"Art Recommended," Beverly Morris: New Ceramic Sculpture
Educated at Tulane in political science, painting and graphic design, Beverly Morris eventually turned her attention to clay. Specifically, her work most often deals with vessels, those ancient, timeless forms that are among the oldest of human creations. Favoring a ceramic process called "hand-building" because of its "imperfect soul and unmistakable imprint of the artist," Morris says her current series, a portion of which was completed before Hurricane Katrina, "somewhat preternaturally had the meeting of water and earth as its theme." Works with titles such as Poseidon's Adventure and Shell Flower, for example, were completed long before the storm devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast...."in the wake of the storm, my work became a way to heal. The clay panels are intended as an offering to Oya, the African goddess of storms, wind and water."
- D. Eric Bookhardt
Gambit Weekly Review, May 18, 2004
"Hot Seven," Gambit Recommends
The late, great New Orleans painter Robert Gordy used to compare women to vessels. He meant it kindly, in the sense that women give birth to the human race. Beverly Morris is a woman who makes vessels, urns and related items out of clay that have a distinctly feminine quality about them. She says her vessels, whether a human figure or a vase, are laboriously created through a process of coil building, an "organic and raw" style that lends a quality of humanity in tune with the Japanese concept of wabi, or artful imperfection. By way of explanation, she quotes poetess Louise Bogan: "…in a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart."
- D. Eric Bookhardt
Gambit Weekly Review, December 21, 2002
Beverly Morris, Recent Ceramics
Ceramic artist Beverly Morris is fascinated by clay, a medium that she says has its own "imperfect soul and unmistakable imprint of the artist." She is especially fascinated by clay vessels - "those forms that simply need to contain for their existence." For her, their significance is best expressed by the African concept of prenda, a ritual in which a shaman places "spiritualizing forces" in a vessel. There he keeps "the cemetery and the forest, the lightning, the sun, moon and stars, all forces in concentration." Morris says she often whispers "a word, a sound or prayer into each piece" as it's finished.
In this way, "each become a prenda containing the fire of the kiln, the clay of the earth, the breath or prayer contained within…These pieces are not imitations of nature but are meant to remind us that we are earthly bound with our feet firmly planted in the ground."
- D. Eric Bookhardt