M A T E R IA L M A T T E R S
Briék, Exposed
s t o r y b y
John K . Grande
Right:
Hearth Series, 2010
modular hollowed
bricks for multiple uses
32 x 60 x 2 in.
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A n ordinary building material, with deep roots in history, makes fo r extraordinary landscape forms.
H U M A N BEIN GS H AVE USED
bricks for thousands of years.
In 4000 BC, the ancient city
of Ur (part of Mesopotamia,
in what is now Iraq) was built
almost entirely of brick. In the
1960s, on the other end of the
utility spectrum, Carl Andre
made minimalist brick-art
installations. Michael Morgan’s
sculptural works are ingenious
integrations that call on this
history - brick as building mate-
rial, brick as art. All of Mor-
gan’s creations - whether
singular columnar forms like
Tide Clock
(1999) or the seven
shoreline sculptures that make
up
Haverstraw Trophy
(2005)
— walk the line between man-
made and natural, and between
construction and deconstruc-
tion, drawing on the origins
of clay in the earth.
The 54-year-old Morgan
earned a degree in ceramics at
Wolverhampton Polytechnic in
England, but found the medium a
little limiting. “It did bother me
that ceramic sculpture was nor-
mally small-scale,” he says.
“The sheer abundance of brick
in the West Midlands [where he
went to school], the act of con-
stantly walking through that
19th-century industrial landscape,
got me thinking that I could use
brick to make sculpture large
enough to have a real impact in
an exterior setting.” Add to that
inspiration Morgan’s years as a
serious gardener, and it’s easy to
see why he now works on such
a grand scale.
Morgan came to Philadel-
phia on a visit after graduation
and met his wife there while
working at The Clay Studio.
He completed his M FA at
the University of Nebraska in
1993 and has recently returned
to Philadelphia.
Crumbling factories, the
familiar shape of the brick,
and its earthy clay character
inspired Morgan, leading to
commissions such as
Keraunos
W a ll(
1994-98), made for David
and Kara Lynn Klarner. For all
of its chaotic, undulating tex-
ture, the wall is carefully com-
posed: The bricks are kiln-fired
in sections, then sealed with
mortar at the joints. It includes
a brick bench for visitors to
experience what Morgan calls
the “natural-looking chaos.”
Sited on a Nebraska hill-
top and echoing the state’s
farm heritage,
Silo
(2005) was
commissioned by the Roskens
family of Omaha. Like an
instantaneous ruin, the silo
structure has a vertical crack
that follows the form upward.
In 2009, when the Roskenses
decided to integrate a diagonal
window that would span the
full height of their house, they
asked Morgan to create a tex-
tured brick setting for that win-
dow. Morgan wetted down
thousands of unfired bricks
over several days, softening
them up so he could beat them
by hand, stomp on them, and
whack them with tree branches.
When the battered material was
almost dry, Morgan used a knife
to cut away parts that didn’t
look right, preparing for kiln
firing, before transportation to
the site. The resulting surfaces,
with their small, scattered erup-
tions, appeared, in a sense,
even more bricklike than in
the beginning; all of Morgan’s
manipulations produced a sheen
that catches the light and exag-
gerates the surface.
“While I was [working on
the window wall], it occurred
to me my brick actions were
like our memory - chaotic,
mundane, random - with cer-
tain parts erased to make sense
of things, so I decided to call
this
Memory W a ll,"
says Mor-
gan. “M y ideas come from the
physical activity of working
with the brick. I like natural
form - and the grime and vital-
ity of the city.” Michael Mor-
gan’s brickwork echoes our
industrial heritage and brings a
gritty, sustainability aesthetic
to the human-built landscape.
+
michaelmorgan.net
J o h n K . Grande is the author o f
Art Nature Dialogues: Inter-
views with Environmental Art-
ists
and
Dialogues in Diversity:
Art from Marginal to Main-
stream.
He is co-author
o/Natura
Humana: Outdoor Installations.
028 american craft apr/may 11
www.downmagaz.com
Photos: Michael Morgan
