From a promising dancer to a passionate potter whose life took an unforeseen path due to a medical challenge, Morgan McCarver's tale is a profound illustration of faith, adaptability, and finding beauty in life's intricate molding process.

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Morgan McCarver, whose expertise as a potter uniquely positions her to understand the metaphor of God as the ultimate artist, shares her story of losing dance to scoliosis and finding her calling in the clay. Her narrative transposes the themes of flexibility and resilience into the framework of ceramics and Christianity. We learn about her education, her struggles and triumphs, her move to Asheville, NC, and her eventual authorship of "God the Artist," a book that explores the parallels between crafting pottery and God's work in shaping our lives.

Key Takeaways

• Morgan's personal journey demonstrates how unexpected life events can lead to discovering new passions and paths.
• The metaphor of God as a potter artfully intertwines with Morgan's life and serves as a central theme in her book.
• McCarver's struggle with scoliosis and the ensuing life changes underscore the importance of faith and adaptability.
• Transitioning from dance to pottery provided Morgan with a new medium to express creativity and pursue a career.
• Morgan McCarver's book "God the Artist" is a testament to her unique perspective on pottery and spirituality intertwined.

LINKS & RESOURCES

Visit Morgan's Website

Buy Morgan's book: God the Artist

Follow/ Message Morgan on Instagram

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TODAY'S AWESOME GUEST

MORGAN McCARVER

Morgan McCarver is an embodiment of grace under pressure. A talented potter and insightful author, she intertwines her profound faith with her artistry to create pieces that reflect life's complexities and beauties. Growing up in a devout Christian household in South Carolina, Morgan’s early dreams of dance took a dramatic turn with a scoliosis diagnosis. This led her to pottery, where she found not just a new passion but a way to communicate her journey of faith, adaptability, and resilience. Her book, "God the Artist," and her ceramics business are testaments to her belief in the transformative power of faith and art.

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0:00:32 - (Kevin Lowe): And chances are it's probably not going to go in the direction we're thinking at this point either, because, well, that's just life. Today I'm sitting down with Morgan McCarver, a woman who is the author of a book called God the Artist. Morgan, she's an artist herself. Matter of fact, she's a potter. But that's not where she started, and that certainly wasn't her plan. No, Morgan, she was a dancer and darn good at it. Until, of course, life took her in a different direction.

0:01:48 - (Kevin Lowe): My friend, I welcome you to episode 270. Let's dive in. What's up, my friend? And welcome to Grit, grace and inspiration. I am your host, Kevin Lowe. 20 years ago, I awoke from a life saving surgery, only to find that I was left completely blind. And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself. And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you.

0:02:51 - (Kevin Lowe): And that's exactly why I'm inviting you to download my brand new, totally free and may I say, quite awesome personal development tracker. It's called rise and thrive because, baby, that is what you are ready to do in life. All you have to do is text the word rise. R-I-S-E rise to 33 seven seven. Yes. Just grab your phone and text the word rise to 33 seven seven seven. And I'm going to get you information into how you can download this awesome new tracker and be on your way to becoming the best version of you.

0:04:12 - (Morgan McCarver): Yes, it was really a traumatic experience going from, I was a dancer at the time, so a very athletic person doing very bendy type physical activities. And then all of that was really taken away from me when I had that scoliosis surgery. And so that's really when my faith started to become my own. And I was really praying not to have the surgery. But that's not the story that God gave me. But through that, he enabled me to find my passion for pottery. And that has really kind of shaped the rest of my life. I ended up going to school for it, and I have a degree in ceramics, and now I have my own business.

0:05:05 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. God does work in mysterious ways, that is for certain. Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about dance. What kind of dance did you do? When did you get started on that? Because I know, I mean, you were really good at dance.

0:05:57 - (Morgan McCarver): I started taking irish step dance probably around the age of six, and then pretty soon after that, I was competing. And that was really my life. I would take classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then on the weekends, I would be at different competitions with my friends. And that was my life for years, honestly, through elementary school and middle school, until I had that scoliosis surgery.

0:06:27 - (Morgan McCarver): Oh, it is its own niche in and of itself. But the dresses are so elaborate, and they are very stiff, the way they're kind of designed, because it is attributing back to irish culture and their traditional dance form. So to perform, you wear these elaborate curly haired wigs and the really fancy bedazzled dresses and white high knee socks and black shoes. It's a whole thing. But, yeah, it was so much fun.

