News
Embroidery as Painting Workshop
Sept. 2024 - I'm excited to announce that I will teach an in-person, half-day embroidery workshop at TATTER in Brooklyn on Saturday, September 21st.
My workshop, "Embroidery as Painting," will be the first in their new Creative Embroidery series. TATTER is a beloved place for me, and I am delighted to be one of the instructors.
If you are interested and able to join the workshop, I would love to stitch with you. You can find all the details about the workshop and a link to register on their website.
The Candy Factory Film
Aug. 2024 - A few years ago my beloved studio building [RIP Candy Factory] and many of its artist inhabitants, including yours truly wearing a red coat dress, were on the cover of InStyle magazine.
Well, the brilliant creative team behind that photo shoot were so enamored by the building and its wacky & wonderful owner Ann that they decided to make a short documentary film. Their film is a wonderful tribute to Ann and her vision, determination, and grit to support a lively creative community despite real estate and other pressures.
The Candy Factory film has already won Best Documentary Short at the Provincetown International Film Festival earlier this summer, and just had its NYC premiere at the Rooftop Film Festival in Manhattan on August 19, 2024.
(You can see me working in my studio in the official trailer at minute 1:15, and my stitching hands make an appearance towards the very end of the film.)
A still from the new documentary film The Candy Factory by Cottage Eight Films.
InStyle Magazine Photo Shoot
June 2020 - In June of 2020, a wild thing happened. A team from Instyle magazine came to our beloved studio building, the Candy Factory in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, and took this photo of most of the artists in the windows for a special subscriber-only cover of the September issue. They styled us and staged us, and while the street was blocked off, the photographer took this shot while standing on a scissor lift.
The final photo of The Candy Factory studio building for the Instyle magazine cover. Photo by Jason Schmidt, 2020.
In print! The special subscriber cover of Instyle magaine, September 2020.
A few behind-the-scenes pictures of the InStyle magazine cover photo shoot at my studio building in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.
Painter Eileen Murphy and me standing in the windows of our studio building for the InStyle magazine cover photo shoot, June 2020. Photo by Jim Gaylord.
The vintage shoes the magazine team brought for us to choose from!
Just a few of the gorgeous vintage clothes the magazine team brought for us.
The view looking out from my perch in the third floor window of the Candy Factory in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.
The inspiration for the shoot was paying homage to this very famous “Girls in Windows” photograph.
Of Silence and Song Book Cover
Dec. 2017 - Today the nonprofit publisher Milkweed Editions released Of Silence and Song, a "singular reflection of living well in a time of distraction and despair" by the poet Dan Beachy-Quick, and I'm very pleased that my artwork (All my body calls, 2008) graces the front cover.
The book is a mix of essays, poetry, travel writing, and images and is just over 300 pages. You can find it at your favorite independent bookstore or order a copy directly from the publisher.
When I was growing up, I always wrote and illustrated my own books. I never thought I’d actually see the day where my artwork was on the cover of a book! Many thanks to the poet and art director Mary Speaker for making this possible.
Of Silence and Song by Dan Beachy-Quick. 320 pages. Published 2017.
“It’s hard to put your ear against a horizon and listen to what speaks from the other side. The horizon likes to retreat. And there’s no barrier, no membrane, no page, no film, no pane, no nothing, to mark as other the other side.
Then you sort of wonder if the horizon is the farthest line or the nearest, the edge of what can be seen, or the edge of the eye that does the seeing. Or is it the separation between.”
Megan Canning, All my body calls, 2008. Hand-embroidered cotton on linen. 16" h x 12" w x 3" d.
Textiel Plus Magazine
Sept. 2017 - I'm thrilled to have my work included in the summer issue of the Dutch textile magazine Textiel Plus!
My mixed-media piece Cor, 2012, is published in a two-page spread called "Blikvangers" (eye-catchers) spotlighting artworks that depict the human heart (view a PDF). Many thanks to the editor Dorothé Swinkels for including my work in her gorgeous magazine.
The front cover of the Summer 2017 issues of Textiel Plus magazine.
The "Blikvangers" (eye-catchers) spread includes my piece Cor in the lower right section.
A closer look at page 23.
Megan Canning, Cor, 2012. Hand-embroidered cotton with acrylic on cotton. 14 1/4" diameter. Private collection.