Cliff Hanger

“Petroglyphs are images that Native Americans pecked into rocks hundreds of years ago and pictographs are painted images on rock. In Arizona and Utah rock art is located in out-of-the-way places often difficult to reach. The panels show the earth, sky and heavens –snakes, stars, lightning, deer, men, women, hands. Their messages and purposes remain enigmatic and perhaps that is the strong attraction to an artist. Once I hiked to see some petroglyphs through burr grass and bees—a hundred blue handprints of adults and children printed across the wall of the alcove. To me the place was imbued with magic and mystery.” – Magen Morse

An avid outdoorsman, Morse backpacked, hiked, and camped throughout the Southwest most of his life. He regularly visited an area of Northern Arizona bordering Southern Utah known as The Strip, red-rock canyon country with an arid climate. The landscape is dominated by sagebrush and is dotted with juniper trees, moving to piñon pine, ponderosa, spruce, fir, and aspens at higher elevations. North of the Colorado River and divided between Coconino County in the east and Mohave County in the west, this sparsely populated landscape was home to the Ancestral Puebloans, a group of people who seemed to disappear from the landscape around 1300.

On visits to this region, Morse made drawings, watercolor paintings, photographs, and sketches focusing on the Ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs and pictographs.

Morse’s interest in rock art was piqued after reading an article in the popular magazine Arizona Highways.  In the article, Marietta Davenport, an archaeologist with the National Forest Service, was interviewed and her words had a strong impact on Morse:

“Rock art sites like the Labyrinth and the Wall are part of our national heritage, unique expressions of the spirituality of prehistoric people, a window through which we glimpse something beyond tangible material culture.  But when rock art is destroyed, that window onto the landscape of the past slams shut.”  

Morse contacted Davenport for more information on the sites described and she encouraged him to apply as a member of the National Forest’s Service Passport in Time (PIT) team.  He joined the PIT team in 1991, making eight trips between 1991-1995. As the team’s interpretive artist, Morse photographed and drew sites in conjunction with other team members, including zone archaeologists.  His professional expertise in visual interpretation and documentation were considered valuable contributions to the study and preservation of rock art sites.

“Another volunteer, Bart Morse, a University of Arizona professor of art, was doing a watercolor rendering of another panel, the top of which had a drawing of a large rattlesnake with a tail that showed multiple heads. ‘I like doing this. These drawings are graphic and hard to beat… [Verde Valley Native Americans] left all kinds of symbolism for their followers to read, but not for us.’ Morse said. ‘The artists used fairly decent paint brushes, and I like to study their work and surmise how they did it. They had their own artists...this is a very sophisticated snake.’” - Geraldine Birch, Sedona Red Rock News, May 5, 1993

Morse was involved in the primary documentation of almost 1300 individual rock art elements in areas including Oynx Canyon, Coconino National Forest, Kaibab National Forest, and Juniper National Forest.  Archaeologist Peter J. Pilles, Jr. reported that the project led to the nomination of rock art sites in the American ‘National Register of Historic Places.’

Morse wrote “I believe in protecting, through documentation, interpretive and creative documentation, the landscape wherein this art lives. The rock art provides me with another way to understand the landscape - and landscape painting is my life’s work.”