Meagen Svendsen
Ceramic Sculptor, Instructor

My journey with ceramics began three decades ago in Japan where I was teaching English as a Foreign language. In Japan, I learned pottery techniques in a traditional culture deeply rooted in ritual and nature. That experience has informed my art practice ever since.

I later went on to pursue a graduate degree in Humanities, where I learned more about the aesthetics and philosophy of Japan, as well as that of the West. Ideas of corporality, permanence, impermanence and the sacred experience of existence have been on my mind for a long time now.

I am a mother and a daughter. I created my first belly bowl on my own pregnant belly. When my second came along, my first son assisted in the second belly bowl’s creation. I hold those memories and the bowls as sacred treasures. My boys are now twenty-three and eighteen.

Time. How it flies.

Which brings me to the subject of birds and Avifauna Art.

Avifauna, meaning the birds of a time period or region, have long been important to me. The song of my spark bird, the cardinal, is one of my earliest memories of elation. And later, when I lived for two years in Mexico in a house under construction, the birds in the jungle were what soothed all the anxiety away.

Birds have always been present in my art. They have meant many different things in all their iterations, but at their core, they represent our humanity. And all that is sacred.

Thanks for visiting Avifauna Art. Birds are just the beginning. There’s lots of other things to see here, too. I hope you will enjoy what you find here and will keep coming back for more visits.