Seeing/drawing as a technique of contemplation is, I believe, a way particularly suited to that “Western temperament” which may be no more than a habitually overstimulated nervous system, an “overloaded switchboard.” It is the discipline through which I extricate myself from the habitual, the mechanical, the predigested and acquisitive automatisms of our society. I stand face to face with a hill, a bird, a human face—with myself, in unwavering attention.
Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing (1973)
Claudia Morgan was born in Niagara Falls, NY, in 1955. While her early years were spent north of Niagara Falls on the Canadian border, she has lived and worked in many cities across the US including New York, St.Louis, New Orleans, Nashville and the San Francisco peninsula. She is now settled in Nashville TN and Martha’s Vineyard MA. While living in California, Claudia was part of a cooperative gallery, the Portola Art Gallery, in Menlo Park, CA, a welcome opportunity to share experiences with other artists. Claudia’s work has been in juried shows and is in many private collections. She has won awards in plein air competitions including Best of Show awards in Plein Air at Nature Fest, Bowie Park, Fairview TN and Paint Around the Park at Montgomery Bell State Park, Burns TN. She was a finalist in Artist Magazine’s Strokes of Genius 12 and AcrylicWorks 11 and 12.
From childhood, Claudia liked to draw and particularly enjoyed copying the artful drawings of women’s fashions from the newspapers, before photography became more common in advertisements. Having won her high school’s art medal the year she graduated in Nashville TN, Claudia intended to study art in college but instead majored in chemistry and earned a PhD in biochemistry. There followed no formal art training, but she took occasional art classes when her career allowed. She was a faculty member in biomedical sciences at Ohio State and Tulane universities before taking time out to raise her daughter. During that time, she also served as executive director of the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto CA, where she taught drawing. Claudia returned to academia as an associate dean at Stanford University in the last years of her career, looking forward to retirement to refocus on art.
Everywhere she has lived, even in the craziest of times, the beauty of the natural world has brought her back to the canvas in awe.
Statement
I paint to celebrate and share the joy that comes from being purely observant. I am engaged by the beauty that can be discovered when one slows down and quiets the mind--is present in the moment, to use a rather overworked phrase. I have been drawing and painting since childhood, but I trained in chemistry and biochemistry in college and graduate school. Perhaps that training and a career in scientific research honed my tendency to observe natural phenomena closely. I have also played many roles through the years—mother, wife, scientist, manager, care giver; it can be challenging to quiet the mind amid a complicated life. Drawing and painting allows me to do that.
I often work in drawing media and I love the drawing process. However, I am also enchanted by color, which is why I paint, usually with acrylic paint on canvas. I use a very limited palette, most often with just one of each of the three primary colors and white, occasionally adding another if needed (I’m talking about you, orange and pink, and some of you greens!). But I love the fact that I can create almost any color with just the three primaries and white.
I am excited and motivated by the effects of light and color. In that sense, my work is most closely related to that of the Impressionists. Natural beauty is my inspiration. My work is impacted by where I live or where I am at any moment in time; I paint what I have seen around me. While I do occasionally paint en plein air, most often I work in the studio from photographs I have taken. My subject matter is whatever I have seen that has stopped me in my tracks. Perhaps the light has been just so, or the setting just so, or my own state of mind just especially receptive at that instant. I wonder how much beauty I have missed because I was not in a receptive state of mind.
My work is rooted in the present, in that I paint what I have seen around me, but I would like to think it is universal—a joyful celebration of the beauty that is everywhere and always available.