Solider The hauntingly human forms within this piece are purely the language of water. This is a portrait of water. This is a portrait of a soldier by water. The ethereal cohesion, the animism of this expression is made visible by listening to the rise and fall of the tide for hours at a time, attuning to its subtle breathing.

Electric Heart Rarely while Morgan photographed water has a sculptural form been so complete, so self contained amidst the eddying flow. This oil painting is a careful, close rendering of that flow. The elegance, the simplicity of this entwining moment in time at once serves as a fully realized shape, an expressive talisman for this collection, while hinting at the infinitely variable and expressive vocabulary of water's language.

Temple of Tears On what would otherwise have been a typical rainy Seattle morning, Morgan watched the predawn sky from the window of his brother's hospital room. Through the gray, the rays of sunlight beamed out distorting and transporting him to his childhood looking out through rain splattered windows on the Washington State Ferry riding across the Rosario Strait. And then the sun rose. He was back in the hospital room. In this partial dream moment the sun looked like the third eye of a divine being rising to flood the weeping world with golden light.

Childhood Friends As a child one of Morgan's favorite pastimes was to play in tidepools. This scene is based off a photograph he took of a tide pool on Orcas Island

Apollo Saw Sitting next to the Fairy Stream for much of his childhood and watching it’s infinite expression, the interconnection of each ripple deepened Morgan's reverence for the natural world, illuminating that world as a metaphor for humans’ interaction and interbeing. This color pencil piece is the first in the series of portraits of water. It is inspired by the stream that ran just behind his school in New York.

The Invention of Winter In the muddy bed of this gently flowing brook, Morgan caught, marveled at, and released many a salamander who populated this little eco system in surprising numbers. The woodsy soil of the riverbed provided the perfect nursery and shelter for the amphibeans to flourish as the cool damp air of the forest invited a feast of wateskippers and mosquitos to come play. This oil painting is inspired by the stream that ran just behind Morgan’s school in New York.

And Persephone Man-made flow forms, based off the natural churning and mixing of water as it traverses rocks and fallen trees, are said to both oxygenate and purify water simply through movement. This braiding miniature waterfall is a classic natural expression of this enriching capacity in this oil painting inspired by the stream that ran just behind Morgan’s school in New York.

Birch Above Birch Above is an honoring of birch-ness. It is technically three paintings in one. The leaves were each hand cut stickers. The birch trunks and branches then filled the canvas before being masked off with acrylic paint. And finally the water and land was painted above. Then the three layers become one as the masking acrylic was stripped away and the stickers were carefully peeled off revealing the final painting. The inspiration was both the paper bark of the birch—those horizontal dashes hinting at a secret script of the forest—as well as the delicacy and resilience of the tree itself. In times of wildfire, this papery tree is one of the first to burn. And yet, the birch is one of the first plants to recover and lead the way for re-greening in the aftermath of conflagration.

The Invitation On a perfect fall morning the warm light of the end of summer had just begun to burn off the mist while the vibrance of Autumn sang out from every petal and leaf. This piece is called the Invitation because it is just that: an invitation into the heart of nature to restore and nourish us

Pelicans at Rialto The sun was high above giving the water its delicious brilliance, and yet a persistent layer of fog hugged these beautiful, forested boulders jutting out into the water. Though Morgan had been to Rialto many times, this was the first time he’d seen pelicans at this spectacular beach as well as this macabre lingering fog.

Rainier with Flowers A composite of lush high altitude flowers leading to the permanent winter of this mighty mountain.

A Touch of Culture As one chapter of life came to a close, moving from Boston to Seattle, the whole United States was illuminated by the full moon with little to no cloud cover on a midnight flight. Over the Dakotas, this majestic moonlit vista infused into Morgan's dreamspace stirring up a new painting just when he felt lost and alone. A Touch of Culture is a renewal, a sewing of cosmic vitality from the celestial clockwork arcing down into this deep, blue world.

Midnight Seahawk “What is a Seahawk?” This piece offers a closer focus on the colors and spirit of Seattle. The Coast Salish peoples have a creation story for the land of the Pacific Northwest. It speaks of two great battles between the Thunderbird and a giant Orca whale and her child. The battles culminate in the whales being dashed to ground from a great height by the victorious Thunderbird, and their bodies becoming the dominant mountains of the regions: the cascades including the great volcano, Tahoma (also known as Mt. Rainier) to the east, and the Olympic Mountains that shelter Seattle from the full strength of the Pacific Ocean to the west.

Singularity in Blue The singularity refers to the moment when the exponential evolution of technology approaches the superhuman. This painting asks: what will awake in the fusing of man, machine, and music? And what will slip away into forgotten dream if music just becomes pushing buttons?

