What Ripple in the Wild Means to Me

Each of us creates ripples in the world around us, no matter how small we may feel. The world may feel vast, a wild place that we can’t influence, and it can feel scary and helpless to be one human. But our ripples reach out from us and touch those around us, and in turn they create more ripples. Just like a small fish breaking the surface of a smooth lake, or a pebble dropped into a still puddle, our ripples reach out beyond their source to touch, change, and be changed by others on their journey.

This is the spirit behind Ripple in the Wild.

Ripple in the Wild began in 2018, four years before I would use the name to represent myself as an artist, as a climbing and outdoor adventure stories blog. I picked the name because I liked the double meaning, a ripple can be the physical wave pattern formed on water, but can also mean creating an effect or reaction. Wild could be the literal wild places I was traveling to and climbing in, or a metaphor for the world and being on the fringes of society.

I thought of how I felt like a small fish in a big lake of adventurers and writers, but how even one little fish can make ripples that spread across the surface of the water.

So Ripple in the Wild was born as a blog and a place to share my experiences and memories. I used it for maybe 6 months or a year before I stopped writing, distracted by some other project or job.

Yosemite Falls

Fast forward to 2022, I was rekindling my creative practice in the form of visual art and wanted to share my work online. I didn’t want to create a username that used my legal name because I knew I wanted to change that (Morgan isn’t the name I was given at birth). I needed something that could allow me to be anonymous for a while, and stick with me through any personal changes. I still owned the domain for Ripple in the Wild and it felt like the perfect fit. Creating art is, after all, creating ripples that are sent out into the wide, wild world.

Ripple in the Wild captures how I feel in this big world and how I want to make an impact with my art: not with a splash, but with a ripple. The idea that each of us can effect change in small yet meaningful ways by creating ripples around us feels more relevant every year, every day, as we move through many simultaneous crises across the world.

My art is a reaction to the world around me, it’s somewhere I go for refuge when the world feels too much, and it reminds me that there is beauty and joy even amongst suffering. With my art, I hope to create reactions in the world around me by generating feelings of joy, and of harmony and connection with nature. Whether through telling the stories of birds and their connection to the landscape, through representations of native California species and habitats, or with artwork created in the service of research and conservation to preserve nature for the future.

My art is my ambassador, going out into the world where I cannot. I send out these ripples in the hopes of reaching you.

American Avocet

 It can feel impossible to confront all the terror and pain in the world today, and can feel even more impossible to try to create positive change. But we each can create our own ripples. And better to be a pebble, a smelt, or a heron gliding gently through the water than a big boat cutting across the lake without awareness for the giant waves it makes that affect other lives in its path.

I hope that my art is a refuge not only for myself when I am making it, but also by creating moments of peace and joy in your life when you see it, when you hang it in your homes, when you share it with your friends and family. As a reminder that we have a deeper connection and a stronger loyalty to nature and our Earth than to any other system. And as a concrete catalyst for change when used for supporting important causes, be they for human or animal. These are the ripples I want to create in the world. This is Ripple in the Wild.