Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Megan Lassen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Megan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I think I first realized that I wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path when I was in grade school, all because of the art teacher! She was so nice and always had candy in her smock pockets. I had no idea what that path would look like, though, all through school and even through college. I knew that I didn’t want to teach in a school, but had no idea what was possible. The first time I realized that I could have an artistic path/ career was in 1995 when I got into an apprenticeship for tattooing and piercing. The only reason I seriously applied was because a friend encouraged me!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Currently, I’m 53, live in North Carolina with my husband and 2 great danes in a yurt on a sort of fruit farm. I have been self employed in some form of art business off and on for 29 years; mostly in the body art industry. Within that time I have also been an EMT, a River Rescue Tech, a Health and Safety Community Educator, a 26/2 Hot Yoga Instructor, and a Masters Swim Coach. Through many states and multiple moving adventures, and thanks to a super supportive husband, I was able to paint, swim, coach, tattoo, make mosaics, and get back into pottery. He signed me up for a month of studio time in a ceramics studio while we were in Florida, as a gift. It was so much better than taking ceramics in college, and I took to hand-building right away, and extended my studio time to a year. When we moved to NC I found a local arts school and took more ceramics courses so I could learn the ins and outs of running a studio. I started producing more, learned a little more about glazes and kilns, and started selling! In 2020 I bought my own kiln and equipment, and really got my pottery business off the ground. Now, my main focus is on 3-d mugs, glaze painted and underglaze layered cups, and fun statement pieces- like butter dishes and larger bowls and platters. While the majority of my cups and mugs are wheel thrown, my butter dishes, bowls and platters are slab-built. If anything sets me apart from others in my field, it may just be my odd sense of humor/ or sense of reality. I think many people are often way to serious, and take themselves and life too serious. I’m not immune to this, but I like to ask, “what do we really know!?” My objects take on a reality of their own.
Artist statement: I’ve always been interested in the relationship between arts and crafts, and how each person, with different backgrounds, internal and external reflections, and bias, interacts with the art and the world around them. The realization that everyone looks not just with their eyes, but with their joy, their pain, their beliefs; present and past, to see something completely different from the person next to them. They put a small part of themselves into what they see. I don’t think of myself as overly serious or original, but I feel like we may have multiple dimensions or multiple realities happening at the same time. Because of this, I incorporate humor and whimsy into the 1-D and 3-D surface decorations of my pottery by creating little scenes with prints, underglaze images, drawings and paintings, and little half sculptures.
By combining nature images and patterns with things from outside of our understanding, I feel that my vessels may embody my own paradoxical desire for function with the humor of life’s strangeness. With unlikely combinations of images and sculptures on my everyday objects, I hope to emphasize joy, goofiness, and love that can be present in daily rituals, and sometimes mundane activities. If someone can question what they think they know about this life, this dimension that we may be living in, with grace and humor, then my objects may be successful.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect is coming into contact with others who help you by being who they are. When someone appreciates your strangeness (or your normal-ness) by purchasing your art, and they take the time to see you and tell you how you reached them through that piece, that is the reward. The hug, the conversation about all the things in life that don’t really make sense, but closed-minded people ‘think they know’ “doesn’t exist,” and the laugh or snicker… When someone picks up one of my bigfoot /UFO mugs and laughs, and comes into the tent to meet me, this is a reward!
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
I think we can stop teaching our creative children that art doesn’t matter; that we must do something that everyone else does. We need to show our kids early on, how to run a business, and that SBA loans aren’t really for creatives or for getting a business started. Get more fields to recognize apprenticeships and take people in and help them. Women can and should help other women be successful. We can teach more art and art history in grade and high school. We can teach breathing and movement and let kinesthetic learners know that book smarts aren’t everything. Open our minds, eyes, and hearts to the beauty and the ugliness around us that can be turned into art, or into something that resembles life that may not be as we think we know it. Show our children different ways of making a living, and that we don’t all fit a basic mold.
Contact Info:
- Website: sweetdanespottery.com or sweetdanesfarm.com
- Instagram: @sweetdanesfarm
- Facebook: @sweetdanesfarm
Image Credits
I take the photos, do the books, manage the social media nightmare, and try to remember all the little things.