Kellee morgado short bio

Kellee Morgado is an interdisciplinary designer and artist. Originally from Northern California, she received her BFA in graphic design at Appalachian State University (2017) in Boone, North Carolina. She currently resides in Reno, Nevada as the Redfield Fellow at the Black Rock Press (2018-2020). She has a particular attraction to artist books, typography, printed matter, textiles, and letterpress and enjoys exploring this intersection of books, print, and design.

INTERVIEW WITH KELLEE MORGADO

FM: Where are you from, and how did you grow up?

Kellee: say I am from Grass Valley & Nevada City, California, but I was born in Hayward, California. My family moved to Nevada County when I was six, so that is home to me and where a lot of my early memories are. I grew up an only child till I was eight and my sister was born. It’s the two of us and my mother and father. My childhood stands out as one full of creativity, imagination, and adventures. We went camping a lot, to the coast and Yosemite nearly every year. Being attracted to art and books is one of my earliest memories. I recall drawing a lot and specifically watching Mark Kistler’s Imagination Station on I think PBS at the time. I remember when computers came out I was most interested in the drawing and painting programs that were on it. I remember enjoying drawing my favorite cartoon characters, then super heros for a while, followed by portraits of characters from movies like Harry Potter and Star Wars. My favorite holiday was Halloween where I got to be creative and dress up. My parents hosted very elaborate Halloween parties every year and so it’s fair to say they themselves are very creative people.

FM: What is your favorite childhood memory?

Kellee: Tough question. The first thing that comes to mind is camping at both Memorial Park Campground and camping in Yosemite. I loved being outside, exploring, finding banana slugs, swimming, and roasting smores.

FM: What was your favorite book, story, character as a child?

Kellee:  Without a doubt Harry Potter. I was about eight when the first book came out and I was so hooked. I remember my dad taking me to the midnight release parties of later books so I could get a copy from the local book store downtown. I cried when the books were over (2007, so I was seventeen) and cried again later when the movies were over (2011, so I was twenty-one). I feel like Harry Potter really defined my childhood and my imagination.

FM: When did you take an interest in art?

Kellee: Since childhood. I loved coloring books and paint-by-number kits. The local paper would sometimes have coloring contests during the holidays and I would always color so carefully and spend lots of time on those. The earliest I remember drawing free hand, beyond my very young childhood drawings and crafts, was sitting down ready with paper and pencils to watch Imagination Station which walked you through the steps to draw certain characters or scenes. I also remember in elementary school checking out drawing books from the library that would show you how to draw things step by step.

FM: What is the first thing you remember drawing? 

Kellee:  Hmm, I have a lot of old childhood drawings. The ones I remember off hand would be a drawing from Imagination Station that I did of a human character with their head back so you can see up their nostrils, holding a pencil in each hand with bugs in the background. Another is of a draft horse that I entered into the fair.

FM: Why/how did you visit Nevada?

Kellee: I had been to Nevada several times growing up. Mostly to do things like Boomtown or a show at a casino. Quite honestly I had very little knowledge of Nevada and the community and area outside these few young visits. I knew it geographically and had come to visit on a few occasions when I was in my early twenties, but they were very short. I am here now as the fellow at Black Rock Press for two years and Reno has exceeded my every expectation. I am more fond of it and it’s community and arts than I could have thought I would be. There is a lot here.

FM: How did you discover the Redfield Fellowship?

Kellee: I was informed of the fellowship through two of my professors at Appalachian State University, Tricia Treacy and Clifton Meador. I admire them both very much and they both approached me and were like you should go for this and thought I would be a good fit and also that it would be something that I would enjoy and would compliment my skills and interests in undergrad. They weren’t wrong! I really enjoy it and only wish I had more time. It was also very nice to find something that was both a great next step post graduation and also back on the west coast where I could be closer to friends and family for a while until the next adventure.

FM: Can you talk a little about the Black Rock Press…

Kellee: Black Rock Press is located within the Art Department at the University of Nevada, Reno and is an active letterpress printing and publishing entity focusing on the book as art, craft, and concept. As well as publishing a range of literary, visual, and experimental materials, Black Rock Press also teaches several classes each semester, introducing students to the book and publication arts techniques and intellectual disciplines. The Press collaborates with various other UNR departments as well as the local Reno arts community.

 At Black Rock Press, I assist with daily studio activities which include studio maintenance, assisting with letterpress classes, holding lab monitor hours, and helping with creative direction and production of works such as broadsides, exhibition design, artist books, and printed ephemera. In exchange, I have 24 hour access to the Black Rock Press and its printing equipment. I am also given a personal studio space in which to work outside of the Press. The Press has an amazing collection of lead and wood type along with printer’s cuts, ornamental rule and more. It is very inspiring to be in this space and is such a great analog experience of the foundations of graphic design that compliments my BFA. AB Gorham and Inge Bruggeman are especially inspiring and supportive and are such creative individuals that truly love being here sharing and teaching the art of letterpress, discussing books and making unique artist books themselves. The fellowship culminates in an artist book edition and collaboration of my choosing and making that is supported by Black Rock Press in an edition of fifty books. The contents of such books are currently being developed and explore the topic of body hair.

