Paula Morin is a photographer, artist, and oral historian who for over ten years has immersed herself in the world of wild horses by reading about their evolution, behavior and development; observing and photographing them in their natural surroundings; and speaking candidly with individuals most deeply knowledgeable about them. With endorsement from the Nevada Arts Council, Paula was awarded a Rural Community Arts Assistance Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Forest Service in 1999 to explore the significance, meaning and impact of wild horses in the remote high desert. The results of her two-year creative inquiry were arranged in the critically acclaimed national touring art exhibit, Honest Horses: A Portrait of the Mustang in Nevada’s Great Basin and subsequently developed as an interdisciplinary learning component for the Nevada Touring Initiative. Raised in San Francisco, Morin graduated from Notre Dame des Victoires high school in 1962. She inherited an instinctive admiration for the horse from her father, a CBS radio broadcasting executive of French-Canadian descent. After graduating magma cum laude in art from Southern Oregon University, she pursued post-graduate work in art history and cultural anthropology at University of Arizona and Oregon State University, but eventually excused herself from academia by settling into life as a freelance photographer and field researcher. In 1992, Morin began fusing her appreciation for the cultural landscape of the American West with her affection for horses and the tradition of horsemanship alongside her accomplishments in the 19th century technique of handpainted black & white photography. Morin’s original handpainted photographic images are included in several permanent collections, including the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Wyoming, the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, and the Martin of Tours Collection of Northwest Art at Saint Martin’s College in Washington. A selection of giclee prints from the Honest Horses exhibit are also available as limited edition prints. Morin currently resides in Montana. Read more about her on her website.
