Morgan’s formal art education began at the Memphis College of Art where she focused on drawing. She also studied interior design and ultimately earned a BFA in Woodworking and Furniture Design from the University of Arkansas Little Rock. She was a Core Fellow at the Penland School of Craft from 2015-2017 where she worked with renowned artists and designers and studied techniques ranging from chainsaw carving to metalwork to neon tube bending. In 2018, she was an ITE Windgate Fellow at the Center for Art in Wood, and in 2022, she was awarded the Chrysalis Award by the James Renwick Alliance. Her work is carried in galleries across the US and internationally. She creates her work at Treats Studios in Spruce Pine, NC, a studio cooperative she co-founded.
Morgan Hill
she/her
Spruce Pine, NC, USA
“Morgan Hill is a sculptor and jewelry designer whose work draws on a wide range of aesthetic and conceptual influences from 90’s pop culture, campy cinema, and costume design to her Southern, Christian upbringing and experiences as the only female child in an extended family of farmers in Arkansas. Her longing to break the silence surrounding culturally censured topics drives her to create work on themes of illness, abuse, depression, and suicide, as well as their counterparts of rebirth, healing, and empowerment. On the lighter side, her jewelry brand Bad Habits by Morgan Hill celebrates the pleasure of excess and indulged desires.”
How does your work relate to the theme connection?
“Growing up in Arkansas, I modeled myself after the women in my life. It was important to me to make thoughtful choices about who I would be and how I would present myself. I balanced between making choices based on the external expectations I felt from others and the expressions I knew I carried within.
Challenges and profound transformation have prompted me to grapple with, mourn, and celebrate my evolving identity. With this change has come intentionality.
These brooch forms echo the costume jewelry my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother wore. These pieces are more than just adornments—they symbolize the resilient, unbreakable bonds between the women in my family. Their influence remains with me daily, visible in how I dress and how I carry myself. While my voice is distinct, it carries echoes of theirs, woven into my being."
"Ornament 1", Walnut, 22k gold leaf, resin, copper, 6" x 3.6" x .7", 2022 
NYCJW24 @ UrbanGlass, Francely Flores
“Connection is considered with everything I create—whether my work is created to or is created about connecting with strangers, my family, or even myself. In my work, I’m constantly considering how each piece interacts with the body, the wall, the space, or the floor. Beyond that, I’m always thinking about how the pieces relate to one another, whether they occupy the same space or are physically linked together."
What role does connection play in your creative process?
NYCJW24 @ UrbanGlass, Simon Leung
"My queerness influences all parts of my life, even when it isn’t immediately visible. It has connected me to individuals and communities that have profoundly shaped who I am, while also helping to strengthen my identity. It has been a source of both resilience and spiritual guidance, offering light in moments of pain—pain that, in some ways, is also intertwined with my queerness."
What connection(s) does your queerness make to the world around you?
"Ornament 2", Walnut, 22k gold leaf, brass, copper, steel, resin 5.125" x 2.5" x .75", 2022Anything else you would like to share about this work?
This can be an important part of the process, sourcing materials, or research.
“Some of this work is hand carved wood, scorched, and layered in resin."
"Ornament 3", Walnut, 22k gold leaf, sterling silver, paint, copper, steel Larger piece 3" x 2.125" x .625", smaller pin 2" x 2" x .625", 2022
[queerphoria]v4 @ ECU Symposium
