Mediums - iron & mixed media vessel sculptures

Artist's Statement -I make art to give people energy. It's the kind of energy you feel when you're in love, or doing something you love so that time means nothing. I get this kind of energy from the woods around my studio, and it flows into the paintings and sculptures I make. This psychic energy stays available in the artwork. I specialize in Vessel of Energy™ sculptures. Each one includes at least one bowl or vessel form. It's like making bowls of energy. This is because vessels are the most powerful form for holding energy and giving it when needed. I know it's working when I glance out the window and the woods seem to light up. Everything glows. Or I look at a Vessel of Energy™ and it encourages me, takes me deeper into being myself. I use basic, down to earth materials like iron and paper. I can feel the life in these materials so I want to help them show it. In a deeper sense, my material is the very energy of aliveness. I find this energy both in wild places as I walk in the woods, and deep in my own being as I form the paper and iron. I add whatever else the bowl wants – coloring, candle, vase, gemstone sphere, beads, soft dried grass, metallic threads – anything it asks for. Trained as an artist-blacksmith, I venture beyond my training when I forge and weld openwork iron vessels. The open spaces let energy flow freely and make lights dance in the bowl's shadow. These sculptures are meant to assist you in creating the life you want - following your true path, from the inside. My paper vessels include soft paper Chi Energy™ medicine bags, to hold psychic energy you can carry with you. Some of them fold to be worn as pendants. I form larger paper vessels as well, molding oriental paper with acrylic medium in a durable, archival paper mache. With these I can go wild with color. I love both iron and paper, And I love the tension between their qualities. Strong, resistant iron looks so dead at first: just dull gray bars, "dead as a doornail." Yet hidden inside, iron is really a dance of electrons. If I can show at least some of this life in the iron, might it shock us more alive ourselves? Soft paper is fragile, vulnerable. Yet it can have amazing durability. I love paper too for its connection with the plants and trees I've loved since childhood. Paper suggests possibility, invitation, the call to create. My new "Energy Transformer" sculptures harmonize these opposing energies of paper and iron. I’ve wanted to do this for many years – to bring my two loves together. It's like making peace between parents who loved each other, yet couldn't resolve their terrible differences. It’s like bringing the two extremes of myself into one person. Inner conflicts become sources of creative energy. The "Energy Transformer" series led me to explore painting on flat surfaces. I play with color, often printing with leaves from my favorite trees. These first paintings seem to be about nourishing and healing the heart. All my artworks are meant to be true friends of the soul. They're blessings for your journey in life. May your life glow - and may you know it.

Biography - The daughter of a science-oriented, careful mother and a fun-loving artist father, Morgan grew up in the grid-patterned Midwest. Her current work shows a fascination with the tension between grids and the curves of her current home in the foothills of northeast Georgia. She curves the copper mesh grids to form translucent vessel forms. The sculptures harmonize straight angles lines with curves and loops. The same kind of harmony between straight and curved lines is found in the trees that inspire Morgan's work. Trees have fascinated her all her life. The trees in the woods around her north Georgia studio are the same kinds of trees she loved in her childhood home in Illinois. It's primarily these trees that link her with the energies of wild nature. This is the energy of full aliveness that inspires her work. A full time studio artist now, Morgan was educated as a social psychologist. She built an early career as a facilitator of personal growth and conflict resolution, leading workshops in Atlanta and the southeast. Her focus as an artist remains on facilitating personal growth. "Peak experiences are transitory, but art can embody energy so it's available whenever needed."

Gallery Affiliations - Center Gallery, Sautee, GA Private collections in the U.S. Seeking gallery representation now

Exhibitions - Mar. 2004 New mixed media "Energy Harmonizer" bowl sculptures. Juried group exhibition, Center Gallery, Sautee, GA Nov. 1999 Juried group exhibition, Center Gallery, Sautee, GA Aug. 1998 Invitational show, "Women’s Altars – Women’s Spirituality," The Blue Angel Gallery, Gainesville, GA Nov. 1998, 97 Juried group exhibition, Center Gallery, Sautee, GA. First paper medicine bags. June 1994 Invitational exhibition, Macon Gallery, Atlanta, GA Mar. 1994, 93 "By Women" exhibition, Center Gallery, Sautee, GA Dec. 1993 Open studio exhibit of vessels, Ecstasy Forge, Clarkesville, GA Oct. 1992 Invitational show, Habersham Arts Council, Cornelia, GA. First spontaneous iron vessel (won award). Nov. 1991 Yuletide show, Sautee Nacoochee Community Center, Sautee, GA Oct. 1991, 89 Invitational show, Habersham Arts Council, Cornelia, GA. First paper vessels. Nov. 1989 Invitational exhibit of 9 artists, Gallery 87, Cumming, GA Oct. 1987, 88 Invitational show, Habersham Arts Council, Cornelia, GA May 1987 ABANA conference exhibit (Artist Blacksmiths Assn. of N. America), Madison, GA. Second iron vessel. May 1987 Invitational show, "The Blacksmith’s Art," Madison-Morgan Cultural Center, Madison, GA. First iron vessel. Dec. 1984- 1987 Annual open studio (Foothills Guild Tour) and juried craft shows including Village Show sponsored by New Morning Gallery in Asheville, NC, and group exhibit at Arts Festival of Atlanta.