We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Meg Olsen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Meg below.
Hi Meg, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
I’ve always been a risk taker. As a kid I grew up watching Evel Knievel jump over anything he could find on his motorcycle, and Muhammad Ali fighting in and out of the ring for championships and equality. I have many scars on my legs, arms and chin from bike accidents, diving board mishaps, and even falling through the ice on a lake when I was old enough to know better. As a high school student I often showed up high to class and dropped acid once before school – the day seemed like a dream. I never really thought about the consequences of my actions, I was impulsive and ready to do whatever looked like fun, living in the moment.
Finding myself pregnant at age 42 with a man who I knew had problems with addiction and mental health issues was another risk. I was considered a geriatric pregnancy and I had an an unstable partner. But I decided to go through with the pregnancy and give my boyfriend a chance as he quit drinking and seemed to be trying to keep our little family together. We moved to Colorado, where my sister lives, so he could get a fresh start. This upended my career as an artist and educator in Indianapolis. I had been painting murals, I was well known as a local photographer, had a clay and painting studio, participated in First Friday events and showed my work locally, in group in solo shows. No stranger to risk taking, I figured with my professional background I would be able to find work in a new city and jumped right in.
We moved to small town in the foothills of the Sangre DeChristo mountains outside of Colorado Springs the day after we were married. Things went downhill immediately. My husband resented me for his sobriety and if you are familiar with Borderline Personality Disorder you’ll know, it made him verbally and emotionally abusive. It’s a horrible condition. My only friends were my sister and her husband who lived 45 minutes up the mountain. So I put all my energy into my one-year-old daughter, and keeping us safe, and sane.
I had a hard time finding work in the first few months we were there. I was fired from two dental offices, where I had no business working and I handed out resume’s to banks and other industries where I had no experience. My marriage only lasted two and half years, the stress of fighting was too much; our second anniversary was spent silently, angrily, driving up to Pike’s Peak to spend the afternoon. I don’t think we said more than a few words to each other. Shortly after, I moved into a one-bedroom apartment with our daughter and started taking classes at Colorado State University Pueblo. We were divorced less than a year later.
Eventually I started painting murals again and I was hired to work at a K-8 school as a teacher’s aid. The cost of daycare makes working almost impossible, so I bartered with my child’s daycare for a break on tuition, offering art classes to their pre-K students. After a few years I moved into the art teacher position and my daughter started school where I worked. I was able to buy a house by the time she was four, we had a small tribe of friends, and we were doing well.
In 2018, I decided to go back to school to get a Master’s in Education. I was told this was a smart thing to do so that when I ended my career my pension would pull from the highest salary bracket. Since my focus was in arts education I was able to take 18 credit hours of visual art to complete my degree. In 2020 I was finally taking the visual arts classes and since school was no longer in session after spring break due to Covid, I had all the time in the world to make art. I felt rejuvenated – like I was back in the groove I had carved out for myself in Indianapolis. I started looking into teaching studio classes at the local Community College and realized my Master’s of Education was not going to get me the jobs I wanted. I needed a Master of Fine Arts.
At the end of my M.Ed. program I decided I would apply to MFA programs and see what happened. If I wasn’t accepted anywhere, we would stay in Colorado and I would pick up education courses at the local college, which is what I was now qualified to teach. But I was accepted to two of the schools where I applied, one of them being Brooklyn College, in NY. If you’re going for an art degree, New York is a no-brainer. Now I had the option of packing me and my daughter up and moving across the country once again to attend school in a city where I didn’t know anyone. I have family in New Jersey, but this was a big risk; single mom, no support system, new city… a lot could go wrong. I talked it over with my daughter, who was now nine, and let her know; if we were going to do this, it would only work if she was on board. It would be the two of us in it together or we wouldn’t go.
About a week after we discussed it, she started talking about, “when we live in New York…” and I knew she was on board. I mentioned to our neighbors, the best neighbors anyone could ask for, that we were going to move and they offered to buy my house – cash. Done! I started looking for apartments online and realized that I didn’t want to spend money on a broker fee and didn’t make 10x’s the amount of rent as was requested on every rental application. Eventually I found an apartment in a duplex for rent, the landlord lives downstairs. I offered to pay them a full year’s rent in advance since I didn’t have a job or co-signer, and they agreed. Done! We left the furniture in the house, packed up our clothes, art supplies, and toys, and donated the rest to Goodwill.
