Beth Morrell

Shark Tamer!

I’m sure this isn’t a hyper original concept, but the idea came up in a conversation at work and I just had to draw it. I had a lot of fun making all the various curves play together well.

So I went and did a weird thing...

I’m a big fan of the Rose Buddies podcast, and last week they were discussing signature dance moves. This lead to Rachel posting a picture of Griffin playing the air sax in the facebook group, which lead to a billion photoshops and the best day on facebook ever. So last night I decided to throw my hat in the ring and illustrated our Good Good Sax Boy. Then today went weird and now you can buy a t-shirt, mug, tablet case, or sticker.

http://bit.ly/saxboybuddy

100% of profits will be donated to two charities - Safe Place Austin (a favorite charity of the hosts) and She Lift (a charity of one of the fan favorite contestants of the Bachelor who, everyone knows, is way too good for that show). If you put weirdness in to the world, might as well do some good with it.

Massive thanks to Rachel and Griffin being the best of sports, and the whole Rose Buddies facebook group for being the best group of strangers ever. 

SEALBORG!!!!

Welcome to Monstober! I’ve decided to design a bunch of creatures in October. I’m not committing to every day because I know how my life pans out and I don’t need that kind of pressure BUT I’m hoping for about 3 per week. And then I’ll have a big stock of creatures to 3D model!

Stranger Things: Eleven

I woke up like this

Ok here’s the story: one day I got up and went to work, worked 12 hours, then came home (which is basically my life right now). I decided to go for a run that night, so as I was putting my hair back, I looked in the mirror and to my surprise, I had liquid eyeliner on. I did not remember putting eyeliner on that morning.

Flapper Knight Rides Again

Happy Easter!

About a 6 weeks ago a gal I’ve known of most of my life through church messaged me on Facebook asking if I’d have time to talk to her about a possible art project. “Of course!!” I said, always looking for more freelance work.

This wasn’t 100% the meeting I thought I was walking in to. What Karen pitched me was a project to be shown at the New Horizons fundraising gala - a project taking abstract ideas and turning them in to emotive color. They had taken plaster casts of homeless youth at the drop in center, then poured plaster in those molds to recreate these kids faces. They wanted to display the messy masks next to the faces painted with bright colors to portray the differences between how we see homeless youth, and who they really are.

“Abstract color? Just up my alley!” the me who is still living in 2010 said.

What the me who lives in the present forgot is that I haven’t painted with real paint in about 5 years, and that paint is hard. And that digital paint has spoiled me rotten.

So I was given the plaster molds with emotions assigned to them and about a month to do it! Off to the races!

It was an art marathon, and I hadn’t stretched or trained enough. I spent my entire weekends forcing myself to keep going, pushing myself to not settle for “good enough”. It was fun. It was hard. It stretched me as an artist.

It used a lot of pallet paper...

But when all was said and done, I delivered them to New Horizons and for the first time saw the words that were being pared with the more positive emotions I had been working with for so long. It hit me really hard. 

A woman I was talking to at the gala said that she wished I could feel the impact that she did when she first saw it. Although the first time I saw it all together wasn’t in it’s final installation, the kick in the gut I got when I saw them all laid on the table was probably pretty similar.

I’ve had moments while working on this project that I’ve complained about it, wished for some free time back, had to delay paying gigs because I had committed to this. I was wrong. This was the most worth while project I have done in a very, very long time. 

The gala was at the museum of flight, which is such a great venue. The wall was put up in a very open area, so (even without my glasses on) it read from across the room. I loved over hearing people’s reactions to different faces. Of course I have my own artistic opinions, but it doesn’t matter because people project their own experiences on to them and resonate with different ones than I do. People were getting up close and taking pictures. 

“You have art in a museum!” people kept telling me. Putting aside that it’s a museum about flight history, technically it was true for a night. It was all pretty surreal, but the fact that so many people told me how impacted they were by the concept (which was originally Bonnie Feher’s) was really cool. I always thought people saying they felt “humbled” by receiving recognition or awards was the opposite of what they meant. But I think I get it. I feel too small to be a part of something that meant so much to so many people. I don’t deserve the praise people were giving me. I just sat on my floor painting for a month - how is that allowed to affect people’s lives? But somehow it did, people art makes people feel things.

The statistics and stories I heard about the homeless youth at the gala last night opened my eyes and broke my heart. There are a lot of homeless in Seattle, and a very large number of them are under 18. New Horizons works to give kids goals and abilities to reach them. They have a drop in center, only some beds (that they’re trying to expand) and a coffee shop (soon to be 2!) where they train kids how to hold down a job and have hireable life skills. They are doing incredible work in Seattle, changing lives and making our city and our world a better place. If you have the means, please donate to their cause.

I couldn’t be prouder to have been recruited for this project. We’re hoping it will get a life again elsewhere, but I’ll keep you updated if any of that materializes.