Dreams and calls! the intention
to die asleep, the expansion
of a moment of inattention

An excerpt from Kenneth Koch’s poem entitled, Poem

This is an pretty recent drawing I made, very very large scale in relation to my other work. I feel homesick about drawing. I feel that I am conciously drifting into more social practice sort of ideas, more dance routines, costumes, 3-D art, and conceptual ideas versus the nice old fashioned comforts of drawing. The satisfaction of a nice graphite grain or rich india ink on any sort of scrappy material is so immediately satisfying. I want to steer into making drawings for my conceptual theory classes. I will keep the fusion alive and never forget my first love.

This is an image from a performance I did last December at Worksound Gallery. I built a 3 foot tall volcano, equipped with a fog machine and sort of atmospheric, primal percussive and thunder sounds made by Eric Crespo of Ghost to Falco. (Eric will perform actually at pnca in the student lounge October 30th, which I definitely recommend.)
I am really interested in volcanos- the transformative nature, hot pools of reds oranges that form blacks in a cone! How extraterrestrial. When I performed this piece I sort of meditated on the relationship of my menstruation. And the wildness both phenomenons elude, intense, overwhelming feelings which was really empowering to put myself in the center. I dwelled in the volcano for a few hours, maybe 3.
It was REALLY IMPORTANT FEELING.

I am so captivated by quantitative reasoning, it is binding all sorts of political and cultural ideas together for me.
I lack the perception of quanity, which is really intriguing to me that number symbols at one point dissolve into pure abstraction. I don’t understand what 100, 000 of anything is right now. I dont know what one million is and I dont know what 2 trillion is. I realistically don’t completely understand how many Iraqis the u.s. army has killed (maybe 600,000- but I havent seen this many of anything, it is devastating, in an abstract way) and that is horrible! I am not numb to numbers, I just don’t understand them! Of course if we were faced with our effects immediately there would be a consensus of new decisions. For now, we are maybe used to this facade of symbolism and we don’t necessarily dwell on or apply to our life for understanding. How can I react to something if I can’t imagine it in its existence?
Which makes a lot of sense for my generation of humans, or at least me, feeling naive in respects to the concept of war, social, ethical, and political issues, and generally any specific statistical information. If I can relate numbers back to my reality I can get much more clarity. Those anti cigarette commercials are effective for this reason I think, that we can physically see hundreds of people playing dead in New York City illustrating a statistic that really moves us.

The Climbing Poetree performance at school illustrated by showing images and cold hard facts for 2 hours (for example one woman get battered every 15 seconds in america, or more than 100,000 people died in hurricane katrina), which this sort of number 100,000, doesn’t exist realistically to me, until I am confronted with similies, images or personal applicational ideas. – so important to experience and resonated profoundly. Being confronted with these numbers and these stories has truly inspired me to be more helpful in global injustices. There is so much to do, SO SO SO much to do. It is very hard for me, and I feel very very H E A V Y, but clear, and grounded. I feel extremely selfish- making self reflective art, though I do my part in supporting local economy, have been vegetarian for almost 10 years, try to pass positive and honest energy, volunteer for a non profit, but really I feel the urgency of the world is more demanding and needs to be fulfilled with more immediately helpful solutions. It’s harder when you don’t have money to travel or donate with, but that is a weak excuse.
I am humbled- that I realize quanities are this important of a role in my understanding of the world around me. What is one million? Its more specifically ten thousand one hundred dollar bills. But I don’t know really.
I think quantities are amazing and play such an important role. I am going to think more about quantities and make some paintings that help illustrate numbers and modern day actions we may take part in or observe.

p.s.
There are 2,050,000,000 entries in google for love.
love,
morgan

I wish I could’ve seen Andrea Zittel speak. I have heard that there is a resounding parallelism between her ideas and mine. That is exciting and I must research further I think! I am curious if there are any books about her?

Andrea Zittel on personal space at PSU from PORT: portlandart.net on Vimeo.

art exhibit, the ECSTACY EXHIBIT at MOCA a few years ago.

I remember waiting in line for experiences- a utopian room of pure white, with no sense of shadow or direct brightness, just soft glowing white walls in which the walls were almost invisible, rounded and deceiving. You couldn’t tell where the room ended and began unless you ran into the wall. There was a small oil painting in the center. They kept you in the room for 2 minutes or so like a forced vision quest. I LOVED IT

But what I was completely seduced by was this matrix of green lights by Erwin Redl.
Let’s have him come give a talk! Both these memories are really bunky perception illusionary installations. It was 100% romantic, every angle you look into the matrix explodes with a universe of 3 dimensional geometric shapes. If I had the chance to see this again, I would bring a date.