FM: How do you juggle the idea of commissioned graphic design and the art world? Have you found any resistance to your work from the traditional art crew? I find this super interesting coming from a fashion photography background.

Kellee: Ha! Oh yes. I found it very interesting and mostly apparent in my time as an undergraduate at Appalachian State University. There was a bit of a divide between BFA majors i.e. drawing, fibers, painting, photography, printmaking and the BFA graphic designers. We were all in the same building and had classes together and so that helped. I think it also helped that our program was very interdisciplinary and also, especially in the graphic design program, almost every project was collaborative. We quickly learned how to work with others (which I think is absolutely vital when becoming a young designer as you WILL BE WORKING WITH OTHERS), which is not something you typically get in a BFA program to my knowledge as many artists can be solitary. Also as seniors, we, like other majors, had an exhibition. I became aware that some students and professors didn’t see why graphic designers should exhibit their work. As for me personally, I think my commissioned graphic design and the art world greatly overlap, just as my creative solutions can manifest in a digitally designed logo or broadside or can take the form of a fiber piece or printed on human hair. The more I learn and experience the more my thoughts change. Since I have been in Reno, I have not really witnessed any sort of resistance to my work from the traditional art crew. Right when I entered this position I presented my portfolio with an artist talk at the press and it was very well received and displayed work that was most recent to me which was my work as a graphic design student. I think the interdisciplinary nature of some of these design works allows the traditional art crew and art world to draw connections, but then that often leads to questions too of how is it design? When presenting to the student AIGA group, some students were seemingly taken aback at what I considered to be design work and the pieces that were presented in my graphic design portfolio. I have since done a talk at Nevada Museum of Art for one of their Art Bite events I was invited to speak at in conjunction with the recent Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition. It was about one of my biggest collaborative graphic design projects that I did in my senior studio class (final semester) that was very successful called SEAM. That too was well received and there was suggestion to do another one here in Reno. So all in all, I feel like I find myself not so much divided between commissioned graphic design and the art world at large. I think graphic design is an influential part of the art world as a whole and I think the interdisciplinary nature of it can really allow oneself to bridge what some might find as a gap. I am just one of many people trying to find creative solutions to ‘problems’.

FM: Can you give us a little insight into your most recent show “Don’t Cut Your Hair” Significance of a couple of the pieces eg: the printed hair piece

Kellee: Yes, I think the most significant piece would be the one that has the text that fueled the project. That would be the “Don’t Cut Your Hair It’s Beautiful” piece. It is a large quantity of wavy human hair that has text on it via screen printing with screen printing ink. I had been thinking a lot about hair. My hair on my head, my armpits, my legs, all of it. I thought about how many times in my life multiple family members or friends had said this comment to me. At the time I hadn’t thought much of it and thought it harmless, but really there is so much sexism, gender issues,  and imposed female beauty standards loaded in that one little comment for me and I wanted to unpack that a bit. It has been interesting to see how people connect to these statements as it is interpreted differently depending on who you are. Some people see it and immediately connected it to words they too have heard and questioned in regards to their perceived femininity or value. Others might find the intended irony too in that our head hair is so valued and yet, here it is, on the wall, cut off regardless of its beauty and then asks if it is still beautiful now, unattached from its maker. It was important for me to also make sure people got a hint of the broader topic which is all body hair not just specifically head hair, which in our western society, is apparently the only hair worth giving notice to while the other hair present on female presenting or female aligned folks is expected to be hidden, removed, or not spoken of. My favorite piece is a pair of wearable pants that I fashioned from muslin waxing strips. I took these strips and printed different letterpress statements on over one hundred strips. The statements are short words and phrases that come up in conversation around body hair specifically below the shoulders. Some were pulled from writings or articles, others were shared and given from others when they thought about their body hair and experiences, some were from my own personal thoughts and experiences. After these words were printed, I actually used them and waxed a willing participant to obtain both the wax and body hair for which I was talking about. These pants are representative of the pants that I have worn for years over my own unshaved legs to keep them hidden and thereby not needing to field any unwanted attention. However, recently with my new environment in Reno, the summer proved to hot for me to continue this habit, and I too have felt compelled in recent years with body hair gaining more positivity and inclusivity to show my hair and how proud of it I am. These pants take this body hair that we remove and toss in the trash and put it on display next to locks of head hair as equals. I think it also is my own personal response to what is a more ‘acceptable’ wearing and expression of my natural body hair.

FM: Hair features in many sayings, proverbs, and myths as a source of power, mystery, beauty, the ability to obscure yourself, and of strength…I noticed the hidden texts beneath the pony tail, can you explain this piece to us?

