Coastal Watercolors

“Although the beach was not his first interest in landscape, Morse made the most of his summertime at the Oregon coast while teaching at Portland State’s Haystack Arts Program. He never passed up the opportunity to spend time with his family and explore and paint his local surroundings. Over time, Morse grew to appreciate seascapes, and this series captures his ability to find beauty wherever he happened to be. It also led directly to some of his most incredible work in watercolor.” - Maury Morse

Every summer from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s, Morse and his family traveled from their home in Tucson, Arizona to Portland, Oregon to visit his wife Leslie’s relatives and spend time at the beach. Typically, the family traveled through northern Arizona and Utah, often camping at National Parks along the way. These trips were a welcome relief from the unrelenting heat of the Sonoran Desert, where average summer temperatures exceed 100 degrees.  

Morse taught summer school at Cannon Beach in 1987, 1988, and 1989 as part of the Haystack Arts program where visual arts classes along with writing, music, and photography were offered. Cannon Beach is a small coastal town in northwest Oregon and is known for its long, sandy shore and Haystack Rock. Morse and his family hiked along trails in Ecola State Park, taking in the sweeping ocean views and exploring tide pools. Other summer activities included gathering wild blackberries, salmon fishing, and crabbing.

Coastal Watercolors were made from drawings produced on-site in Oregon and later painted in the Tucson studio. Many remain unfinished. The paintings capture the effects of color and light often with ethereal cloud formations and show the constant movement of the sea with the shore. Two distinctive coastal features of Oregon are the fir, pine, and cedar woodland that meets the shoreline and the rocky outcrops like Haystack rock located near Cannon Beach. These features are depicted in many drawings and paintings. As an admirer of the great 18th-century landscape painter JMW Turner, Morse’s coastal paintings have a similar abstract fluidity.