0:07:04 - (Morgan McCarver): It is a very elaborate costume, and it seems like you are judged just as much on your costume as you are on your footwork and technique. Yeah, it was always fun going to shows and seeing different people's dresses and things.

0:07:27 - (Morgan McCarver): My mom's sister actually had it, and they found her. She was diagnosed when she was a lot younger than when they caught mine, and hers had just gotten more severe at that case. And for those who aren't familiar, basically scoliosis is a genetic type of disorder, but it really shows up when you hit a growth spurt. So for me, it was kind of that last growth spurt before high school. My spine was supposed to grow straight, and instead of growing like everybody else's, it grew from side to side. And so I had three different curves, creating what they call an s curve in my back.

0:08:28 - (Kevin Lowe): And did that not help the back braces?

0:09:15 - (Morgan McCarver): But that really wasn't the case. It just kept progressing, and the back brace wasn't really doing what it needed to, to hold it. And so they realized that as I got older, through my adult life, this was only going to be more of an issue, and my spine was only going to contort more and more as I got older.

0:09:36 - (Morgan McCarver): No, I was, and there were different rules during different times when I was wearing the back brace. Sometimes I only had to wear it at home. Sometimes I only had to wear it when I went to bed. But thankfully, I never had to wear it when I was dancing or performing. So that really didn't come into play there. And I also didn't have to wear it at school, which was really nice.

0:10:09 - (Morgan McCarver): You, I don't think I ever really realized that something so severe could potentially be where I ended up. And so when that diagnosis did happen and the doctor told us that surgery was going to have to happen, the surgery was scheduled for months out. It wasn't like an immediate thing. And so at that point, I just started praying and just begging God to heal me to make it so I wouldn't have to have the surgery. Because you hear of these amazing stories about how there's miraculous healing, and one day you have one diagnosis, and then something happens, and God has healed you in that moment, and you don't have to have whatever procedure or you're healed.

0:11:15 - (Morgan McCarver): You have to go through this surgery to get to the beauty of your testimony. And I really didn't want to listen to that voice, of course. And so for months and months, I was just praying that that wasn't going to be the outcome. And I don't think it really hit me until pre op a couple of days before that this is really happening and I can't get out of it. The doctors are still saying surgery, the x rays are not showing miraculous healing, and this is going to be what it is.

0:12:01 - (Morgan McCarver): They had told me, which also one thing about me is I've thankfully gotten better. But especially back then, medical type terminology just makes me faint. And so they'd tell me enough of what I needed to know. But I didn't know too much about the actual procedure because it seemed like every time I was in a doctor's office, I'd just be passing out. But, yeah, I was aware that the recovery process was a year long, and in that year, I wouldn't be able to bend or twist or pick anything up that was over like six to ten pounds, depending on where I was in that year and different things. So I knew the recovery was going to be rough. I don't think I was really prepared for the mental aspect of just everything. The surgery, the physical change, all of that was just such a mental.

0:13:03 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. So how old were you when you actually had the surgery?

0:13:22 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay, wow. So talk to me a little bit about recovery afterwards. What did that look like? What did life look like for you for that year?

0:14:06 - (Morgan McCarver): It meant I couldn't carry my textbooks because each textbook weighs six pounds. So I had textbooks in all of my classes. My teachers are really good about letting me leave textbooks in there. It meant that I was out of school for several weeks and I was pretty much just doing school at home until I was able to go to school. And then when I went to school, I couldn't sit at the desks that had the chair connected because that's twisting your back to get into the desk. So then I was sitting at the teacher's desk and I couldn't open the heavy school doors, so a classmate would have to open the doors for me. So that's what I talk about when I mentioned the mental things, it was all of this unwanted attention that I didn't know was going to need to be made for me and the accommodations.

0:15:14 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Wow. It's a lot. It's a lot to have to go through at any age, but especially as a teenager for you, when we are talking about your faith, it's easy for a lot of people when they go through a traumatic event, when prayers weren't answered, you had to have the surgery. A lot of people tend to turn away from God, but I gather that you did not.