Kellee:  Oh I like this point that you are making and the connection to the hidden text. My favorite kind of work are those that ask the viewer to be involved in some way. Here I am asking you to look and touch. I also wanted to satisfy those viewers that have that desire to touch work particularly when it has a familiar tactility. What made me most excited about printing on the hair was the potential for the text to be changed by the hair, whether it be by the texture or that hair inherently moves. I was particularly excited by this in the piece “Grow That Out, But Shave That Off” where I screen printed my text with hair dye. This allowed the freedom for the hair to move once the dye was washed out and for the text to have the potential to be obscured by the hair moving or being touched, but also have the possibility of returning to its place and therefore a legible state to be read. These don’t work for all the pieces however, the nature of screen printed ink means that if disturbed the message will likely be lost. The ponytail explores this inclusion of the viewer and touch by asking you to interact with the hair in order to read the text behind. The words are a list of where you can find hair as it exists both on and off of ourselves and how our attitudes on hair and its beauty change depending on its location.

FM: The Victorians made woven or stitched keepsakes from their dead loved ones hair, could these relics relate to your contemporary work?

Kellee:  Yes, I find this fascinating and how some of these practices are still carried on today. For example my mother kept both mine and my sister’s first haircuts. There is just some ponytails in envelopes floating around a drawer in my parent’s house. The works of that time period are truly wonderful and so detailed, the craft is incredible and I can’t wrap my head around it quite. I also read that some would even ground up the hair and make it into a kind of paint for art works. These are definitely works that I am in conversation with, specifically in “Combed Windswept” and  “A Keepsake” which is titled such as a comment on these traditions and some that still continue as mentioned above with my parents. I also like how hair can be an intentional keepsake as the Victorians case, but also an unintentional keepsake. Seeing a hair that is not our own on our clothing or a pillow can call a memory and in a way is a keepsake as it too calls a memory of its owner, which is by nature the definition of a keepsake. It is also interesting how the Victorians chose this part of the body as that which should be harvested and made into art to memorialize someone’s memory. It makes sense as it can be easily removed and lasts much longer than our bodies, but I also wonder if it puts added value to hair at the time and did any of that fuel how we see hair now. Also interesting how if someone today collected the deceased hair and made it into an art work would it be perceived differently as opposed to a time when this was common practice. It is pretty incredible how much art has been made using human hair since the Victorians and how those works manifest today. This question has me thinking a lot too about how in Victorian times, their hair collecting was out of loss of a loved one and memory and I wonder how this narrative changes when I place in the context of my own pieces. The hair is not from a deceased loved one and I have no memories attached to it personally. Perhaps “A Keepsake”, presented as a sort of brooch (which is one way that Victorians made their hair art) and “Combed Windswept”, presented as earrings, is commenting on our society's perceived death of mine and other’s  femininity or youth in chopping our hair short. Additionally, I am really out to question what hair on the body is meant to be seen and where and with the pants, brooch, and earrings (along with other future iterations) I hope to question, or altogether get rid of, the notion of where hair should and should not be on the body.

FM: What is your philosophy of life?

Kellee: I grew up in a family that didn’t speak much of any faith or doctrine. My only advice as a rule to live by from my parents was simple: “Be a good person and treat others the way you would want to be treated.” That has served me well. I feel I am here for a reason and my goal being to learn as much as possible from others and to share myself with others and to experience humanity and my humanness.

FM: Would you describe your perspective/lens as feminist?

Kellee:  Yes and I think this particular body of work that I am currently doing is putting that in the forefront.

FM: Can you discuss your journey into the LGBTQ+ community.

Kellee:  I came out when I was about 20 years old. I am very grateful to be surrounded by super supportive and loving family and friends, so when I told them, nothing changed, I was still loved and my relationships with those people only got stronger.

When I came out, there wasn’t a very large or diverse queer community in my small town, so I found myself going to events in larger cities near me like Sacramento and San Francisco. The people I have met, the great friends I have made, and the experiences I have had helped me to know others and to know my authentic and true self. I feel like being a part of the LGBTQ+ community really brought me out of myself and most importantly has taught me that I don’t need to fit into certain norms that we as a society have constructed. I can wear my leg hair and armpit hair, have an androgenous wardrobe, not wear make-up, cut my hair short, and still be feminine. Gender is so fluid and some days I feel masculine, some days I feel feminine, some days I feel neither. At the end of the day I’m Kellee, I go by she/her/hers pronouns, and I’m a person.

FM: How does your work attempt to cross the barriers between us all globally? Or what is your purpose/mission?

Kellee: My purpose and/or mission with my current work surrounding hair and the upcoming artist book is to make connections through shared personal experiences, to question our constructed norms and relationships around hair on the body, gender, and femininity. I hope to elicit more conversations about this topic whether that be inward or outward and to ultimately further promote body positivity with the acknowledgement and visibility of body hair.

FM: What are you working on at the moment?

Kellee: I am working on translating my explorations of printing on hair and my body hair pants into an artist book edition due to be released on May 1, 2020.

FM: Where can we find you and your most recent work?

Kellee: My website is www.kelleemorgado.com which I will be updating soon with my recent hair works. Otherwise, my Instagram @kelleemorgado has posts of finished works as well as works in progress.

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Interview and portraits by Frances Melhop