Who Is Marcy Morris?
Artist, Teacher, Poet
Born and raised
Education & Teaching
Born & raised
Born in Miami, December 2, 1966.
My parents named me Marcy Lois Stein. They encouraged my creativity at an early age through art and dance lessons. I grew up in a predominantly white community with my two younger brothers as we followed our Jewish faith attending Hebrew school and public school. At age 5, my parents hired a housekeeper from Kingston, Jamaica who lived with us for seven years. Her life stories and love for me taught me the value of diversity and treating people with respect.
I met my birth mother and birth father who are both professional artists, jeweler and illustrator respectively. I learned that my ethnicity includes Finnish, & Colombian roots. My connecting with them taught me to appreciate the sacrifice under the circumstances of giving me up for adoption and the blessing of my adoptive parents raising me. Both by nature & nurture, the DNA of my ancestry and the cultures that influence me reflect many aspects of my personality and creative expression.
Education & Teaching
My inspiration for teaching began at Syracuse University, where I received a BFS in Painting, 1988. I recieved my art teacher certification from Moore College of Art 1997.
Children became my subject matter as I came to know families nearby Syracuse University college campus, and began teaching drawing and painting lessons . Upon graduation, I moved to Philadelphia and taught art lessons at Toby Farms Elemementary School in Chester. At this time I also met artist & professor, Lily Yeh, founder of The Village of Arts & Humanities, in North Philadelphia. Here is where I taught art lessons and learned to connect with elders, teens and youth with respect and an open heart. The Village offered art, dance, drumming, theater, mural making, poetry and gardening which opened me to interdisciplinary arts. At the time, I created portraits of children in various media, I wrote journals about my students and their families, many who were on welfare and in foster-care. Many children from that time in my life are like family to me to this day. My teaching experiences include art centers n Mount Laurel, Camden, Chester PA, Wallingord PA, and Cjula Vista, CA,
Music & Family
Music & Family
My passion for music as a subject matter began when I met the father of my children, a Navy musician with an extensive jazz & blues collection.
My first jazz theme paintings were created soon after we married in, 1999. My son, Brandon Jules Morris, was born the following year, and when his father was out to sea, Brandon watched me paint and teach art to children in our backyard in Chula Vista, California. We moved to New Jersey in 2003, and music was the uplifting force that kept everyone connected. My daughter Alana Joline Morris was born in 2005. A lover of dance & song as a child, I reminisce over the time when her big brothers Trent & Lawrence would play instruments together in the basement. Beats changed and my husband and I separated as well as divorced in 2011. Within the crossroads of healing over the years, immersing myself within my art strengthened me. The community of music and dance has always stirred my imagination, connecting to that place where my desire returns again to the paper, the canvas, the performance, revealing my heart in motion.