0:16:27 - (Morgan McCarver): I didn't want people to know. When I met new people, I just didn't bring it up. I tried to hide it any way possible. When I bend over, I'd tried to hide any kind of straight, flat back that I had, which I can't really hide it, but there were things that I would try to do to not tell people and just fit in. And then after that decade, really looking back all through that ten years, I had been pursuing pottery and focusing on my technique, getting my degree, gaining an experience.

0:17:41 - (Morgan McCarver): No one goes from a major spinal fusion to pottery because the clay is heavy, it weighs 50 pounds, and you have to bend your back over a pottery wheel. So there's a lot of things in the studio that I have to make accommodations for myself. It's not a natural transition, but it's the story that God's given me. And seeing that and seeing him work through that just makes me want to tell everybody about it.

0:18:11 - (Morgan McCarver): It really came about when I was recovering during that summer break. I didn't have my dance friend group because I couldn't go to dance during that time. And I didn't have my school friend group because school was out. And so my mom just signed me up for a pottery class, just get me out of the house, back into civilization, just a week long kids camp. And that really was pretty much my first academic introduction into pottery.

0:19:23 - (Morgan McCarver): It was mostly retirees because they didn't really offer classes for teenagers. So I was with people 30 plus years older than me, but they were just so kind and welcoming to let me come into their space and work alongside of them and learn from them, too.

0:19:51 - (Morgan McCarver): I would definitely say that when I was starting out, handbuilding was what I was really drawn to, which is basically manipulating the clay with your hands, not necessarily using the pottery wheel, because the pottery wheel was a struggle for me just because of my physical limitations and my back. And then strength wise, my muscles had atrophied because I hadn't used them like that and I wasn't supposed to lift. So there were elements of strength that I just couldn't perform on the wheel for a while.

0:20:52 - (Kevin Lowe): It, I love it now. So you mentioned that you actually went to college and got a degree in this.

0:21:08 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. Amazing. Now, when you were in college and you're going through getting your degree and stuff, what kind of ideas did you have for after college, as far as, did you know right away, like, I want to move to a certain city, open my own studio. What were your plans, and how did those plans kind of align up to where you are today?

0:21:35 - (Kevin Lowe): Welcome to life. Yes, exactly.

0:22:13 - (Morgan McCarver): I graduated in 2019, so Covid hit a year later. Hospitality, obviously was not really what it could have been at that time. So all of these different things kind of kept interfering with what I thought my best plans were. Because, of course, all during the four years people were telling me, you can't do anything with a ceramics degree. Why are you going to school for this? Why are you wasting time and money on this?

0:23:00 - (Morgan McCarver): And then from there, like I mentioned, it was kind of in the throes of COVID the thick of it. And so I wanted to focus on my own work, get out of retail, so to speak. And that's what actually brought me to Asheville, North Carolina, to work for a potter in her studio, as her studio assistant, and really help her with her business. But also at that time, I was kind of learning what it looks like to run your own business, your own pottery business.

0:23:58 - (Kevin Lowe): I love it. Don't you sometimes feel like God's just looking down on us? It's like, oh, Morgan, if you would just listen to, stop. Stop trying to go your own way. I'm trying to show you the way. And it's truly like a parent, a father with their child, as the child, we definitely don't feel like they know the best route, and we're going to do it our way. And then eventually we realized that they were right.

0:24:30 - (Kevin Lowe): So I'm curious now, talking about when we got into the pottery and stuff, I assume I'm kind of skipping forward ways in the story, but where did the idea come to write a book?

0:25:14 - (Morgan McCarver): All of us were about to leave, and I was really looking for a devotion book that I could read about pottery and God, because I know there's so many verses in the Bible about that, and I couldn't really find what I was looking for. So in 2019, when I graduated, I began just jotting down those verses and kind of taking notes, and the Holy Spirit just kind of whispered, like, this is something you could maybe work on.

0:26:11 - (Morgan McCarver): And I thought that meant decades down the line. It'd be like a memoir or something I would write as I was retired or something, sitting in a rocking chair. And it really wasn't. It was just a couple of years later, January of 2023, I had some extra time on my hands, and the Holy Spirit just reached back out, saying that it was time to revisit that manuscript. And so I did. And also within that span of time, I had read through the Bible all the way. It took me three years, but I'd never done that before.

