Artist Lecture #5: Megan Biddle 3/12/10

(posted in May from a saved draft)

Megan Biddle came to chat at VCU last Friday.

Megan Biddle is the fifth lecturer I've seen this semester, and I think she beat out Alec Soth as least liked. After getting a degree in glass from RISD, Biddle moved to New York City where she said she had a hard time making work. She eventually attended VCU and, after graduating, began to branch into other mediums.

This lecture was extremely informal. There were maybe 20 of us in a small critique room in the Craft department and 2 of her videos didn't even work. She showed a lot of different pieces, but very few coincided with the next on the slide. While there's nothing wrong with not having a series, I have a hard time being interested in each individual art object and installation when they lack continuity in terms of style or process (other than the concept of patterns). It was an interesting lecture to attend, however, because of how different it was. I think Fallon would agree.


Plumage, Megan Biddle. 2003. Blown glass and wire. 21"x4"x69" http://www.meganbiddle.com

Biddle's work was arguably "pretty" I like her usage of patterns, and how she uses the patterns of nature and their repeating quality to inform her work. By constructing installations like a room full of feathers and creating finger print stencils, she shows that although similar, there is still a uniqueness in each pattern. She said of the finger print stencil that she wanted to put more of herself in her work...in a very literal sense.

Untitled (Feather Room), Megan Biddle. 2003. Construction materials and feathers. 6'x6'x7'. http://www.meganbiddle.com

One project I found really fun and something I'd like to try was her salt crystals project. By creating salt baths and taking care of them each day, she grew salt crystals and created a beautiful forms out of them on plastic forms and wood.

She also shared with us her illustrations, like some indirectly drawn drawings. There were a lot of different things shown during her speaking time and it was a little too confusing and informal for my taste of lectures, but I'm still glad I went. I was actually in the Crafts department for a year, with glass as my focus, so it was nice to be back in there to look at an artist actively using that medium.

http://www.meganbiddle.com