Steve Morris is from a small farm town in Southern Iowa. He has always had a passion to draw and has been doing so since the age of about 8-years-old. Over the decades, his passion for drawing and art in general has grown and expanded to the point where he is always trying new mediums and surfaces. Morris draws, paints and even etches to create interesting original pieces. He likes to work with an assortment of different kinds of ink pens and will use color pencils blended in among the ink in some pieces. Many different types of mediums and surfaces are utilized in his artworks. Most notable is his unique style which so many people inquire about and comment on how unusual it is. As there is not an exact proper name, Morris says that he has always referred to it as a diversionary style.
"It is a style, I've been told since I've been drawing, that is original and not often seen."
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| New Castle © Stephen Morris |
When did you start to
think of yourself as an artist?
I have been drawing for the better part of 50 years and
although I have been told for many years that I am an artist, I have also been
accused of being entirely too humble and my own worst critic. So, for the
majority of my creative years I never thought of myself as an artist until
probably around 5 years ago when people started accepting and letting me know
the appreciation they had for my diversionary, no-boundaries style and
crediting it as a true art style. To be
honest, I am still somewhat learning to accept the title artist!
What makes ink your
preferred medium?
Ink has become my preferred medium, in part because even as
a child I was always drawing something on anything I could, so I always had a
pen in my pocket. Since that is what I always have at my ready, I have learned
to work the different inks and master using them in so many different ways,
from blending bold lines to the finest details and shadowing.
Tell me about other
mediums you most enjoy creating with:
I don't always use just inks; some of my pieces include
inks, colored pencils spray paint even some acrylic paints that I blend all together
in different layers with different brushes and manners. I like to experiment
using different mediums together that as a rule they say can't or shouldn't be
used together. I also do a lot work on glass. I etch the same finely-detailed
kind of pictures and pieces I do on paper on to glass bottles, flat glass,
mirrors and even old vinyl record albums with a Dremel and wide assortment of
different bits. I often after etching a picture will go back and blend light
shades of color into it with various types of mediums from inks to different
kinds of paints. Creating etchings and art with a Dremel is something I started
about 10 years ago, and I have been working at and experimenting with since.
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| Green Tree and Bridge © Stephen Morris |
How do you define
your style of diversionary art, and how does it stand apart from other
established styles?
I would define my diversionary art style as art without
boundaries. Art has always been said to be in the eye of the person admiring
it, so my style is a style without boundaries - meaning the person who is
admiring or just even looking at it, is allowed to and can see what they want
to see, and not necessarily the same thing that someone else sees. They are
free to make of it what they want unlike some of the other established styles
where, say, a tree is a tree to everyone who looks at it. The story I intend
for my art to tell is whatever story the person looking into reads. My art
means a lot to me, it represents my feelings, thoughts and places in my life,
both physically, mentally and emotionally. I guess that would lead into the answer
to the next question,
What inspires you to
create art?
Life and all its
feelings. I guess I'm not sure how to describe it but the easiest way would
be to say, if you could not only feel the feelings you feel but could also
literally see them and they had an identity, that’s what some of my more
radical or complex diversionary pieces are: my inspirational feelings given an
identity. All my pieces, both the landscapes and very complex diversions, all
have things large and small, in them that are right in front of you but,
depending on what you're seeing and where the piece is taking you, you don't
see. Yet the next time you look at it, something new will jump out at you as if
it's just been added to the piece when it was actually there all along - things
like a small ladybug on a fence post, or an old man laying down fishing in the
distance, or faces among the trees. To bigger things like all the elements in a
piece as a whole actually being part of a person’s face complete with an eye
and all.
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| Cotton Trees © Stephen Morris |
I actually sold a large piece to a young lady at a local art
show who had taken it to a gallery to be framed and asked to have a hanger at
one end of the frame and another on the side of the frame. They told her that
wasn't the proper way it was to be hung, that it was meant to be hung one way
and with the signature at the bottom. She without hesitation proceeded to not only
tell them but to show them that when hung one way it was one picture but when
hung another way it became a whole new picture and she loved them both and was
intending to be able to enjoy both, hanging whichever way she felt when she
felt. I don't often even realize what all there is to see in a piece I've
created or what all is coming to life in the back drops of pieces I'm working
on until I've finished them and looked at them a few times and it never fails,
there in the distance there will be a surprise that I didn't even know was
there or that had been created. I think art makes people feel. When a person
sees a piece they truly like, it usually stirs a feeling, or memory of some
kind in them; they relate to the piece in a way, so I think it makes sense that
feelings and such should stir, or inspire, creation.
Any regrets in life
as an artist?
Well that's a question that never crossed my mind until a
few years ago. As I mentioned earlier,
after everyone started accepting my style and telling me how much they
appreciated it I started to look at myself and my ability and talent of drawing
in whole new light. Suddenly I realized, hey all these years I was drawing for
myself and because I enjoyed it. All these years, for whatever the reason
mostly fear of failing I think, never entered an art show, never took a chance
on my passion and talent of drawing, and all along if I'd had taken a chance I
could have been doing what I love and fulfilling a dream so to speak.
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| Eagle © Stephen Morris |
So do I have any regrets in life as an artist - Yes that I
knew I could be one in my heart and that that's probably all I wanted to be,
but was to afraid or didn't figure out how to pursue it until 50 years later!! I regret that I'm saying 50 years LATER and
not, FOR the last 50 years (about being an artist). But I am enjoying every bit
of being an artist, even if it is 50 years later.
Advice for new
artist?
Well I would tell them without a doubt if you’re passionate
about your art and that's your dream - don't give up! And take a chance. Create
from what you feel because then you're creating from what you know. Don’t try
to mimic someone else’s style - art is not uniform, it doesn't require or have
to have boundaries. You’re art is a reflection of you it is not going to nor is
it supposed to please everyone and that's OK because you as a person don’t, nor
or are you supposed to please everyone. Learn everything you can about art and creating
it: styles, techniques etc. and then experiment. I don't know if that advice is
something they can relate to or will help them out much but I think those are
some of the most important things to know or remember about starting out and
becoming an artist.
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| Steve's Art Eagle © Stephen Morris |
What kind of exposure
have you had?
Well I haven't had a whole lot sadly, but I think that is
one of THE toughest parts of being an artist and especially if you live in a
small farm town. I have been in three local art shows and did fairly well. I
was the top selling artist in one and one of the top two selling artists in the
other two. I was featured on the front
page of the local paper with a 2-page article and interview. Being from and
growing up for 60 years in a small southern Iowa farm town where everyone knows
everyone, I have had a lot of word of mouth exposure. And, with the help of my fiancée
I have three galleries online in some free public artist sites those being: The
Art Feed.com, Artist Site.org and my biggest most active one being on A SingularCreation.com.
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