Meet Megan Mosholder

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Megan Mosholder a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Megan, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

My work ethic is something I have developed over time, and it has been influenced by a variety of factors. For me, it’s a mix of my upbringing, personal experiences, and values I’ve learned along the way.

Growing up, my parents were always extremely hardworking individuals. My mom and dad owned a personnel business and they both worked long hours: at least 60 hours per week in the office. During the weekends, they worked on house repairs and upgrades. Having witnessed their dedication and perseverance, I have learned how critical it is to put effort into my goals. Mom and Dad taught me that a strong work ethic wasn’t just about putting in the hours, but also about delivering quality work. I learned to take responsibility and ownership of my tasks and projects from my parents.

Throughout my career, I also had the opportunity to learn from some incredible mentors and role models. I benefited from teachers, such as Mrs. Haddad, who differentiated instruction to help me succeed in high school. Some of them were colleagues, such as Fred Whiteman, who guided me through my first tumultuous years teaching high school art at The Graham School in Columbus, Ohio. Some have been professional artists, such as Atlanta artist Maria Artemis, who taught me how to read blueprints and write proposals.

I have also worked with some amazing teams and colleagues. I have seen firsthand how a collaborative and supportive work environment fosters strong work ethics. I have built several permanent, monumental, sculptural installations, artworks that would have never been completed without my team of assistants. Creating a respectful, positive, and motivated environment for my crew has been a key component in getting my installations flawlessly completed and on time.

Ultimately, I believe that my work ethic is influenced by my own desire to learn and grow as an artist. Artistically, my success can be attributed to my curiosity and willingness to fearlessly take risks and make mistakes. There is always room for improvement, and I strive to continually improve my skills and knowledge by reading relevant books and articles while also exploring and applying for new opportunities through grants and proposals.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

My career path has been diverse. As of 2023, I added an Instructional Design Graduate Certificate from Georgia State University to my educational background. My skills include professional artist, project manager, instructional designer, consultant, program manager and educator. I use all these skills to offer a range of consultancy services that can help businesses with their public art acquisition and art planning needs while providing organizations with proposed solutions for effectiveness and efficiency.

As a professional artist, I create monumental artworks that relate the symbolic with the lived. With an eye toward light, shape, space, interior, and exterior, I create engaging art installations. My studio travels with my search for installation locations; it is never in the same place twice. I prefer sites where nature is permeated with manufactured elements or interior environments contrasting with architecture. In my work, I investigate how architecture communicates messages through historical narratives and societal aspirations to reveal hidden meanings in man-made, manipulated spaces. Using biophilic, conceptual design elements, I create compositions that emphasize the beauty of nature. Volumetric forms composed of linear elements encircle and encourage appreciation for these environments. Natural and synthetic light often enhance my installations, creating multisensory artworks; the audience experiences them with their eyes and bodies. The completed compositions are usually larger than life, sometimes monumental in scale, with the goal of rekindling the sensation of looking by engulfing the visual and kinetic senses.

I received a master’s in fine arts in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 20212 and have since received many awards from institutions such as the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. I have been commissioned by leading corporations including the Microsoft Art Collection, Google, and the Atlanta Beltline, and included in public art programs, museum exhibitions, and art fairs. Interest in my installations has led to various international commissions, evidenced by my inclusion within the European Cultural Centre’s 2022 Personal Structures exhibition presented during the 59th Venice Biennale. International experience is extremely important to me: I have attended artist residencies and installed artwork both nationally and internationally in Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden.

I have been told that my large-scale installations also express my tenacity. Following a September 2018 car accident where the gas tank ruptured and ignited, trapping me inside, I endured burns to over sixty percent of my body. While the event left indelible marks, it also provided new heights for me to reach.

I continue to create installations that relay my devotion to my work and the communities I engage. Currently, I reside in Atlanta, GA, at the Goat Farm Creative Arts Center, and have worked as a full-time professional artist for thirteen years.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The three qualities that have most impacted my artistic journey are commitment, integrity, and perseverance.

Commitment

Talent is critical, but true commitment helps an artist build their studio practice. Over time, people will notice and respond to your dedication. Commitment shines through in exhibitions, work ethic, and networking. This quality is why many artists earn admiration from their peers. Commitment is respected and attracts others who want to be around such dedicated individuals. When an artist is truly committed, others naturally gravitate toward them, hoping to absorb some of that dedication.

Integrity

As a graduate student at SCAD, I was fortunate enough to intern with a well-known New York artist. This mentorship began in the picturesque village of Lacoste, France, where I first met her during a SCAD study-abroad program. During a pivotal studio visit, she imparted a piece of wisdom that has stuck with me: never compromise the integrity of your work. She stressed that altering your art for others is a slippery slope—once you start, it’s game over: when you jeopardize your compositions for an institution or collector, it shatters trust in your creative genius.

Many artists compromise their artistic integrity through social media. In my opinion, artists who are primarily concerned with their social media follower count will often betray their principles and post anything just to get more likes, eroding trust in their creative originality. When branding dominates an artist’s studio practice, they can lose sight of their artistic integrity. Artists who strive for excellence make exceptional art. True artists aren’t motivated by the lure of fame, success, or money. Original, meaningful, enduring, and unique artwork has been the driving force of the most memorable artists throughout history.

Perseverance and Persistence

Perseverance and persistence go hand in hand: one cannot be accomplished without the other. Perseverance and persistence are both measures of an artist’s passion for what they are working on throughout their studio practice.

There’s a reason it’s called a studio practice: the most successful artists are committed to a studio schedule where they – through dedicated efforts – are willing to take risks and make mistakes. The best artists are unafraid of failure. Overcoming failure requires creative problem solving, toughens you up and makes you more resilient than you were before.

Artists who persist in their efforts through all failed attempts and continue to develop their work are compelled to live the artist life they have envisioned: giving up is not part of that life. No artist has ever succeeded without perseverance and persistence – in their studio practice, in the steady pursuit of their dreams, in their conviction that what they are doing is right and true to themselves. All of these things can be seen in the artist’s final artistic compositions.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

There have been so many! I would like to thank my mom and dad for sticking by me and supporting me throughout all of my ups and downs; my bestest of friends, who call me on my bullshit, show up to support me, and are always willing to listen to my bellyaches; my Grandma Jean, who I know continues to root for me from afar even though she is no longer here.

I am extremely fortunate to have an entire arsenal of people behind me. Since I am aware of this fact, I try to support those who don’t have support as much as I possibly can. It can be a tough life and we all need help now and again.

Last but not least, my Aunt Barbie, who passed away when I was seven years old from muscular dystrophy, inspires me every day. My Aunt Barb was wheelchair-dependent most of her life and didn’t experience half of what I have in my life, and yet she never complained. As a child, I remember visiting her with my mother and sister. When we asked her how she was doing, she would answer: “Well, my arm is dropping out of my arm socket, but other than that, I am doing great! ” I will never forget that statement because it truly blew my little girl brain. This poignant memory has become incredibly important to me now that I myself am wheelchair dependent. That memory of my aunt is my reminder to count every last one of my blessings, focus on the positive and what I have instead of what I don’t, and to remember that there are millions of people who are struggling with situations far more difficult than mine. My memory of my aunt has helped me to pick myself up numerous times and keep going, no matter how much it hurts or how difficult a situation may be.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Images 2, 3,& 5: David Betterman
Images 6 & &: Fredrik Brauer

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