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Meg Walker

Interview by L. Valena

May 6, 2022

You know the drill. Let’s start from the top. Can you describe the prompt that you responded to?

It was really interesting because it was a piece of clothing. It was a photograph of this really beautiful dress, kind of a bright fuchsia color, in front of this really interesting curtain that had these really cool line and dot patterns on it. Above it, if I remember correctly, were these tendrils from a plant. I assume the dress itself was what the artist before me created, but the way they photographed it was interesting, too.

Were you responding more to the image as a whole or to the dress itself?

I ended up incorporating elements from the entire picture. The dress was definitely the main inspiration, but I was just a little thrown off at first. The dress was beautiful, but I wondered how I could respond to it. To give myself a little bit more variety in how I could interpret it, I did look at the photograph as a whole rather than just the dress.

So where did you go from there?

I actually thought for a while because at first I was stumped. “Ooh, what should I make?” Traditionally, I would describe myself as more of an illustrator, but I've recently been doing a lot of hand embroidery and beading. I thought it would be a really cool approach to take because this is a dress, something that's obviously based more in fabric construction. I thought approaching it from that angle would have a better tie-in than creating some sort of an illustration. I first designed the image on my iPad in Procreate, the drawing program I normally use. I can’t remember the name of it, but there’s this sticky-back material that you can put in your printer, and you print the image right onto it. Then you stick it onto the fabric, so you have the image to essentially trace over with your beads or thread. And then, when you're all done, you can wash it away. It’s water-soluble.

What??

Yeah, it's amazing! It's been so helpful for embroidery. I used to try to draw with a water-soluble pen or use these markers that you can heat with a blow dryer and then they go away. But it's nice to be able to have that control of designing it digitally, printing it, doing the beadwork or the sewing, and then just literally rinsing it with warm water. The image that you first put on just melts right away and you're left with the finished piece. So yeah, it was pretty cool. It's a fun process.

How did you choose the visual image that you ended up beading?

I don't know if you want to call it an evil eye or an all-knowing eye. I'm very drawn to eye imagery. I've been fascinated by eyes for a long time, even when I was younger. I love drawing eyes and I like fine jewelry with eyes on them. It’s interesting. When you really take the time to look at an eye, you see all these parts that make up the eye itself. And when you look closely at the iris, there are so many different color variations and all of these patterns in it. I also look to the eye as a symbol for mysticism and that kind of aspect. There’s something mysterious about eyes. So it was all of those ideas wrapped into one, which I thought would be an interesting subject matter for my piece. Considering the dress photo in its entirety, I looked at the colors, the patterns, the different textures, and that's where the other elements that I added came into play.

I see that you've got some lunar shapes. Is that what I'm seeing? Tell me about the rest of your imagery.

Sure! Going along with that thinking of the eye as a symbol for our intuition or mysticism, I felt like that moon shape also touched on that same theme of… I don't know if you want to call it our sixth sense or our higher selves. I thought that would be a nice element to go along with this eye that I had going on there.

You said that this color palette is something you drew from the prompt itself. Are these colors that you would go to normally? How does it relate to the rest of your work?

I am really drawn to bright, fun colors in my work normally, but I did try to notice what colors I saw in the prompt. The dress itself was this really beautiful, bright fuchsia. But it looked like the artist had possibly used different types of fabric, almost in this symmetry on the dress. One fabric was much shinier and caught the light in a reflective way, and then one was not as reflective. The curtain behind it had black, geometric patterns with lines and dots, and then there were really beautiful tendrils of the plant hanging down. So I called in all those colors that I saw. I also tried to play with the texture of the beads. I don't know if it's evident in the photograph, but some have a matte finish to them and some are a little shinier. Some are translucent and some are more opaque. I tried to integrate not just the colors, but all the different textures that I saw.

And beading is something that's relatively recent for you?

Yeah, I started doing hand embroidery on a whim a few years ago, and I saw how artists on Instagram were incorporating beads into their work. I wanted to try that! This is the first time I've ever made a piece entirely created out of beads. I've done a few that were a combination, like embroidering with thread and throwing some beads in a few spots. It was a really fun process! I think one of the things I really like about embroidery and beadwork is that it has a sort of meditative quality to it because it's a lot of repetitive motion. I find it really easy to get into that flow and lose yourself in the process. That's one of the things I've really enjoyed about getting into beadwork.

That flow state is kind of the whole point of making work.

That's the dream, right? When you really feel like you're in it and you just lose all sense of time and space and you're just solely focused on that one thing. It’s such a stress reliever when you get to that point because it really is like mindfulness. You’re not worried about the past or the future, you're just solely focused on that one moment. So that was really nice.

I think that speaks to this idea of mysticism to that you were talking about and that your piece is calling to. It’s such a big reason why we practice magic and do things with meditation and spirituality and stuff. It all seems to go back to mindfulness and getting back to the present. I know that has amazed me on my own journey. It does feel like all roads lead to Rome.

Absolutely! The first piece that I did for your magazine was also very much tied, not only to the prompt, but also to my own current spiritual journey/awakening/whatever you want to call it. I feel like exploring my own spirituality has allowed me to be more mindful and that's been a really nice thing to work toward. I’ve had chronic anxiety since I was a kid, and I’ve found that meditation and trying to be more present in the moment have really helped me step away from that worst-case scenario mindset. You know, like the “what ifs”. I try to just focus on the present moment and not give so much mental energy to what may happen in the future.

It's so hard.

It's so hard! But I'm trying.

Me too. You've participated in this twice now. Do you have any new advice for another artist approaching Bait/Switch for the first time?

If anybody's thinking about doing it, definitely say yes. It's helped me push myself outside of my comfort zone. I really struggle with deadlines, so it’s good for me to commit and say, “I'm gonna do this and get it done in this time frame.” I also like that idea of working with the unknown. You obviously have no idea what your prompt is going to be, and it's been really cool to create a piece of artwork based on something unpredictable. The prompt I had last time was prose, someone's story written out, and then this one was a photograph of a dress. I can't say that those are items that I regularly look to for inspiration for my artwork, but it's been really cool being able to use them that way. It's just been so fun both times. I've really enjoyed having the opportunity to work with you folks and be a part of this.

Call Number: Y78NA | Y83VA.waUnti

Meg Walker is an artist and illustrator, living and working in the Boston area. She enjoys working in a variety of mediums but has been focusing on digital illustration for the past few years. She is also an art educator, working with students in Boston Public Schools.