Self Portrait While Napping Drawing

About the Artist: Patrick Morgan After completing his degree in Humanities by studying the cooperatives in Santa Cruz County he began to study modern dance with Tandy Beal. Soon he joined the Christopher Beck Dance Company in San Francisco while developing his own style of choreography, largely based on improvisation and symbolic gestures. Dance led to performance art, roles in theater, independent films and most importantly, collaborations with computer graphic artists in the new field of video art. His video dance and performance work has been seen on PBS, the BBC and the Mill Valley Film and Video Festival. Live performances of what Patrick calls “dancing and painting at the same time” these video collaborations inspired him to move from the sketchbook to painting on canvas and other materials. In 1985 he began painting on clothing after a stranger came up to him while he was wearing a dinner jacket painted by a friend. The stranger told him that his jacket was the best piece of art in the exhibition at San Francisco’s Modern Art Museum. A few weeks later, while developing a concert series of Windham Hill recording artists to be held at the Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley, he wore a jacket painted in fluorescent and metallic paint to a business meeting at Jeremiah Tower’s restaurant, Stars, in San Francisco. When he walked in the crowd burst into applause. Patrick looked around to see what the excitement was and soon realized they were applauding the jacket! This was followed by Jeremiah Tower bringing a bottle of fine champagne to the table along with a wide smile of happy encouragement. A hit was born, soon to be followed by press in the San Francisco Chronicle and a lot of orders for painted clothing. Some of the paintings on exhibit here were done at the same time period in the mid 1980’s. After several years of intense work Patrick’s inner voice told him he needed a change. So he moved to Seattle and took a job as Director of Subud USA, a spiritual and charitable organization. He occasionally showed a piece or two of art in group shows but mostly this was a time of inner exploration. He began having lucid dreams and unusual spiritual guidance. This led him to adventures in Asia and to a philanthropic project benefitting children affected by HIV/AIDS. He has written about some of these experiences in personal essays on medium.com. The link is https://medium.com/@patrickntobydog/ By 1993 the art muse began to call again.