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Megan Driving Hawk is an artist/mother/educator using habits of the heart to facilitate connection, healing, and learning through photography, poetry, & traditional needlework. Creatively she researches collective healing, trauma, memory, and time. Academically she researches culturally responsive fine arts education. She earned a BFA in Fine Art Photography from Arizona State University, an MEd in Secondary Education with certification in Art K-12 from ASU, and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Hartford. She is SEI and CTE endorsed.
She is a National Board-Certified Teacher who has spent over 10 years in the classroom creating and teaching a culturally responsive art education curriculum. She has served as Indigenous Student Advisor, Teacher Equity Lead, Visual Arts Lead, National Arts Honor Society Advisor among others. Her artwork has been reviewed, collected, and exhibited numerous times throughout the present-day U.S. and internationally including the ASU Art Museum and the Tempe Public Works Collection. She has been invited as guest lecturer, workshop facilitator, and panelist for various events at the national, state, & local level. Currently she is the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Rep for the Arizona Art Education Association, a Running with Purpose Artist/Athlete Advocate, and member of Kinship Photography Collective.
Driving Hawk has received numerous honors and awards including honorable mention in the 2020 Women Photographing Women category of the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, 2023 artist-in-residence at the Tempe Center for the Arts, 2023 Arizona Art Educator of the Year, and 2025 Agent of Change in Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion.
Driving Hawk currently lives in the Sonoran Desert on O’odham, Yavapai, Akimel O’odham (Upper Pima) and Hohokam lands (present day Phoenix, Arizona). She is a white wife & mother of two in a Lakȟóta Thiwáhe. Her life as a residency in Matrescence & outdoor learning through Indigenous ways of knowing.
She is a National Board-Certified Teacher who has spent over 10 years in the classroom creating and teaching a culturally responsive art education curriculum. She has served as Indigenous Student Advisor, Teacher Equity Lead, Visual Arts Lead, National Arts Honor Society Advisor among others. Her artwork has been reviewed, collected, and exhibited numerous times throughout the present-day U.S. and internationally including the ASU Art Museum and the Tempe Public Works Collection. She has been invited as guest lecturer, workshop facilitator, and panelist for various events at the national, state, & local level. Currently she is the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Rep for the Arizona Art Education Association, a Running with Purpose Artist/Athlete Advocate, and member of Kinship Photography Collective.
Driving Hawk has received numerous honors and awards including honorable mention in the 2020 Women Photographing Women category of the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, 2023 artist-in-residence at the Tempe Center for the Arts, 2023 Arizona Art Educator of the Year, and 2025 Agent of Change in Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion.
Driving Hawk currently lives in the Sonoran Desert on O’odham, Yavapai, Akimel O’odham (Upper Pima) and Hohokam lands (present day Phoenix, Arizona). She is a white wife & mother of two in a Lakȟóta Thiwáhe. Her life as a residency in Matrescence & outdoor learning through Indigenous ways of knowing.
Published on March 2nd, 2026. Artist responses collected in months previous.
Was pursuing your creative work a calling for you? How do you define calling within your practice? Share a concise definition and a moment when this felt most true.
When I first read this question I thought, “No, my creative practice was not originally a calling because I didn’t feel a spiritual pull towards it until much later in life.” However, after some consideration about where my creative journey began, I would say, “Yes!” I have a very clear memory of walking out my back door and into the snowy Appalachian woods with my camera to photograph when I was a teenager. I would get a sparkly excited feeling in my gut when I would go make photographs and again just moments before looking at freshly developed film. I still get this feeling when I write, photograph, and make visual art. I’ve come to understand it as some mixture of intuition, divine guidance, and ancestral knowledge. I just didn’t understand what I was feeling when I was so young.
What does a successful career in the arts look like to you today? Describe how you measure success now and note any shifts from earlier in your career.
A successful career in the arts looks different to me right now than it did before I became a mom and even different to me now as a mom of two. I am in a slower phase of my studio career. I am like a hermit doing a lot of soul work in my studio in this phase of having little kids. My priorities are shifting and I’m tuning into what resistance feels like in my body. Work gets done during naptime and for a short time after the kids go down for bed. The amount of studio time I get day to day, week to week, or even month to month is not consistent. Meeting deadlines and responding to open calls isn’t as easy as it once was. I’m also shifting into a creative ecosystem that honors the seasons which means some parts of the year are even slower than others. Being OK with a slower pace & output is also part of the soul work I’m doing.
How are you kind to yourself in your art practice? (Include one or two concrete examples such as boundaries, rest, or studio routines.)
Shifting my studio practice to a more sustainable ecosystem that honors the rhythms of the natural seasons means more listening to my energy instead of “pushing through.” This year I’ve started paying more attention to what my intuitive daily, weekly, and monthly creative ecosystems look like by following the Celtic Wheel of the Year. This also means going to bed at a certain time of day and waking up at a consistent time to get in exercise and alone time before anyone else wakes up. I know this is what my mind, body, and spirit need. Throughout the years I’ve learned that by not skipping out on my morning wake up routine and rituals I have a better day. This also means I’m not up late working on anything anymore, so naptime is for creative work only, not admin work or even housework.
