After several difficult years, artist Danielle Morgan says that she finally feels able to tap back into her creative side.
When the pandemic first began in 2020, Morgan had to work from home and essentially homeschool her daughter, which was such a big blow to her mental health. Followed by the death of her aunt and mother, Morgan says there was a period of time where she barely worked on anything artistic.
“Only within the last year, I feel like I have tried to ramp up,” she said. “I felt like I was able to get in touch with that part of myself again.”
Morgan says she loves to experiment with her art and tries not to stay confined to a single medium. Recently, she says that she has been finding herself making a lot of symmetrical art.
“There is something really pleasing about that to me, and not just aesthetically, but in terms of working on it, there is something satisfying about it,” Morgan said.
She says that psychedelics have been a huge influence in her art.
“I feel like there is definitely a change that happened before I started taking psychedelics versus after,” Morgan said.
The mixed media artist has been drawing since she was a kid, she says, probably around 9 or 10 years old. She didn’t consider it to be a career path until high school, when people would comment on her work and encourage her to go to art school.
She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2018; her BFA thesis exhibition was titled “The Invisibility Of Being An Autistic Woman.” At the time, Morgan says it was just starting to become well-known that men are not the only ones who can be autistic.
Since then, Morgan says that it’s been validating and affirming to see so much more information has come out about autism, even since graduation.
“I feel like six years ago, that was definitely something that was completely different in terms of what people knew. There is obviously still a lot of misinformation out there and stereotypes,” she said.
She recently wrapped a First Friday show at Raven’s Ring Brewery, and will be the October artist at Rage City Vintage. She will also be at the ANC Zine Fair at The Nave on Nov. 8 from 12-6 p.m.