Roman Influence Soaking up the saturated inspiration while traveling through Italy, Roman Influence burst forth in response. The arhitecture, the fashion, the spirit of the old world has had such time to co-evolove, it seems to at once thoroughly sculpt and liberate those who call it home. This tension stirs inside this dream in ink and watercolor.

Tidal Forces After a dear friend suffered a series of concussions, it took her years of healing to get back into her life as a circus performer. She spoke so candidly and vividly about what it felt like to reassemble the pieces of herself that Morgan was inspired to create this drawing. This piece is about loss, quiet loneliness, time, and the promise of return.

Almost Free An entangled adventure about escaping Los Angeles, Almost Free was created while Morgan navigated the world of Hollywood.

Reaching Born of a tidal photograph of water churning at midnight this large-scale oil painting is capturing the elemental force. From the source image Morgan digitally textured the details, refining the sculptural forms, while the overall composition is water's own language. For some fifteen years this image remained a digital piece as he dreamed up how to bring this picture out of the screen and onto the canvas. The magic of capturing water so clearly expressing a torso, internal organs, and a yearning, reaching movement was a powerful catalyst for him to achieve the technical mastery required to create this oil painting.

Porous to Each Other Captive water, unlike a river or the ocean, requires a force to move it. For this piece Morgan’s older brother provided that churning force swirling the water in a large aquarium tank. Simultaneously Morgan aimed and experimented with numerous flashlights to “paint the surface” of the water as he took pictures. While the camera needed its fastest shutter speed to capture the nearly chaotic movement, something of the relationship between these brothers spilled into the frenetic moment. The title is a play on words, as interperative as the image itself: pour us to each other; poor us to each other... This is but a hint of the remarkable, elusive story coalescing in this haunting portrait.

A Drop in the Ocean This was the first hyper detailed portrait of water Morgan undertook faithfully honoring every twist and turn in the sculpted surface of the water. This scene was inspired by a photograph of the rocky shore of Orcas Island. Though he started life there, when this photo was taken Morgan hadn’t been back to that island way up in Northwestern Washington for some twenty years.

American Water In the spring and summer of 2010 the deepwater Horizon oil well spill spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. “American Water” was painted throughout this environmental disaster. From one perspective this painting can be seen as a yin yang churned to the breaking point of chaos, the dissolution of the natural order. With other eyes this painting can be viewed as a pyramid scheme ruling the ocean by the all mighty dollar.

Hades' Lust The source photograph for this piece was taken at Morgan's ten year high school reunion. He had been away from this little brook for all that time and on this perfect, sunny Autumn day he returned to child-like play splashing through the waters of his youth. It felt like nothing had changed as the meandering path of the riverbed held constant year in and year out opening up a flood of memories. This color pencil piece is inspired by the stream that ran just behind Morgan’s school in New York.

Demeter's Grief As a child Morgan spent hour after hour sitting beside this stream writing poems with his classmates while listening to the happy burbling flow. The sound of wind rustling through the leaves as the water rushed over roots and stones combine just as the riverbed, the sky, and the surface topography combine to create this picture this rich sensory experience of being with water. This oil painting is inspired by the stream that ran just behind Morgan’s school in New York.

Lady Anne's Petals Every spring in Seattle it’s nearly impossible to find a Camellia tree that hasn’t simultaneously bloomed those gorgeous red flowers without finding half of them already blanketing the ground beneath. This particular tree happened to shed its luscious petals just as a patch of forget me nots burst out of the ground and Morgan stumbled upon this scene just as the sun illuminated it with beautiful shafts of warm light.

Across the Rappahannock This painting is inspired by the gorgeous sunsets Morgan used to see when he lived in the Northern Neck of V.A. Despite being on the east coast of the US, his house was facing west across the Rappahannock River, the sister river to the Potomac which runs through Washington D.C. Almost every afternoon in late spring/early summer there was a thunderstorm just before sunset. After the tremendous and violent downpour, the clouds would rip open and occasionally he and his family were treated to some of the richest colors the sky has to offer.

First Flight Right outside his front door, Morgan saw a sweet hummingbird nest lined with dryer lint from the laundry room below. He was lucky enough to see the whole journey of two sweet little eggs hatching into black leathery chicks before bursting into feathery poofs. The scene in this watercolor painting was perhaps the most magical of all. Mom and dad hummingbird were gone and one sibling had already left. He saw this little guy perched on the edge of his nest and was able to grab his camera and snap a photo just before this little bird took his first flight.

Liquid Sunset This color pencil drawing was inspired by Morgan’s photography of the sunset on the Rappahannock River in V.A. At the edge of calm, the river had become viscous, velvety,and it is this luscious texture and tone that he sought to capture.

