About the Artist

Welcome! My name is Morgan (MJ) McColum, and I am an artist and maker living in the Pacific Northwest near Portland, Oregon.

I have been fascinated by things of beauty from my earliest abilities to identify something as such—and almost anything holds some beauty if examined closely and thoughtfully. When I was a child, my parents gave me two items that expanded my abilities to see the world—a camera and a microscope. Because of these, from an early age, I was examining things at both macro and micro levels and looking for the little flecks of beauty and pattern in the world all around me.

Art is my means of sharing my world and is also part of my meditative practice. I rarely start with anything particular in mind when I paint, but rather pick some color combinations that have caught my attention recently, and I always paint to music.

The pandemic was a time that allowed a disconnect from the collective mind. I forcibly unplugged myself, needing some time to reflect more deeply about what I wanted in life, what made life feel whole, important, worthwhile. It led me to realize that I deeply wanted to reconnect to the things that I loved and that fed my soul—for me, that is nature, art, and music. I really missed music being a prominent part of my life. And then I found Tiny Desk. NPR’s Tiny Desk helped me rediscover and redefine my taste in music. Tank and the Bangas, Hiatus Kaiyote, DakhaBrakha, Tash Sultana, and Snarky Puppy are a few of the artists that now color my work, embedding vibe and energy.

I’ve taken several intensive workshops with some amazing contemporary artists, including Jesse Reno, Melissa Monroe, Nicholas Wilton, and Michael Orwick. I am currently in a Mastrius mentorship with Angela Alés, the magical realist painter, and I take classes regularly at The Drawing Studio in Portland, Oregon. I have always felt a constant need to continue to learn and grow. This compels me to move forward with curiosity, always. I love the exploratory nature of art and am obsessed with color, texture, and patina. I have worked in many different mediums, including stained glass, mosaic, jewelry, watercolor, cold wax, oil, acrylic, pastel, photography, and mixed media—not restricting my explorations to a specific medium because each offers unique opportunities and advantages.

There is something very unique about the way in which children see the world that very few people are able to maintain into adulthood. I try to paint with the honesty and wonder of a child’s mind and combine it with the experience of painting as freely as I can, and then refine the work with informed, deliberate moves. I hope the works hold value for the viewer and speak to them in a personal way that contributes to their experience of the art. The colors and shapes I observe when spending time in nature show up frequently in my paintings, and I find nature to be an endless source of inspiration. My art often relates to or mimics in some way parts of the natural world.

I am still developing as an artist. My influences change as I grow and expand my understanding of what it means to be an artist. When you’re an artist at your core, you can try a million less difficult paths and somehow always wind up back on this road. My art details my journey, and I hope it is an enjoyable one for others.

“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” Marc Chagall