Other artworks, though undoubtedly originating in autobiography, point toward more universal themes. Undercurrent, for example, depicts two rotary telephones arranged so that each acts as the base of the other. One of the telephones appears normal, ready to use, while the other has keys exploding out of the dial and letters, similarly, blasting upward from the receiver. The telephones become metaphors for the two most basic elements of any conversation—the one that’s said and the one that’s unsaid, by carelessness or by design. These inherent or implied meanings are almost always secondary to the act of creation. “I really try not to worry about what a piece is about or what it’s called,” Morling says. “Someone will ask me what a piece is about, and then I’ll really start to understand it. I don’t really get it until after I make it.”
One piece proved so personal that Morling could not stand the idea of seeing it rehomed. This work, title “Rest a While,” features a little person on a log, holding a house and bearing a snail’s shell on their back. Morling says, “It was about my not having a home, at one point. I lived in my studio, and I was moving around. It was about the idea of home and whether it was something internal, and my thinking about what sort of stability I needed.” Soon after finishing “Rest a While,” Morling received a commission that provided enough money for a deposit on a home.
“I never thought that would happen. I just thought, I need to keep that piece,” she continues. “I took Rest a While to a show and was terrified of it selling, so I put the price ridiculously high. And then someone inquired about it! I was so worried, and wondering what I should do. Then, I realized, I couldn’t have it for sale. That was fine, I just took it home.”
Morling’s path to ceramics, and her longstanding porcelain mood, is the result of a gradual evolution. Her frustrations with dyslexia, combined with unsympathetic educators, instilled an early preference for visual over literary expression. “I wanted to do art, and I was absolutely rubbish at everything else,” she says. Morling tried to bind those artistic yearnings to a more stable career by attending a master’s program to become an art therapist. A ceramics class derailed that option, however, as she found a calling in the medium quite unlike anything she’d previously experienced. “Clay is so hypnotic, so tactile. It’s just satisfying. I’ve tried using metal, wood, fabric, everything. I don’t know any other material that acts like that,” she says.
Whatever success she’s enjoyed, however, was earned by struggle in her nascent years of study and error. “My first attempts at art left me feeling like I couldn’t speak,” she says, “and the whole time I’m trying to find this language. But once I found it, I very quickly became fluent, and could finally say what I wanted.”
Her early ceramics were comprised of roughly-made vessels and scenes. These were glazed, heavy-looking pieces that lacked the refinement and expressiveness to get across what Morling hoped to visualize. Exactly what that was, however, remained elusive. Looking for inspiration lead her to realize that many of the artworks that struck her as emotive and effective were executed by students at the Royal College of Art in London. She applied, was accepted, and began the search for herself in earnest.
“Someone will ask me what a piece is about, and then I’ll really start to understand it. I don’t really get it until after I make it.”
Someone will ask me what a piece is about, and then I’ll really start to understand it. I don’t really get it until after I make it.”