Q&A with Meghan Kirkwood
2020-11-06 •
What is your favorite tool, material, and/or process?
I really like analog processes. They’re not what I have to use most of the time for my projects, but I love long days in the darkroom.
What is the best advice you’ve ever received about your work?
I had a drawing professor in college who was (it felt like) never satisfied with anything I made. I kept trying to figure out what I was doing wrong or what I could do better, until one day I just stopped trying. I decided that since nothing I was making was going to please him, I might as well just do something I liked. I did and that was the first time I got a positive response in critique. So, while it wasn’t explicitly “advice about my work,” I think his stand offish-ness was a way of telling me to have more confidence in myself and to stop trying to make work that would meet the expectations of others.
What is the best advice you’ve ever given to someone about their work?
There have been a few times where I’ve told friends and peers that they weren’t digging deep enough into their questions or making enough work to take their projects beyond a topical foray into their subject. This advice is always hard to hear (and its certainly been given to me, too!), but necessary.
Where do you make work?
All over. I do a lot of travel for my photography projects and then work on them either on the computer at home or in studio.
What do you listen to/watch while you work?
Podcasts! Lots and lots of podcasts. Mostly mystery, true crime, running, and interviews with writers (thanks, Longform!)
What’s your top studio jam?
I don’t usually listen to music, but if I do it’s usually bro-country. Like the really horrible commercial country about trucks and red dirt roads.
Best studio hack OR the skill you’d be most lost without?
A distraction list. It helps to keep a pad of paper nearby that you can write down all the things that you think of that you need to do, organize, plan, etc, so that you don’t have to break the flow of your work to act on them.
What food can be used to bribe you?
I don’t know about food, but a decent cold brew coffee or an IPA usually works:)
Do you have a studio uniform? Please describe.. No, not really. I have some old sweatshirts that belonged to my mother that I wear in the darkroom that are fantastically 80s, but that’s about it.
It’s the 11th hour before your opening. What are you doing?
Most of my shows are not local, so the 11th hour for me is usually getting things in crates and ready for UPS…
Who or what has had the biggest influence on your work?
Past professors and mentors.
A book you’ve read more than twice is..
I don’t really read books more than once, but I could imagine reading books by Wallace Stegner more than once.
How do you stay motivated?
New projects
How do you procrastinate?
Ugh, this is a long list. Laundry, dishes, buying things I/my family needs on amazon…I mean, isn’t a need for procrastination how things like the get done?
Early Bird or Night Owl?
Not really either.
Do you have pets? If so, what are their species and names?
I have an overweight cat named Chairman Meow (I just call him the Chairman). He’s been a close companion for 14 years. I’ll attach a video of him having the hiccups.
Biggest pet peeve?
Mouth noises? Any annoying sniffles or other noises in quiet spaces.
What is your favorite thing about St. Louis?
It’s a great city that has attributes of urban centers without being overwhelming. The people here are incredibly nice. No real traffic and the parks cannot be beat. And since I used to live in Fargo, I’m grateful for the absence of life-threatening cold weather.
Epoxy, mineral spirits, or Command-Z?
This question wasn’t written for photographers…
Tell us something we forgot to ask:
Nothing I can think of!