MO MORROW
Blue Set
Purple & Green Set
Purple Set
Blue & Green Necklace
Brown & Black Necklace
Pendant Detail
Necklace Clasp
Pin
Green Pin
Blue & Orange Set
Artist Statement:
Beads have served since antiquity not only for decoration, but as objects used in forms of prayer and worship. Reminiscent of life giving seeds, their looped strands of separate pieces can connect us with cycles of the seasons, cycles of shared prayer, story and scripture, cycles of birthing, dying and renewal. The unity within a strand of beads is made of separate elements, just as the mystery and fullness of all creation is completed within each discrete and unique individual.
General Information:
My jewelry is made of colored polymer clay using a technique involving extruding shaped rods and building these into canes. The canes are sliced into beads or buttons and baked in a standard oven to cure. I use several different brands of clay, as each brand has slightly different properties and lends itself to one or another particular working process, depending on the design of the bead.
I am fascinated with the way the land influences decorative design of those living close to it. There is a common thread running through the motifs on native painted pottery, weaving, and beadwork that is echoed in the geometric designs on crafts of rural settlers of North America. Many of my bead canes begin with either a traditional quilt pattern or that of native painted pottery design. The process of canework lends itself to elaborating by reducing size and multiplying elements, or adding back elements of the original in a different scale, similar to the proportional rhythms of American colonial overshot weaving.
The work of the artist has been in part to act as a window through which things of this world can be re-visioned and transformed. Art does tell a story, but its purpose seems to be more to inspire than to instruct. Art plays a role in forming identities, for the artist and for the beholder. An epiphany is a revealing of true nature, or holy naming - hence the trade name, Epiphany Designs.
Buy Mo's work in our Commonwheel E-Store.