About the book CONEY ISLAND AWAKES!
“In this warmhearted and imaginative tale, Janet Morgan shares her experience of Coney Island during the Covid-19 pandemic. Beautifully illustrated, Coney Island Awakes is a story of birth and renewal, and gives voice to the People’s Playground’s most iconic landmarks—old and new”. - Lisa Schaefer, Curator at the Coney Island Museum.
“Congrats to all the readers who discover this wonderful book and get to share in the magic that is Coney Island.” - Dennis Vourderis, co-owner Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park
“I purchased this and it is fabulous. For those of you who know Children's Literature , I think this one will survive the test of time. It reminds me of Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel in the way the rides come to life.” - Terry Boal Leinbach
“Coney Island: the landmarks, the sea, the place, trusts Morgan and speaks to her. She shares this with the reader in word and image.” - Marie Roberts, Banner Painter Coney Island USA
“This incredible artsy graphic fairytale is sure to be reread again and again at bedtime. Thirty three loose and playful drawings of 21st Century Coney Island depict the famed playground of NYC during the unprecedented Covid Quarantine when the rides went silent and the beach seemed deserted. In the fog and the mist of both Covid and seafoam, Artist/Author Janet Morgan begins to hear the voice of a lonely landmarked Parachute Jump wanting to chat and tell a story , the story of a Phoenix arising. The Phoenix is both the name of Coney Island’s newest rollercoaster as well as the neighborhood’s latest reincarnation as a summertime destination. Once the old and newest rides reopen the laughs and screams return.” - Dick Zigun, Founder, Coney Island USA
ON EVERYTHING ELSE
“Morgan’s images display our own felt electricity, the crackling auras and fields that we know for sure are there, not just from new scientific sensors, but from the way our bodies so often feel. We are not only stardust, but wild patterned energy, dust devils swirling through space for just a time. “ - Kim Stanley Robinson, award winning science fiction author.
“I believe Death Valley National Park was one of the blessed parks to have allowed you guys to capture its best.’ - J.T. Reynolds, Superintendent of Death Valley National Park.
“Morgan's Supreme Beings confront us with the soul of our beliefs, images of the Imageless, visions of the Invisible, nomenclatures of the Unnamable!” - Judith Malina, Co-founder of the Living Theatre
“Janet Morgan captures the vibrant flowing dance of the universe no matter the subject she paints . Divinity can be felt in every stroke ....all comes alive with emotion ,and beauty in all its forms entrances the viewer." - Jehan Kamal, artist, dancer, singer, writer extraordinaire.
“Janet Morgan's spiritualist expressionist paintings glow with the touch and truth of a web weaving, nature loving Goddess.” - Alex Grey, the Visionary Artist
“Morgan’s pictures seem to be x-rays or perhaps portraitures of the body with arcing vector fields of hidden stories revealing the pathways of flowing transformative energy from another dimension. Also there is a sense that the artist, as meta-physician, is channeling past and future existential information guiding toward a meta-physical spiritual diagnosis.” - Artists John Sims
“Janet Morgan joyfully reveals the colorful life forces dancing in, around and through what we’ve underestimated by simply calling it our ‘body.’ She expands our vision for ourselves with new identities of who we actually are by illuminating our ever-dynamic Self and its beautifully complex energetic relationships.” --Michael S. Schneider is the author of “A Beginner’s Guide To Constructing The Universe”
“Janet Morgan's new body energy images map the flows in and around us, the energies of life itself.”
-Amina Eagle, Omega Institute Core Staff and art curator of the institute.
"There are any number of artists who portray, with great veracity, the features of the landscapes around us. Janet is one of a very few who convey, with stirring luminosity, the vivid textures of our primal relationship with place and the wonders of those landscapes mirrored within us. “ -Rowland Russell, writer, ecologist
On the Death Valley Art Cards: "These are beautiful works evocative of the great beauty of our land." - Ken Burns, director of “National Parks, America's Best Idea”
“Her large watercolors with their bright colors and sweeping bold strokes uplift you to a place of joy and enlightenment.”