0:27:23 - (Morgan McCarver): So if this is really coming from you, I completely give this project to you, and it's got to be all you. And he really honored that and sent me. One publisher who reached out, said that it wasn't a yes or no, but I needed to lengthen the book. So I spent about a week and a half doing that, sent it back, and then a couple of weeks later, I got that acceptance letter, and I just know it's from the Lord. It's just been such an amazing experience.

0:28:01 - (Morgan McCarver): Yes, January 9.

0:28:08 - (Morgan McCarver): It is, yes. God the artist, revealing God's creative side through pottery.

0:28:31 - (Morgan McCarver): Of course. Basically, I say you don't have to be a Christian and you don't have to be a pottery to read God the artist. I kind of go through both as we go along, but I just start at the very beginning of pottery, talking about Clay. What is Clay? What is it made out of? How do you process it straight from the ground? The different types of clay and how that relates to the human experience of how God has made us, each specifically capable of doing very specific things.

0:29:34 - (Morgan McCarver): And my hope is that from my ceramics and christian backgrounds, I'm able to interpret these verses to allow the reader to understand a deeper meaning, not just the surface level but really unpacking these verses from understanding the techniques of pottery and kind of what that looks like. So we go through the whole process of throwing the clay on the wheel, firing it, glazing it, and then at the end do go over the potter's house, which is probably the most famous part in the Bible about pottery. So we do talk about that as well.

0:30:21 - (Morgan McCarver): Of course, pretty much. It's published traditionally, so anywhere books are sold, you can grab a hold of it. But if you go to my website, www.morganmccarver.com, I provide links there for places like Barnes Noble, Target, all those good places to go ahead and order a copy.

0:31:18 - (Morgan McCarver): That's a great question. And I love telling people about this because I grew up in upstate South Carolina, so the art scene wasn't terrible. There were different grants or competitions, things to do, but there's a guild. But it's not like Asheville, North Carolina, which is known as one of the art hubs of the south, so to speak. And so moving to Asheville, for those who don't know, it's not really advertised as Christian.

0:32:24 - (Morgan McCarver): I went to a christian school, I went to a christian college. We really didn't talk about it that much because we all thought we were on the same page, which that should be the safest space to talk about it. We should be sharing our faith and encouraging others and asking questions if we are in that space. But that was not my experience. So, moving to Asheville, I have a lot of friends who are not Christian, but I also have a lot of friends who are. And they have really challenged me in my faith. And I've grown so much in my faith because I moved to this city by myself.

0:33:31 - (Morgan McCarver): It really has challenged me in that way and has allowed me to witness to my friends who aren't Christian in a way that I didn't really get that opportunity when I was in South Carolina.

0:34:10 - (Morgan McCarver): I mean, it's completely God just giving me the grace to want to pursue him more. And there's nothing that I can do to make myself want to love him more. It's him giving me that grace to want that.

0:34:44 - (Morgan McCarver): Yeah.

0:34:46 - (Morgan McCarver): I've immediate horizon. I've got a solo exhibition coming up this spring, so I'm working towards that. And then from there, I've done a residency in blowing rock for the past two summers, so I'm hoping to be invited back this summer. So hopefully that's kind of in the works as well. I'm working on some new designs and things, so hopefully I can kind of refresh my work for the upcoming festival season that starts in the fall.

0:35:35 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I love it. I love it so much. For anybody who finds themselves in Asheville, is there a place that they can actually come, like a gallery, to see your pottery?

0:36:23 - (Morgan McCarver): And then I'm in some places in Spartanburg, like the kindred spirits, and I'm in places in Asheville, too. Figs. Anyway, so I'm kind of all over. But you can also shop my website or just message me on Instagram if you're looking for something specific. I love to take custom orders, too.

0:37:19 - (Kevin Lowe): I think your story is beautiful and such a beautiful, just testament to the plans of Jesus.

0:37:39 - (Kevin Lowe): Absolutely. Well, thank you so much and for you listening today. I hope you've enjoyed meeting Morgan as much as I have. Such an amazing woman who I can only imagine what is to come in her life. If you would like to get in touch with Morgan on Instagram for one of those custom orders or to learn about all the places you can find her art please check out today's show notes, where I will leave links to all of her information for easy access.