Sunday afternoon I received a text message: Elmore Morgan Jr. died today at 4pm.
To me, Elmore was a teacher, a mentor, a comrade in art and a friend. He taught me at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He not only encouraged me to be an artist but he pushed me and showed me what I was capable of, as an artist. He is also the first to tell me that I should work in more than one discipline (painting and photography). The last time I saw him was in October. He was signing the Festival Acadian posters he had done. His inscription to me is a great and special gift to me. Rest peacefully Elmore. I hope your after life is a Louisiana prairie- like the most beautiful painting of the prairie you ever created.
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4 comments:
It's a hard thing to realize there'll be no new Morgan landscapes.
Indeed.
Elmore taught me to draw more than 20 years ago. I'm still learning and re-learning lessons he gave me. He was more than an artist and teacher though. He as a beautiful human being. The world was certainly a kinder place for having him in it.
I was fortunate to know Elmore while growing up within the Acadiana "art crowd". He was a friend of my parents; my father an artist also. When I started college, I knew I was destined to be an artist as well. However; I wasn’t nearly as good of one as I thought I was, until Elmore. Besides being a family friend, Elmore was my drawing teacher through three levels of drawing classes at USL. One of the earliest projects was to draw our own hand. I quickly found that for something so familiar, I didn’t know my own hand at all. As it turns out, a hand is not a hand on newsprint and exacto-sharpened graphite, it is lines and shapes, light and shadows.
Three years of drawing classes later, I realized Elmore didn’t teach me how to draw. He taught me how to see.
Elmore was a great man - he saw the joy and beauty in the world and it shows in his art. I wish we could all see the world the way he did.
Rest in peace indeed, Elmore. I miss you.
Olivia
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