Morgan Sanders

Over the past year, rock formations have become a recurring element in my work. It took some time to make sense of this obsession, eventually realizing that by featuring them in my work, I am able to reconnect with memories of my home and ground my thoughts. For me, this landscape becomes more about the rock formations themselves and the feelings and memories they evoke.

Growing up, I lived along the Metacomet-Monadnock Ridge, which was formed when lava welled up and solidified into sheets of strata hundreds of feet thick. Subsequent faulting and earthquake activity tilted the strata, creating the cliffs and ridgeline. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that my relationship with these mountains was significant. Throughout college and as I began my professional career in Boston, I found myself searching for similar mountains to hike nearby. Being continuously exposed to these rock formations from a young age has made them feel comforting and familiar, so I search for similar landscapes wherever I am.

I use the process of making these rocky landscapes into mixed media paintings as an escape to the same calmness I experience in the trails behind my house and as a tool to reanimate and relive my memories. As I work, I view my piece with the eyes of someone who looks for the cracks and crevices for the purposes of rock climbing. I use charcoal for the ability to layer and use my hands. The process of my work mirrors the approach I take when hiking, my hands rub charcoal into the paper the same way they scrape dirt and climb mountains. By doing this, I am able to make texture on the paper that is reminiscent of the texture seen in nature. In using charcoal and pastel on paper, one learns to work from it, rather than focusing on making it perfect.

Not only do these dramatic cliff faces and exposed mountain summits represent my relationship to home, but they allow me to step back and decipher my thoughts. Confronting the density before me - time, pressure, weather all impressed into the rock, I am grounded by contemplating my place within this timescale.