PEOPLE OF INTEREST
64
The
GREEN
ARTIST
BY WILLI MILLER
PHOTOS BY ED DRONDOSKI
When you’re an artist who incorporates nature
into your creative process, the great outdoors
becomes your studio.
Vero Beach artist Marie Morrow is a multi-dimensional
woman, her talent firmly planted in the wonders
that surround her. Known locally for her spectacularly decorative
gourds and palm frond masks, Morrow also paints and
works in clay, fabric and jewelry.
On display in her studio during the recent Vero Beach Art
Club’s Art Trail was an imaginative sculpture assembled
on a dress shop’s mannequin. Morrow embellished it with
sensuous waves of barnacle shells and a set of antlers she
happened to find in her travels. Another piece in this
series was chosen for a cover of Florida Monthly Magazine’s
quarterly event planner in 2011.
The thick-walled gourds Morrow has shipped in from
California become underwater scenes or familiar tropical
flora and fauna tableaux, most of them functional décor. Her
dramatic palm frond masks, dubbed Palm Pals, range from
whimsical to thought-provoking.
“They were developed to teach children in the artist-inresidence
program sponsored by VSA Florida to see art in
everything,” Morrow says. The program requires a bit of
ingenuity on the part of the artists. With very little funding
available for her first residency in 2001, “I would ask
the local stores to donate their unwanted paints, which
they were happy to do.”
From her first residency session, at Jensen Beach
elementary school in 2001, simple painting evolved into
something more. “I wanted to teach the children how
to use their imaginations with found objects and a little
paint. Hence came the mask. I developed the mask into
my family of Palm Pals, submitted them into the A.E.
Backus Gallery in Fort Pierce and received a wall to
show my works.” Morrow’s masks and gourds also
were accepted for the 2010 Under the Oaks juried art
show in Vero Beach.
Morrow’s palm fronds are found locally and chosen
with great care. Learning from her
initial mistakes in the early years,
she says, “I am picky... They
have to dry out on the tree. If
they are on the ground they
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LIVING GREEN