Fresno ceramic artist thrives at indoor-only ArtHop

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Changes made to Fresno’s Arthop in 2024 to make it an indoor-only event have actually helped a Fresno ceramic artist make it big.

Megan Medina is making the most out of Arthop’s indoor restrictions to bring her one-of-a-kind sacred hearts to Sacred Heart Coffee on Fulton Street.

“The streets might look a little empty, but I feel like the venues are trying harder to promote their shows and to remind people that they’re still open,” Medina said. “The venue can really make a difference in supporting the arts and bringing new people to new artists.”

She says her debut solo art show at Sacred Heart Coffee for Fresno’s February ArtHop was “meant to be” due to the series of coincidences that led to it.

“I am from LA. I was there for nine years, and then I moved to Texas, and I was there for 10,” Medina said. “I do really love it here and there have just been little art moments that have kept pushing me, and just so many interesting things that have happened.”

Medina says she was a linguistics major at Fresno State. She says the difficulty of the major made the ceramic classes she started taking “on accident” that much more important to her as she navigated school.

“My major was hard and I picked it. But ceramics helped me survive all of the academic stress,” Medina said. “So I kept up with it. I couldn’t let it go. It was like the only thing that made me happy in school.”

Medina says she continued and saw success even at a collegiate level. Her final project, “Chicano Crisis,” won first place in the ceramics division at Fresno State’s undergraduate student show.

After graduating from Fresno State, Medina says she still had an itch for ceramic sculpting so she became a Clay Hands Ceramic Studio member.

Medina says she had first made a sacred heart piece at Fresno State, and hadn’t revisited the figure in years, but while at Clay Hands she was motivated to create new sacred heart pieces. It was then she found Sacred Heart Coffee.

“They invited me to make a collection take the ArtHop night,” Medina said. “Despite the crazy weather, people really showed up. A lot of the people were Sacred Heart Coffee audiences, but that’s cool.”

Medina says she spent months preparing several pieces to be displayed inside Sacred Heart Coffee, but the work was worth the experience at ArtHop.

“I loved talking to everyone about our memories of sacred hearts at home, our relationship with religion or religious stories,” Medina said. “I heard a lot of people telling me that these things reminded them of Mexico.”

Medina’s recent pieces take inspiration from traditional Mexican art commonly found in the markets in Guanajuato where her family is from. She says having the opportunity to tie together cultural influences was a great experience for her as a newcomer artist in the community.