the northern loon

THE
NORTHERN
LOOn

ABOUT ME & my art

who?

my name is morgan murphy & i am THE NORTHERN LOON.

i am a visual artist. a descriptive poet. a community builder.

• i am from the NORTHERN lower peninsula of michigan, where the woods meet the water & where LOONs glide across the lakes. loons are a magical, mystical, serene, & focused diver bird known for the sounds they produce. their calls are eerie, dreamy, & emotional - inspiring listeners to stop in their tracks & get lost in their imagination momentarily. in fostering this moment of pause & clarity, loons symbolize creativity, connection to multiple levels of consciousness, & mindfulness. i seek to emulate the loon's effect on its surroundings in my artwork - creating artwork that is entrancing enough to inspire its viewers to connect to their imagination & recognize the beauty surrounding them in the present moment. haven't heard a loon? listen here:

what

what?what?what?

what?

i create & do all types of things:

• i celebrate the beauty in the mundane, the cliché, & the overlooked.

• i capture material place & ideational space through layering bold colors, stark lines, & (un)realistic
forms into enticing & entrancing cityscapes. i am inspired by northern nature, namely the reticulation & abstraction of the
petoskey stone - an ancient fossil found on speckled sandy shores. i use acrylic, watercolor + ink, pastels & collage.

• i revel in the calm of embroidering feel-good fabric pieces for your walls.

• i find peace & healing in creating and sharing affirmation cards foster re-learning self-love, & -acceptance.

• i gain energy by uniting diverse individuals & populations to collaborate, communicate, and create together.

• i spread ideas of shared humanity & universal belonging with murals & street art in public spaces.

why?

i do all of this for a few reasons:

• i am a compulsive creator: i get captivated by city-views, by architecture, by nature & love to capture & share them.
• i believe in seeking out & creating beauty: in the mundane day-to-day & the special once-in-a-lifetime moments.

• i am riddled by anxiety sometimes: painting & putting strings of words together soothes my nerves.

• i live to help others be: creative, in touch with emotions, & connected to their glocal communities (local & global).

where?

i am chicago-based, with experience creating in northern michigan, bulgaria, the netherlands, spain, & in-between.

how?

i create whenever & wherever & however i can.

my process involves a lot of layering. little by little. color. color. color. line. line. line. color. color. line.

• sometimes i am organized -
taking on a project strategically & plan out the form, line, color & overall feel. i go piece-by-piece til it's complete.

• most of the time i sit down & 'let it be it' -
allowing my mind & heart & hand to connect the material reality with the ideational reality. i recognize the primacy of the material & the dialectically-constitutional relationship between physical & emotional; material & ideational.

• as of 2022, i am officially an LLC! i'm thrilled about this because it means i can more strategically, officially, and effectively grow my creative practice.

CLICK THE PHOTOS BELOW FOR MORE INFO ABOUT SOME OF THE CREATIVE PROJECTS & ROLES I TAKE ON

pleven plein air i took part in a community- and city-wide plein air event in order to benefit a local orphanage in pleven, bulgaria.	a butterfly bar welcome i was commissioned to design & create a socially-inclusive mural for a shared community space & public bar called 'the butterfly', located in the hague, the netherlands. i surveyed international community members about how to say 'welcome' in their native tongues & combined their responses together with a wine cork-screw & butterfly wings to bring all concepts together cohesively.	a butterfly bar welcome i was commissioned to design & create a socially-inclusive mural for a shared community space & public bar called 'the butterfly', located in the hague, the netherlands. i surveyed international community members about how to say 'welcome' in their native tongues & combined their responses together with a wine cork-screw & butterfly wings to bring all concepts together cohesively.
watermelon stairs i helped organize & implement the pleven street art festival, which included assisting in the implementation of a fellow artist's vision for a public art project. as part of a group supporting her idea & design, we cleaned the space & assisted with the painting of the design over the span of three days.	community bread-making i organize & lead community collaborative bread-making events that bring diverse individuals together to address local challenges, recognize community assets, & have structured, safe, & creative conversations that would otherwise not take place.	an anti-hate protest i took part in a peaceful anti-hate protest in the netherlands in january of 2016. to prepare for it, i held a sign-making event at my graduate school where i assisted participants in making signs with slogans & artwork that promoted peaceful conversation, inclusion, notions of shared humanity, and love.
the world: a labyrinth to navigate the first public art i did was to cover hate-speech written on bulgarian walls. with a coalition of like-minded individuals, we covered up any swastikas & racist remarks.	art committee i headed my university's arts committee, during which time i was responsible for organizing weekly art events that ranged from spray paint & stencil workshops (shown), watercolor therapy, recycling & painting planters, protest sign creating, acrylic cityscape painting, & portrait creating, among others.	affirm & inspire early this year i designed, created, & cultivated a cohesive set of positive affirmation cards in order to foster more positive thinking, boost my self-esteem, and create a tool that others could use for similar reasons. it was an emotional project that was extremely healing & empowering!