|
|
Megan (Chain) Driving Hawk grew up in the suburban and country areas outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a specialization in Photography and a minor in Women and Gender Studies from Arizona State University in 2010. In 2014 she earned a Master of Secondary Education and Teacher Certification in Art from Arizona State University. On a long-term residency from 2016-2018 she lived in Kirksville, Missouri where she taught art and attended a low-residency graduate program at the University of Hartford. In 2018 she earned a Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies. She is an artist and art educator living in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband Ben Driving Hawk (OMS-III) and their dog and two cats. She teaches high school traditional photography and is the site Native American and Youth Equity Stewardship Advisors.
Published on February 28th, 2020. Artist responses collected in months previous.
What projects are you working on right now?
Overall, my artwork is about the confluence of Lakota and Celtic traditions; how they overlap and how they conflict. The pieces leading up to my current project have been an investigation into how artmaking plays a role in genetic memory and healing, specifically my own physical and spiritual healing before becoming a mother. My current project is 9 month based where I am designing and creating while pregnant. I do not know what these beaded and textile pieces will be just as I do not know whom the child growing inside me will be. However, over time both of these unknowns will reveal themselves. I continue to heal as I grow a human being in my womb.
How do you keep yourself accountable in your practice?
I work best when I give myself deadlines to work towards. In graduate school I kept a journal with long term and short term deadlines in it and I have continued since graduating. Applying for this time-based project was also another way I saw holding myself accountable.
How do you stay motivated to pursue your creative work?
Time is my motivation. How I move through the stages of starting a family could change at any moment. The phase of preparing for a family is now over for me. I can no longer go back to that stage now that I am in the process of creating in my womb. No matter the outcome of this pregnancy, I have entered a new stage of creating a family.
Where do you hope to be 10 years from now and what would you like to say to yourself?
In 10 years from now I hope to still be teaching in some format. I hope that I am still working on Cultural Confluence but hope it has grown into something that I couldn’t have predicted right now. I have faith that it will morph into something unique based on how our lives have progressed and who our children start to become. I would like to remind by future self of how much prayer, ceremony, and hard work went into the conception and creation of Cultural Confluence and this family.
What projects are you working on right now?
Overall, my artwork is about the confluence of Lakota and Celtic traditions; how they overlap and how they conflict. The pieces leading up to my current project have been an investigation into how artmaking plays a role in genetic memory and healing, specifically my own physical and spiritual healing before becoming a mother. My current project is 9 month based where I am designing and creating while pregnant. I do not know what these beaded and textile pieces will be just as I do not know whom the child growing inside me will be. However, over time both of these unknowns will reveal themselves. I continue to heal as I grow a human being in my womb.
How do you keep yourself accountable in your practice?
I work best when I give myself deadlines to work towards. In graduate school I kept a journal with long term and short term deadlines in it and I have continued since graduating. Applying for this time-based project was also another way I saw holding myself accountable.
How do you stay motivated to pursue your creative work?
Time is my motivation. How I move through the stages of starting a family could change at any moment. The phase of preparing for a family is now over for me. I can no longer go back to that stage now that I am in the process of creating in my womb. No matter the outcome of this pregnancy, I have entered a new stage of creating a family.
Where do you hope to be 10 years from now and what would you like to say to yourself?
In 10 years from now I hope to still be teaching in some format. I hope that I am still working on Cultural Confluence but hope it has grown into something that I couldn’t have predicted right now. I have faith that it will morph into something unique based on how our lives have progressed and who our children start to become. I would like to remind by future self of how much prayer, ceremony, and hard work went into the conception and creation of Cultural Confluence and this family.
Find Megan Driving Hawk on Instagram
|
|