Fall 2012 Issue - Colby-Sawyer College

A Passion for
Painting
Gail Constantinides Morrison ’62
Some people are lucky enough to
discover their true calling early in life.
And others are fortunate to find a
new direction when their lifelong path
has led them as far as it can. After
taking art classes in high school and at
Colby Junior College, Gail Constantinides
Morrison ’62 didn’t pick up
a paintbrush for 30 years. When she
finally did, at age 50, she found herself
anew, becoming a celebrated,
award-winning artist.
It happened in Italy. In 1992,
Morrison, still in her first career, was
in Genoa writing a marketing plan
for a new aquarium. Captivated by the
country, she began to study the
language. “I kept meeting people who
were painting,” she remembers. “I
thought, ‘I
want to do
this.’”
When her
marketing
contract
ended,
Morrison
decided to
stay, enrolling
in a
three-month
artists’
workshop
in the Tuscan hills. “I think I was
accepted because I was a woman of
a certain age, with money,” she
says, merrily.
The other participants were art
students less than half her age, but
Morrison was undeterred. After all,
she had already proven herself fearless
by traveling around the world for a
84 Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
Gail Constantinides Morrison, shown in her studio, returned to painting at age 50
and is now a well-known artist in the Cincinnati art scene.
year, in 1989, in an earlier attempt to
find her passion. When the workshop
was over, her instructor told her not to
stop painting. She hasn’t.
Returning to the States, Morrison
went to Cincinnati to visit one of
her sons. Planning to stay for six
weeks before returning to her home
in Chicago, she found a short-term
studio space in the city’s Over-the-
Rhine district. Two decades later, she
is still there, her studio part of the
Pendleton Art Center, a space that
houses more than 100 artists. Today
Morrison is a well-known artist in
the thriving Cincinnati art scene who
sells paintings and wins awards. Her
style has evolved from the plein air
Italian landscapes of her early work to
more classical, Old World still lifes.
“I constantly see techniques, application
of paint, color that I want to
explore,” she says. “It’s a singular
battle, me and the brush, very competitive
within.”
While Morrison’s output has slowed
in recent years, she still would rather
be in her studio than anywhere else.
As for Italy, to which she regularly
returned every summer for 15 years,
Morrison has not been there in a
while. Next year she plans to visit
Rome with another painter, revisiting
the country that sparked her midlife
renewal.
“I have to get my Italian fix,” she says.
— Mike Gregory