Erwin Redl
Matrix II (installation view)

I am really excited about several things. Here is a list from this moment.

textile design
purple
drawing
pattern making
costumes
bad singing
videos
aliens
stereoscopic and lenticular images
mangos
sound resonance
astral projection
elizabeth huey
listening to people talk
glow in the dark
sensory stimulants
analyzing loneliness
singing
mamma anderson
halloween novelty
sexual dreams
illustration projects
cooking special meals with either color importance or symbolism
reading
sibylle baier
friends
making up words and using them in conversation to see how well recieved
stretching
specified thinking time

when i was creating work for Territory Flirt, I was excited about:

isolating myself in uncomfortable situations
spider clean up every night before bed in my room( in the basement, I collected them in a special glass jar and put them out my window)
feeding my ego about being the ‘independent’ woman
deconstructing of my ‘independent’ woman ego
loneliness
reading orange peels for fortunes
dancing
staying up till 3am rewriting my to-do lists
projects
the night of the hunter
eye contact
fairness
lee hazlewood
inquiring about people’s mental states
specified thinking time
going out of the house for more thinking time

When my best friend Kersti and I have sleepovers, sometimes we read to each other before bed. I think these projects and activities we do with each other feel so nice, because we both care about creating special moments. We are planning all kinds of secret projects!! She and I have parallel thoughts regarding quiet interaction as highly important and have had so many moonlit conversations about strange things we observe. I love Kersti Jan Werdal!

On another note, I MUST CONFESS sometimes I feel like a trickster or a spy when I am interacting naturally with others because THEN I reevaluate the situation and extract my presence out of my physical body and forget I am the one they are talking to while I watch them and think about them. Is that normal? Conversation is mystifying because sometimes words are so tricky! I could just dwell in watching people forever, almost.
But this is kindof simoustaneously happening all the time, so don’t think I don’t appreciate your words. I do! But this is the other side, the darker side of the moon. Hah! Gazing and fantasizing. Small movements.

There are so many physical forms to execute a particular idea that intrigue me, including conversation and performance. I am not afraid of those!
Kind of like my relationship with drumming. It is an instinctually primal immediate outlet of energy in which, I am technically sloppy and play simply but there are pools of enthusiasm I can’t even begin to express, it feels so good!! Luckily my drum mentor Nicholas appreciates that. Chills! I get chills when I play a drumset, or watch one be played.
I have come to terms that I have a drum fetish. My dad was a drummer. I like mostly that primal urgency of externalizing, which is strangely parallel to the urgency and instinctual pattern making, image making, making, in any form that I highly appreciate. Raw mashes of colors, patterns, mediums, textures, its all so seductive to me. My friend Dana’s paintings really inspire me especially in this sense of aesthetics (bouncy colors, shapes, treatments) make the visual feel so powerful and still playful. So many possibilities to try. There was such a great amount of thought put into creating this series of works for the art show, then funneled in to a reactionary, immediate and emotional way. I spent the summer dwelling on dwelling, and then creating something with feeling, almost disregarding the notion of expectation, audience, and art. This process was like a self help therapy and maybe now I am playing show and tell, which is heartwarming fun and also an extremely vulnerable thing.

Thats okay. I am happy!

Yesterday Gordon Barnes and I were talking about how the combination of INSTINCT and CONCEPT in art is ‘weird math’. I love math. Intuitive marks and decisions are so important and exciting to me versus consistently thinking representationally. I can get bored with familiarity. One of my favorite things to do is blend instinct and concept, realism and surrealism!! I feel completely liberated!!!!!!

Here is an old drawing of bobby in a silver blanket. He looked like a rock when he did this. Here’s an idea for a halloween costume, be a rock.

Hello!
I want to and have been asked to provide some background, observations, and thoughts to supplement the work showing in the Higgins Gallery, called Territory Flirt.
Oh and,
H E L L O! I am

and I am

I am full! I am full! Full of ideas and sprouts and space too. I am full and I am deeply mesmerized with ideas of emotional response, sensation, privacy, intimacy, intrusion, honesty and power. When I say honesty, I emphasize the message of being present, like you casually tell me that every one of your boyfriends look like girls but you are not a lesbian, or you are having a synchronistic menstruation cycle with your sisters, or you think my sculpture is poorly constructed because its leaning. That is all good!!
I have had some gallery shows (read here if interested).

Click this image to read my artist statement.

I made a collection of visual art I will talk about for two weeks, but not just about this physical show, but images that trigger ideas of intention, and observations too. I will talk about moments. Two important words that Sean used today describing my focus were ENGAGEMENT and SURVEILLANCE. I am using so many words right now, but they all are just symbols for the idea i think you understand because we are all familiar with funny things like eye contact.
Or funny things like asking, “how are you” and expecting a certain response.

Putting a show up in the school is very interesting in terms of us all having such different expectations and tastes. Discomfort is something that makes me feel ultimately sentimental, like the of a reading a poorly written critique highlights what you now know you need in a critique. And listening to a poor lecture of ideas you disagree with is so much more helpful in developing than listening to something you agree with, sometimes.. And surrounding yourself in somewhere desolate and culturally acute allows for more thought to be put in your role of your specific shaping of culture. You know?
This is just the beginning///

p.s.
If you ever want to have a coffee or tea meeting or email conversation for clarity and talk about why you do or don’t understand me, I would love it.
mother-morgan@hotmail.com