Everyone I know told me what a risk it was for us to move to New York, and I agree, it was risky. But everything fell into place and it seemed as though it was meant to be. We have been here three years now, I have an MFA, I’m teaching studio classes at a community college, working with non-profit organizations, and I’m painting almost every day in my studio. My daughter is thriving; she loves New York and all the possibilities it brings. She stays in contact with her dad and we are planning a trip to visit him later this summer. I am still working to establish myself as a visual artist, it’s a much different market than what I have experience with. All the exhibitions and murals I painted in Indianapolis and Colorado don’t seem to mean much out here in the big city. But we’re doing alright. We talk about moving to Europe next.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a visual artist living in Brooklyn, New York. I started my career as a Professional Teaching Artist in Indianapolis, IN and have been an advocate for bringing arts experiences to people of all ages and abilities throughout my career. As part of my M. Ed. program at Colorado State University Pueblo I was asked to write the curriculum for a print-based painting class which was being piloted for an incarcerated student. After my student finished the program, he asked me to stay on as a mentor, which I agreed to do. With my help, Christopher petitioned the Department of Extended Studies to start offering regular drawing classes for incarcerated students.
These classes became available to long distance students through Blackboard and as a print based version for incarcerated students in the fall of 2024. The first two scholarships were awarded in the spring of 2025. The Christopher Levitt fund operates through donations to the program and money brought in from the sale of Christopher’s artwork. This is something I am proud to be a part of as I believe that all people deserve to be educated and have opportunities that will allow them to grow.
I received an MFA from Brooklyn College in 2024 and joined the faculty at Passaic County Community College teaching Art Appreciation, 2-D Design, 3-D Design and Drawing; I continue teaching with Colorado State University Pueblo. In addition, I work with Young Audiences of New York and the Center for Educational Innovation as a Teaching Artist, bringing arts experiences to students in the five boroughs. My discipline of choice has changed over the years. I started my career as a photographer and sculptor, working in clay. I began painting murals in 2003, creating large-scale public works in Indianapolis, IN, Columbus, OH, and Canon City, CO. Recently I have been painting in oil and acrylic, creating video, and sculpture. My goal is to continue working in higher education as I pursue opportunities to show my work here and abroad.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I’m currently working on a series of paintings which draw from my memories of sexual assault and sexual harassment. I started thinking about creating this series as I watched men who were accused and/or found guilty of sexual assault, advance to the highest levels of power. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anyone about these experiences until now. In some ways I understood these problems were a condition of being a woman. The #metoo movement confirmed that suspicion and sort of blew me away as I realized the scope of abuse. As I have been posting the paintings online my friends have been talking to me about their own memories of sexual harassment and abuse.
Each of these paintings I’m making are a demonstration of my resilience and the resilience of women (and men) all over the world. The scope of the paintings range from what was probably meant as an innocent goof on children, a friend of my parents offering young girls a quarter for kiss, to workplace harassment and rape. Living through these events caused me to question my self worth, caused me shame and a loss of dignity. Repeatedly having to build up ones self esteem is exhausting but necessary. I shut out many of these events and as I talk to my friends I’ve had moments of remembering. These paintings are an act of healing for myself and anyone else who has had to live through this abuse. There are currently seven paintings in the series and more to come.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
For me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is sharing my passion and connecting with others. I fell into the teaching artist gig early in my career and discovered a love of teaching. The students I most love working with are those who are disengaged with the structure of the school day. It’s too long, too boring, they don’t see the point; kids on the outside. Those are the students I relate to. I often start by showing them images of other outsiders; photographs taken by Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon or Catherine Opie. Typically, when these students see images of people who look even more isolated than they feel, they want to know more about them. Once you can get those students to start asking questions, you’ve got them. Then you relate the projects to their personal interests and watch as they start to loosen up and let their guard down.
For me, the arts are all about connection. Connecting with others through exhibitions of my work, or through guiding a class full of students through a creative project or technique is about sharing. This is a powerful practice in a world where people are increasingly isolated through the overuse of technology. When you get a group of people together and ask them to explore, it opens them up. It makes them vulnerable, which is kind of terrifying. But it’s in our vulnerability that we find each other.
The arts are impactful. They ask us to question ourselves and the world around us. When we start having conversations about art we open ourselves up to discovery. When we discover something new we often want to share it with others. Connection is what we crave, it’s how we survive. The arts are an amazing bridge that helps us connect to our past, present and helps us to imagine our future. I can’t think of anything better to be involved in.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.meg-olsen-art.com
- Instagram: @megg.olsen
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meg-olsen-14752455/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@megolsen1234
