Slipping Life’s Bounds - Cape Cod Life Online

When Morgan began selling her pieces in her mid-20s, her signature pottery was defined by sharp blue-black images set against a creamy white background. This technique, called sgraffito, became her stamp in trade: designs carved into a band of hand-painted clay (known as slip) on a piece of thrown pottery. Subdued blue-black animals, mermaids, fish, and plants cavort happily on the pottery’s light background. One oval platter is encircled by an elephant, giraffe, lion, and fish, all looking content to be together in a carefree dance. This lightly naive spirit holds great appeal for her clients.

“It’s much like doing a line drawing,” Morgan says of her sgraffito. It is also reminiscent of her drawing technique when she was a little girl in Georgetown with five sisters, an English mom who stayed home, and a dad who worked at the Federal Reserve Bank and was “always creating things.”