Mercury Twenty Artist Jamie Morgan Interview

How long have you been doing murals? How did you get into it?

I’ve been doing murals for 30 years. I met a friend, Eduardo Pineda, through my then-girlfriend, now my wife. He was going to school with her at UC Berkeley. One day he asked me, “How would you like to paint a mural?”

Yes, you fell into it…

The whole idea of making public art and painting larger than life really appealed to me at the time. I gradually got into the larger concept of community murals where the artist addresses the community, painting what the community is interested in seeing. The idea of collaboration: organizing people to participate, give feedback, making a mural really reflect the neighborhood it’s in.

You‘ve made murals in Clarion Alley, which is an alley in San Francisco between Mission and Valencia that is completely filled with murals.

We did murals in Balmy Alley, another big alley full of murals, in 1984. That alley already had a few murals from the very early days of mural painting in the Mission, back to the 60s. Patricia Rodriguez and Raymond Patlán organized a mural project in 1984 protesting the US intervention in Central America and El Salvador. I was one of 50 artists who painted 25 murals on this theme. This was a great project that really got worldwide publicity at the time. Patricia was one of the original LasMujeres Muralistas in San Francisco, an all-female mural painting group, and Ray Patlán had come from Chicago where he painted many murals. They both had a deep history with the mural movement in the 60s and 70s.

Clarion Alley was initiated by a group of artists (Rigo 21, Aaron Noble) that liked what had been done in Balmy Alley. They started work in another alley further in the north Mission area. These were younger artists that wanted to express new ways of thinking about murals, not so overtly political, but definitely generating a new look. I did a mural in Clarion Alley with Michael Loggins, one of the artists from Creativity Explored.

That was during the beginning of the Mission School style with the more pop and graffiti references and influences.

There were some really interesting artists involved with that. The style really exploded and it became very influential. There’s also a lot of work maintaining murals: dealing with the building owners, the city, and vandalism. So murals are really part of the vitality and ever-changing nature of city life.

Another thing I’ve noticed about your work is that you gravitate to projects and processes that you really get into in a technical way. Do you think that’s a hallmark of your work, whatever media you are working in?

I’d say so. I like to concentrate on the particular medium and push it as far as I can.

You’ve done a lot of printmaking, which involves a great deal of technical concentration.

I focused on printmaking in graduate school at CCAC where I studied with Charlie Gill, Ken Rignall, Jack Ford, Malaquias Montoya, and Betsy Davids. I had some great training there. The mural painting I picked up on the side, but it has sustained me better than the printmaking, financially-speaking. (Laughs) But I’ve done a variety of printmaking techniques: lithography, silkscreen, relief printing. Currently, I concentrate on monoprints and etchings.

What’s your studio like? Where is it?

I have a studio in West Oakland that I share with another printmaker, Betty Friedman. We have our own press. Unfortunately, my time is so splintered right now, and I don’t have enough time to make many etchings. They really take focus and time. But I’ll get back to it.

Did you work at Kala as well?

I did a fellowship over there in 1999/2000 which included the use of their printmaking facilities. At the time I was exploring etching and was able to use their equipment to concentrate on some multi-plate, color etchings, which was very helpful. I had a show at the end of the 6 month period. I have shown some of those prints at Mercury 20. Like the one called, Stacked Cars.

Pastel drawing, like you’re showing at Mercury 20 in September, must be one of the more straightforward, spontaneous media that you employ. The main subjects you are showing are cityscapes, and you’ve done a continuing series of houses…

My father was an architect, and that’s always been an interest. I studied architectural history in college. I became interested in drawing what most people would see as very mundane building types, those that are commonly seen in the East Bay such as Bungalows, Craftsmen, and Victorians. I often come across a particular house, not historically notable perhaps, but it is a great representation of a particular type of architecture and the people who own it probably know that and they have maintained it well.

How do you find and decide which houses you will draw?

As I run round town on my various errands, I make mental notes on the houses that catch my eye. Then I go back and make photographs. I’m very interested in compositional aspects of the drawing; what time of day it is, how the shadows and light fall on the building, but I’m also interested in the documentary side of it as well.

All these houses have a lot of character and detail. I think you’ve said they are like portraits of houses.

That’s right. And I think the subject works well with the pastel medium.

Pastels have great capacity for color effects.

I think the show will also have streetscapes; different places in Oakland, one drawing is of a freeway in San Francisco. The settings are random places that use perspective and some traditional landscape ideas, but are characteristic of the city.

How long have you lived in the Bay Area?
Since 1974. I lived in the south Peninsula for a while, going to college at Stanford. I moved up to Berkeley in 1979.

How does this place compare to where you are from?

I’m from Princeton, New Jersey which is very different from here. It has a more suburban, college town feel. The East coast is so lush and green compared to California’s arid climate. Then again, once you get out of places like Princeton, the state of New Jersey is very industrial.

Right, then you’re in Robert Smithson territory…

When I go back there I think that it really looks decayed and desolate. But there are actually some places here that are similar…

Oakland and Richmond do have large industrial expanses and yet there’s something about those terrains that are peaceful …

What interested me was the desolation, the abandonment…the sense of time passing, history moving on. Some people might see it as depressing but I see it with a sense of hope that there will be change; a redevelopment.

What artists have inspired you?

From a very early age I loved Alexander Calder. I did sculpture in high school and college and loved the work of David Smith. As I studied painting and drawing I came to admire a lot of the American Realists like Burchfield, Hopper, and Homer.

How do you make a living as an artist?

I sell my work. I teach art and do murals for my livelihood. I’ve worked with students at Peralta Elementary lately. I’ve also worked at Emery High and Anna Yates Elementary in Emeryville, Chabot Elementary in Oakland, Oxford Elementary in Berkeley, and Montera Middle School in Oakland.

Do you do murals for private spaces or just public?

I have, but not as much.

And you’ve done quite a few public art commissions. I know you did one with Anna Vaughn, another artist from Mercury 20 Gallery.

We did a public art commission for Alameda County at the Juvenile Justice Center in San Leandro, along with Ray Patlán. The way the process works on these public commissions is that you answer a Call for Artists and submit your qualifications. You have to be able to work with their budget, get insurance, have your own business, it’s pretty complicated. It’s a very competitive process that I’ve been pursuing for 10 or 15 years now. Gradually, I’ve built up a resume and received some interesting commissions. I did one at Highland Hospital in Oakland.

The mural at the Juvenile Justice Center was very large; it faced onto a recreational field. The subject matter for the all art at the Center addressed the lives of the youths incarcerated there and that of their families. The artists involved came up with different interpretations of community, and positive messages of achievement and hope. Since our mural was outside on the building next to the athletic field, we used huge athletic figures and slogans that the youth came up with that were meaningful to them. Basically, we sat out in the broiling sun day after day and worked four stories in the air (laughs)…

It always sounds like fun (laughs)…I used to watch them paint the Women’s Building in the Mission back in the day. It just looked so cool…

It’s nothing to take lightly, it’s pretty dangerous to be going up and down the scaffold all day. It’s a serious business—we had to wear a hard hats and safety equipment. But it is fun…

No vertigo allowed, huh?

No vertigo allowed.