- Helen-Ann Brown, Curator of Exhibitions Weill Cornell Medical Library
“I love your paintings! I am a belly dancer and teacher…Your painting The Possessed really captured the trancelike, ecstasy that is felt when you give yourself to the dance...any dance.” - Harika, actress, dancer, teacher
“I can’t tell you how many compliments I’ve received on your work, and how well it’s helped in bringing attention to our modest production (of the play Shivaree)” - Jean Parker on The Long Sleeve Dancer, Oakland University, Department of Music, Theatre & Dance
“Your work is full of passion, energy that jumps up and grabs you, the feeling is almost bigger than life. Janet, what I get from your work is this great positive energy with a unique style of mystique and mythology, the colors are so loud and playful, you have no fears and no intimidations. Your characters burn and ache in ecstasy but all in celebration.” - Grace Ramirez, Public Art for Public Schools, New York City Board of Education
“The Drinker of Transformations presides over a huge fireplace in my hexagonal house. She is calm and I never tire of her. She could be almost any ethnic background, which makes her a possible kin to everyone who comes here for musical soirees and pot luck gatherings and to visit. I made an overhead from the slide of her and use it at the beginning of many of my workshops, just to have something beautiful on the screen as people walk in.” - Charlotte Kasl, Author of “If The Buddha Dated”
“The unique subject matter of Janet's paintings brings the pantheon of deities into the contemporary realm. Her renderings continue to delight and amaze me; the sheer volume of work represented in them astonishes and inspires me. The titles of their Aspects often make me laugh as they pluck a string of everyday life.” - Loren Polans, artists and collector
“Hers is a vision of a sloe-eyed odalisque, foreign and exotic with its roots in Manet and Matisse. Morgan’s paintings are decorative, patterned and sensual. She uses watercolor to all its advantage, in some passages loose and suggestive, in others dense and vibrant. The figure is the critical element, spilling out of the composition, directly drawn, engaging the viewer, demanding attention.” - Janet Braun-Reinitz, The Ithaca Journal
“Janet Morgan's exotic and mystical art captures the intense passionate movement, spirituality, and grace of belly dance. We feel the dancer's longing for union with Divinity. Other works evoke a sense of serenity. To meditate on the undulating explosions of color and line inspires a gratitude for the mysterious Spirit behind her expressive work. I am honored to have been a subject for her brush.” - Jehan Kamal, dancer, producer, musician
“She's such an Expressionist! Such an animated, vibrant rendering.”
- Michelle Cohen, Public Art for Public Schools, New York City Board of Education, current curator of the Capitol Building, Washington, DC
“I really enjoyed your opening! Having your paintings and dancers in the same space, so they could be experienced together was very exciting. I enjoyed Willow a lot, I had never seen her before. She is so graceful. And it blew me away to see Serpentessa, I felt we were rewriting Genesis, which seems to be a good idea!” -Susanna Plotnick – graphic novelist and dancer
From a Review of The Mask Of Medusa, a book of poetry by Sheryl St. Germain:
“These poems are accompanied by artwork by Janet Morgan. These bold line drawings look like woodcuts. Stylized, suggestive of repressed power and internal violence, these illustrations do a good deal to communicate the spirit of the poetry. Their curves and flowing lines underscore the seamless images of this provocative collection. - Vortex: A Critical Review
“Your artwork is just mesmerizing!” -Zenaide, Middle Eastern Dancer and Teacher
“Just wanted to let you know that the folks who work on our production, cover and layout are absolutely floored by your art and would like to choose something to use for a cover.” - Whole Terrain Magazine, Antioch College, Keene, New Hampshire
“I just wanted to say that I thought you gave a wonderful and inspiring presentation yesterday at Tabla Rasa Gallery. Both the PowerPoint, the music (especially Jehan - I just came from her website) and the dancing were intriguing, entertaining, and a fascinating introduction to the world of belly dancing. It think its very unique that you have devoted / integrated multiple aspects of your career into the same realm too.” -Kevin Wallace
“Your paintings never cease to amaze me.... :) “ - Denise Cavaliere, dancer
“You're more sexy with each passing year, a model of feminine pulchritude, and an Amazon of goddess proportions, Xena, Sheena, Aphrodite, and Wonder Woman, all rolled into o-one... And your art's really good, too”. - Alki Steriopoulos, musician extraordinaire
“I have enjoyed visiting your websites. And since I have been especially interested in Antarctica recently, because of my stepdaughter Elise's residence there, I was excited by Janet's Antarctica landscapes. I always considered watercolor the most difficult medium - it is incorrigible; each touch of the brush has to be final. I loved the journey along that icy coast with Janet from the comfort of my desk.” -Inea Bushnaq, scholar of Arab folktales
“Gorgeous! Thank you! I LOOOOVEEEE your self-portraits! “ Linda Gnat Mullen, Reiki Master
“Fabulous, dynamic Dionysian energy, Janet! It’s a perfect image-scape of the enflamed Ino._ – Linda Rapuano of Noyes Dance
“And even more, thank you so very, very much for the art. It will find a place of honor in our house and remind me each time I see it of how our searches for something more than transience leads us to bounce our creativity off each other and with each collision, sparks are created. Thank you for sharing your fire with me.” - Peter Samelson, Magician
“No matter how your watercolors look to you, you have given yourself a spring-like transparent New Year's presence.” - Zois Shuttie, Painter