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Mark Morrison's Photography at Chamber of commerce and Wellstar Douglas

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PRESS RELEASE:

June 4, 2008

For immediate release:
Through August 8, 2008                                         For more information:
Laura Lieberman 770/949-2787
  

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE – Photographs of Waterfalls by Mark Morrison Displayed at Chamber of Commerce and WellStar Hospital

                                                                                         

Douglasville, Georgia – The Cultural Arts Council of Douglasville/Douglas County presents recent works by Douglas County-based photographer and author Mark Morrison at the Douglas County Chamber of Commerce and WellStar Douglas Hospital in its summer outreach exhibitions this year. The works on display include digital photographs of waterfalls located in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and North and South Carolina as well as two images from Utah of desert scenes. The exhibitions, which are free and open to the general public, open June 5th and will be on view through September 12th. 
            An avid hiker as well as an accomplished photographer, Mark Morrison has lived in Douglas County for 30 years. A former surveyor, he has authored four books on waterfall hiking in the Southeast including Waterfall Walks and Drives in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee and Waterfall Walk and Drives in the Great Smoky Mountains and the Western Carolinas, and is currently work on his fifth volume, due for publication this summer.  In the past 20 years, Morrison has visited more than 500 waterfalls. His waterfall odyssey had an unlikely beginning, the result of his visiting and taking photographs in Mt. Zion National Park in the desert Southwest. With distant trips unaffordable more than once a year, he began exploring the Appalachians and their beautiful waterfalls, while he began to learn about the art of landscape photography. More than 50 digital portraits of these unique sites, each with its own character, water formation and flow, rock formations and natural setting, are included in the current exhibitions. Morrison captures the beauty of often uncharted sites as well as better known cascades; he writes: “Each one is faceted differently. Some have a beauty that is big and bold, others have delicate and subtle characteristics. Common natural occurrences: rock, wood and water attain their highest form when they come together as a waterfall. People who can’t agree on anything else, seem to always agree on the beauty of a waterfall.”  From Little River Falls in Alabama and Courthouse Falls in North Carolina to Laurel Falls in Tennessee and Yellow Branch Falls in South Carolina, Morrison’s photographs quench our thirst for beauty and tweak our curiosity about how and where to find such beautiful natural places, questions answered in Morrison’s well-organized and informative guides to locating most of the Southeast’s best known and many little visited waterfalls.  In addition to his photographs, Morrison’s books, published in 1992, 1994, 1999 and 2001, include maps, wildflower lists for each site, detailed hiking advisories, and tips of when and how to photograph each waterway.

            Awestruck by what the great explorer called “this truly and sublimely grand object,” Meriwether Lewis upon seeing the Great Falls of the Missouri in 1805 wrote, “To gaze on the sublimely grand spectacle, forms the grandest sight I ever held. Irregular and projecting rock below, receive the water in its passage down, and breaks it into a perfect white foam which assumes a thousand forms in a moment.”  According to CAC director Laura Lieberman, “These exhibitions are intended to offer viewers a refreshing reminder of the aesthetic power of water as well as acknowledgement of its value as an essential commodity as we face drought again this summer in Georgia. Although the exhibiting photographer advises his readers and viewers that the best time to hike to waterfalls in the Southeast is during the winter, we hope the displays of his beautiful prints inspire a cooling respite during the long, hot summer months.”
The Cultural Arts Council has developed its highly successful community outreach exhibitions initiative, “Art on Loan,” over the past four years. Working with Diamond Level Sponsors like WellStar Health Systems and the new American Red Cross facility on Riverside Drive, the CAC offers seasonal shows of works from its permanent collection and by local artists to the general public in places where the art is unexpected and much enjoyed. The shows at the Chamber of Commerce present the only regularly scheduled visual arts exhibits in historic downtown Douglasville.
The mission of the Cultural Arts Council of Douglasville/Douglas County is to nurture, guide and stimulate the enjoyment of and participation in the arts among Douglas County residents by providing an atmosphere conducive to the arts, broadening the spectrum of quality exhibits and performances available to the community, and fostering individual interactions with the arts through a wide range of satellite organizations. The Cultural Arts Council and its exhibitions at the Cultural Arts Center are supported by its members, sponsors, the City of Douglasville, the Douglas County Board of Commissioners, and Georgia Council for the Arts through appropriations from the State General Assembly. The GCA is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes a great nation deserves great art.
WellStar Douglas Hospital is located at 8954 Hospital Drive, and the summer exhibit is presented in the ground floor surgical waiting area foyer; the Douglas County Chamber of Commerce is located at 6658 Church Street in historic downtown Douglasville. The Cultural Arts Center of Douglasville/Douglas County is located at 8652 Campbellton Street; Douglasville is about 20 miles from Atlanta and just off I-20 west (exit 36 for the downtown historic district). The Arts Center’s hours of operation are Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays, 1 until 5 p.m. The hospital is open seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The Chamber of Commerce is open Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  For directions and more information, please contact the Cultural Arts Council at 770/949-2787 or visit our web site, www.artsdouglas.org.

www.artsdouglas.org