The Rural We: Megan Cooper
The Cheshire social worker creates resin art that makes her happy...and makes customers happy, too.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, some people learned to bake sourdough bread, others took up an instrument. Cheshire resident Megan Cooper picked up resin — that is, creating art and jewelry using resin, a synthetic plastic that starts out as a transparent and sticky liquid. In the past two years, she’s also had a baby and earned her master’s degree in social work, so she doesn’t have as much time to spend on her art now, but she’s learning ways to speed up the process and will be selling her work at the Hunters Moonlit Market at TurnPark Art Space on October 8.
I work at Optimal Healing in North Adams, doing therapy with kids and teens, and art therapy groups in school. I’ve always been an artist — my mom’s an art teacher — and I’ve been drawing ever since I can remember. I started working with resin because I have a friend that used it a little for her artwork and thought I’d try it myself. I got a resin kit on Amazon and started playing around, fell in love with it, and began following people on Instagram and YouTube to learn how to use it.
I started working with resin as a therapeutic thing for myself and I make what makes me happy, which is tons of glitter.I love shiny things but I know glitter’s not for everyone, so I make earrings and necklaces with dried flowers that I’ve picked and pressed myself. I also make things like planters, wall hangings and mobiles. I work with molds and use metal frames for some of the necklaces and earrings. You can actually form shapes by hand with resin and I want to start doing that.
Working with resin is a learning process. I use UV resin, which cures with UV light. It hardens a lot faster than epoxy resin, which needs to be mixed with a hardener compound. As a mom I don’t have that much time and the quick curing is really helpful. I had created a studio in what is now my baby’s room, so we moved my studio down to the basement. I have silicone mats everywhere, use gloves and an apron, and wear an N95 respirator. I’ve ruined a lot of clothes in the learning process! When you’re heating the resin, it can have toxic gases. It’s not good to get it on your skin, and I learned after the first time that it’s not great to wash with soap and water because it can clog up the sink.
I sell at Lanesborough Local and the Berkshire Emporium in North Adams, and just started doing markets this year. They’re fun — I like answering questions about my work. I’m looking forward to the Moonlit Market. Recently I’ve been experimenting with putting candy in resin. I might have some candy corn earrings to sell.
