Student creates art celebrating beauty of natural imperfection
Mount Pleasant senior Meghan Borland says the modern, cookie-cutter lifestyle filled with Facebook, Twitter and microwavable meals leads people too far from what is actually important.
“There's this beauty in imperfection,” Borland said. “To see it is refreshing.”
Borland has been spending 12-hour days working on pieces for her next big show. April 21, her BFA thesis exhibition will be held in the Central Michigan University Art Gallery's main gallery. She said she hopes people will come see it and bring their thinking caps.
Her gallery will feature ceramic recreations of clay in nature. Viewers will get to see thousands of intricate ceramic leaves, faux trees that smell like honey and a hydroponic garden to support her living exhibit. She said some who have seen her recreations have called them man-made fossils.
She said reading a description of her work couldn't do it justice, and hopes readers will come out to see it.
“If you read it for face value, you're missing out,” she said.
Though she is about to graduate from CMU with an art degree, Borland said she never wanted to be an artist.
She has spent most of her life searching for a path to take. She stumbled upon and found hope in an introductory ceramics course. Borland found out quickly that traditional ceramics, with a pottery wheel, was not her cup of tea. Clay was comfortable for her though, because it can be manipulated more than most mediums.
Associate Professor of Art and Design Margaret Ware has seen Borland's work created first hand. She said she thinks Borland uses clay to communicate her ideas because it is inherently natural.
“Meghan's current body of work focuses on the need for direct experience in the natural world,” Ware said. “She questions our assumptions regarding nature and our ability to 'see' the interconnections within complex systems.”
Borland said it's important for people to be aware of what's around them. She wants people to experience things they would normally take for granted.
She has never been much of a science buff, so she said her most recent work has been a bit like sailing without a compass. She said this has only made her more committed to the task, with trial and error as one of her best methods.
“It's exciting not knowing what you're doing,” she said. “A good artist has to be willing to try new things.”
Tawas City senior Eric Thornton has known Borland for four years and has taken several classes with her.
“All of Meghan's projects are very ambitious,” Thornton said. “She continuously works on refining her ideas and her ability to visualize them.”
Looking back on all the work she has done, Borland said she finds it hard to think of where she would be or what she would be doing if she had given up on art, which is where her message to new artists comes from.
“Stick with it,” she said. “Sometimes you don't know what you're doing, but that's alright.”
