I create dense, delicate, and dynamic patterns in Adobe Illustrator from artwork made with my own hands.
Hi! My name is Megan Bauer.
I am an artist, surface pattern designer, and quilter living by Utah lake with my husband, two daughters, and two dogs.
I believe in unfailing kindness, family is family, and having what my grandfather called “stubborn, bone-headed faith”.
I believe in being real, in you being you, and prioritizing quality time over a perfectly tidy home.
I believe in snuggling in bed more than making the bed.
I believe practice makes better.
I am neither a morning person or a night person. I’m a solid 9am - 9pm person. I am extremely sentimental about family heirlooms and objects from my childhood. (My sister and I fought over a particular stapler that was on Dad’s desk growing up…). I am the funniest person I know and so sensitive to tenderness and gratitude that I often warn others by saying, “I’m going to cry about it”. Then I really do cry about it.
I listen to obscure music, avoid tv and movies, dislike having idle hands, and love my own company.
All of my patterns begin as hand drawn or hand painted artwork. The nuances and possibly perceived imperfections in original artwork is essential to my finished patterns. Neither my artwork or my patterns are meant to be perfectly straight, perfectly round, or even perfectly complete.
The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. - Aristotle
Anyone can make a perfect circle these days. Use a compass, trace a bowl, find a stencil or just one click on the computer and there’s a perfect circle. Not everyone can ignore the pull towards the idea of perfection to create something even more interesting and meaningful.
“I’m terribly intuitive - I always thought I was intellectual about what I do, but I’ve come to the realization that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing half the time.”
— David Bowie
The idea that artwork can be either perfect or finished can make an artist delete or overwork everything that was incredible in the artwork to begin with.
If it’s “perfect” and it’s “finished”, there’s nothing left that’s interesting - the resulting artwork is just another representation of what we’re taught to see in the world. A computer can generate anything we want it to. A computer cannot generate what happens to a sketch when a sneeze comes on too fast or a toddler gets hold of a pen.
I always want my artwork to portray what’s real, not what we’ve airbrushed or thrown a table cloth over. I’m not perfect and I’m not finished.
Neither is my artwork.
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