By Moonlight Though the season had long passed these Christmas lights were left to sparkle in the spring twilight. This painting comes from a photograph Morgan took while walking through the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle. Because of the juxtaposition of the fairy lights, the moon, as well as the velvety texture of the pre-budding tree, Morgan was compelled to take several photos of this sweet scene. He knew that it had to become a painting to capture the rich blues of the early twilight and the golden light illuminating the fuzzy branches. This piece also offered the chance to create a potent depth of field study with the cool bright moon still somehow pulling back into the background despite her brilliance, while the warm gold of the Christmas lights reach forward with tender presence and immediacy.

Rainbow Seahawk This piece began with the question: what is a Seahawk? In Seattle the Seahawks play just a short ways from the heart of the arts scene and Morgan sought to bridge the communities of sports fans and art lovers with this color pencil illustration. It turns out a Seahawk is not an Osprey or a silver Eagle. It's a Thunderbird. Moreover the Seahawks logo is directly inspired by the transformation mask of the Kwakwaka'wakw Coast Salish people of the Pacific Northwest. In that spirit of origin, Morgan developed this reimagining of the Seahawks symbol. With respect to color he wanted to honor and infuse the concept of the rainbow tribe which represents a unification of all the peoples of earth: the black, the brown, the white, the green people (nature), the blue (water), and the purple (spirit).

Mold Fairy This piece is a cautionary tale about cannabis farming. As ever more dank, dense potencies are pushed out of this otherworldly plant, the cannabis bud/flower becomes ever more precarious. There is a fine line between producing the crystalline gems that coat the surface of the flower and trapping moisture inside the plant that begins to rot and sporulate. And, once mold begins, it spreads with terrifying and ruinous speed. In this Bic Pen illustration, The Mold Fairy can be seen mischievously pouring out her devastating spores punishing the greedy desire for potency. There are further secrets to investigate in this tale but they shall be left for another time…

Reborn Mythology is the story that plays out continuously through us. It is living history. Joseph Campbell calls it “The story we tell ourselves about ourselves.” This painting is a mythic painting. It is a variation on the story of the birth of the goddess Pallas Athena. The simplest description is she is born of Zeus’s mind, a fully formed idea that leapt out and brought wisdom to the world. In painting “Reborn” over the course of two years, Morgan sought to rekindle this energy and found so much more. Two stories lived deep within him while he painted this painting. The first speaks to the relationship of male to female and lead him to the question, “Can I behold the beauty of a woman without possession in my heart?” The second story blooms out to a universal question: How can we move towards justice and peace with each? The first story: There is a whisper of a tale from Teiresius’ youth when he chanced upon the goddess Athena naked, bathing. This was not for his or anyone else’s eyes to see. With blinding speed Athena plucked away his sight, supplanting his eyes with true vision. From then on Teiresius was blessed and cursed to see what has been, what is, and what shall be. Teiresius is best known as the blind prophet who illuminated the awful fate of Oedipus the King in Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. The second story illuminates an alternative origin of Dionysus, the youngest of the Greek gods. Dionysus is the god of wine, ritual madness, theater, and myth. Born of Semele, a mortal woman, and Zeus, Dionysus represented the unified ego of all of humanity. Imagine saying “I” and meaning the whole world: no delusion, no dilution. Meanwhile, Hera, Zeus’ wife, was furious at her husband, the father of the gods, for begetting yet another bastard son. At a word from Hera, the Titans lured the helpless child Dionysus from the safety of his mother with shiny toys and trinkets. Once he set foot in their domain they dismembered and devoured the infant god. However, just before they could eat the heart of Dionysus, Athena stole it away. It was from this heart that a second Dionysus was born. And thus, it is only through our hearts that we can say “I” and mean the whole world once more.

Within Reach Just as everything seems to come together it all unravels again. This piece is evoking that feeling of readiness to reach beyond our personal drama while simultaneously we are still fixated on achieving our own wholeness. The full spectrum of color is celebrating the universality of this process, this ebb and flow.

Walking in Orion The Orion Nebula, which lives within the belt of the constellation Orion, is the source for this piece. Within its clouds Morgan could see a figure emerging/dissolving, and he undertook to bring this vision into existence. Perhaps subconsciously, intuitively he was striving to manifest the Egyptian myth that Orion’s Belt is the resting place, the house of resurrection for the god Osiris.

Mourning in the Ice Cave This inward journey is fraught with danger. We could be pulled down deeper. The frozen power arrested within the ice could break free. The journey also contains a subtle pathway through this claustrophobic setting. It all depends on our mindset.