What impact do you hope your work has on others? Name the response you hope to spark and who you most want to reach.
I have a couple hopes for my artwork, but they all come down to two main ideas. I really love when someone sees themselves in my work and feels less alone. I also really love it when someone looks at my work and thinks, “hmm, I never thought about it like that.” or “Oh, wow. I didn’t realize that.” and walk away learning something new about the world through my lived experience. I aspire to make artwork that acts as a mirror, a window, and a sliding glass door.
Do you have any rituals or spiritual practices that you integrate into your daily life as an artist? If relevant, mention frequency, timing, or how the practice supports your work.
I’ve spent the last year starting to intentionally weave into my art practice and daily life. Although I still have more I want to integrate, I have so much that I’ve uncovered. At the spring equinox I joined a photography collective called Kinship Photography and have been part of a practice group, “An Elemental Year” that is investigating the elementals through each turn of the Celtic Wheel of the Year. So, my whole photographic practice has become ritual and, in some moments, marking stages of life transitions in my children’s lives through ceremony.
I have art making tools in almost every room of our house including the refrigerator. A lot of making happens when the kids are moving around the playroom where I have a desk. However, when I have focused studio time which is when no one is around and I can focus 100% of my attention on something, I have little rituals that mark this special time. For example, I light a candle, apply a certain essential oil scent, and listen to certain music when I write or when I create visual art. Recently, I have started opening my studio session with 15 minuets of silence.
Was pursuing your creative work a calling for you? How do you define calling within your practice? Share a concise definition and a moment when this felt most true.
When I first read this question I thought, “No, my creative practice was not originally a calling because I didn’t feel a spiritual pull towards it until much later in life.” However, after some consideration about where my creative journey began, I would say, “Yes!” I have a very clear memory of walking out my back door and into the snowy Appalachian woods with my camera to photograph when I was a teenager. I would get a sparkly excited feeling in my gut when I would go make photographs and again just moments before looking at freshly developed film. I still get this feeling when I write, photograph, and make visual art. I’ve come to understand it as some mixture of intuition, divine guidance, and ancestral knowledge. I just didn’t understand what I was feeling when I was so young.
What does a successful career in the arts look like to you today? Describe how you measure success now and note any shifts from earlier in your career.
A successful career in the arts looks different to me right now than it did before I became a mom and even different to me now as a mom of two. I am in a slower phase of my studio career. I am like a hermit doing a lot of soul work in my studio in this phase of having little kids. My priorities are shifting and I’m tuning into what resistance feels like in my body. Work gets done during naptime and for a short time after the kids go down for bed. The amount of studio time I get day to day, week to week, or even month to month is not consistent. Meeting deadlines and responding to open calls isn’t as easy as it once was. I’m also shifting into a creative ecosystem that honors the seasons which means some parts of the year are even slower than others. Being OK with a slower pace & output is also part of the soul work I’m doing.
How are you kind to yourself in your art practice? (Include one or two concrete examples such as boundaries, rest, or studio routines.)
Shifting my studio practice to a more sustainable ecosystem that honors the rhythms of the natural seasons means more listening to my energy instead of “pushing through.” This year I’ve started paying more attention to what my intuitive daily, weekly, and monthly creative ecosystems look like by following the Celtic Wheel of the Year. This also means going to bed at a certain time of day and waking up at a consistent time to get in exercise and alone time before anyone else wakes up. I know this is what my mind, body, and spirit need. Throughout the years I’ve learned that by not skipping out on my morning wake up routine and rituals I have a better day. This also means I’m not up late working on anything anymore, so naptime is for creative work only, not admin work or even housework.
What impact do you hope your work has on others? Name the response you hope to spark and who you most want to reach.
I have a couple hopes for my artwork, but they all come down to two main ideas. I really love when someone sees themselves in my work and feels less alone. I also really love it when someone looks at my work and thinks, “hmm, I never thought about it like that.” or “Oh, wow. I didn’t realize that.” and walk away learning something new about the world through my lived experience. I aspire to make artwork that acts as a mirror, a window, and a sliding glass door.
Do you have any rituals or spiritual practices that you integrate into your daily life as an artist? If relevant, mention frequency, timing, or how the practice supports your work.
I’ve spent the last year starting to intentionally weave into my art practice and daily life. Although I still have more I want to integrate, I have so much that I’ve uncovered. At the spring equinox I joined a photography collective called Kinship Photography and have been part of a practice group, “An Elemental Year” that is investigating the elementals through each turn of the Celtic Wheel of the Year. So, my whole photographic practice has become ritual and, in some moments, marking stages of life transitions in my children’s lives through ceremony.
I have art making tools in almost every room of our house including the refrigerator. A lot of making happens when the kids are moving around the playroom where I have a desk. However, when I have focused studio time which is when no one is around and I can focus 100% of my attention on something, I have little rituals that mark this special time. For example, I light a candle, apply a certain essential oil scent, and listen to certain music when I write or when I create visual art. Recently, I have started opening my studio session with 15 minuets of silence.
Find Megan Driving Hawk on Instagram
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