked in clay for over 30 years. With a strong foundation built through decades of making and study, including a post baccalaureate program in ceramic sculpture, my current work centers on rough hewn, hand built utilitarian pots and sculptural forms. These pieces are very personal..They reflect my ongoing exploration of climate change and its impact on coastal communities. Through clay, I examine the remnants of human systems under stress, collapsed infrastructure, displaced lives and the fragile balance between land and sea.

My practice continues to be rooted in the physicality of the material, but now serves as a vessel for broader environmental narratives.

What I feel distinguishes my work from others and allows it to stand out are my surface treatments. I use many tools to add texture, integrate varied materials to create unusual surfaces, layer many slips and glazes firing multiple times at varying temperatures allowing the resulting surface to reference the journey of its inspiration.

These pieces carry the the narrative, holding memory and metaphor, allowing the work to communicate its story.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

If I hear one more time – I could do that.

Pursuing a career in the arts has never been easy. People often don’t see the amount of quiet, sustained work it takes – the long hours alone in the studio, the effort to generate new ideas, loving the process, surpassing many technical obstacles, becoming proficient in social media, show and gallery opportunities, the list goes on. It takes resilience, especially when so much happens behind the scenes.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I feel the most rewarding is when a viewer of my work, gets it.

When an idea becomes real – when it finally speaks in its own voice. There’s a quiet satisfaction in knowing that something you made by hand can carry meaning, evoke emotion, or start a conversation. It’s those moments that all the solitary work, the trial and error, the vulnerability all feels worth it. For me, the studio and all that encompasses that, is a place of discovery, and the reward is not just in the final piece, but in what it teaches me along the way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.megdickerson.com
• Instagram: @megdickerson
• Facebook: meg dickerson contemporary clay
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/meg-dickerson-8845b850

Image Credits

meg dickerson
david dickerson