sketch by REE MORTON, 1974
from the book The Mating Habits o f Lines,
Sketchbooks and Notebooks of Ree Morton (2000)

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In the late 1960s REE MORTON abandoned a secure middle-class existence as a nurse, wife and mother of three in order to pursue artmaking and created a remarkable body of work in less than a decade, before dying in a car accident in 1977, at the age of forty-one.

Spontaneous, personal and direct, she used words and sentences, situations and topographies and transformed these into playful installations drawings, paintings or objects:  She was one of the artists who gave us permission to take the specific events of our lives and directly transmute them into art. There is a ritual quality to her work that makes it appear as if she were creating memorials to certain experiences, and to the people and places she loved. – CAROL DIEHL

The Mating Habits of Lines – Sketchbooks and Notebooks of Ree Morton (2000) – an outstanding publication about the written material the artist left behind – is a must for long time fans or those fresh into her work!