Deanna Morse

Morse graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in telecommunicative arts and distributed studies in 1972. She received an M.A. in film and teaching at Goddard College, and in 1992 received a Master of Fine Arts (art and technology), with a merit scholarship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1995, she was awarded an outstanding alumni award by Iowa State University.[11] [12]

After graduation she became an assistant editor at WGBH-TV in Boston,[13][14] and also worked as a scriptwriter for the Virginia Department of Education,[13] and on a series about desegregation for Virginia PBS. She was then hired as an artist in residence for the South Carolina Arts Commission,[13] where she taught for four years, and was filmmaker-in-schools in 1975–1976.[14][15]

She taught at the College of Charleston, at Regis College, and then at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, for thirty-three years, retiring as an Emerita Professor in 2013.[16] During her time at GVSU, she released the retrospective and interactive DVD Move Click Move in 2001[17] and used the proceeds to fund scholarships.[16] There she also created, together with some of her students, a Flash animation for the international participatory project Flag Metamorphoses[18]

Her film Lost Ground was part of the 1992 SIGGRAPH Art Show.[19] She was chair of the SIGGRAPH 1994 Art and Design Show,[20] and a juror for the art show in 1998.[21][22]

She has judged festivals and computer graphics competitions including the Hiroshima International Animation Festival[23] in Japan and the Ann Arbor Film Festival.[24]

She has published articles in Animation World Network.[25][26][27][28]

She has made several films for Sesame Street,[3][2] including Dogs (1991),[1] Monkey's T-Shirt (1991),[1][29] and Night Sounds (1992).[1][2]

Hyperallergic wrote about her 1989 animated film Plants that "The play of light, color, line, and shape can be mesmerizing ... vegetal patterns move and spin to evoke plants".[30] Plants was also reviewed by the Chicago Reader, which noted that she " ... creates still-life portraits of flowers using rudimentary (but then-sophisticated) computer drawing tools".[31]

• 1993 - Named a distinguished professor by the Michigan Association of Governing Boards of State Universities.[32]
• 1995 - Outstanding Alumni Award from Iowa State University[33]
• 2002 - Addy Award for Move Click Move DVD[34]
• 2003 - Omni Award for Move Click Move DVD[35]
• 2005 - Selected as an outstanding woman in the arts by the YWCA[36]
• 2015 - Hyperion Award, 9th Eclipse Awards honoring Michigan's filmmakers and television creators[37]
• Honored in the Plaza of Heroines at Carrie Chapman Catt Hall at Iowa State University.[38]

• Giannalberto Bendazzi: ANIMATION: A World History, Volume 3, Contemporary Times, 2015. P. 46: Women in the Limelight, Deanna Morse[1]
• Karen Sullivan, Kate Alexander, Aubry Mintz and Ellen Besen: Ideas for the Animated Short: Finding and Building Stories, Focal Press, 2013, pages 139–141[2]
• Juliet Davis: Review of MOVE-CLICK-MOVE by Deanna Morse, Journal of Film and Video, winter 2006.[3]
• Pilling, Jayne, ed: Women and Animation: a Compendium. British Film Institute, 1992. ISBN 0-85170-377-1
• Russett, Robert; Starr, Cecile: Experimental Animation, origins of a new art. Da Capo Press, New York, N.Y., 1988. ISBN 0306803143 (p. 22-23)

• Official website
• Animations by Deanna Morse on her YouTube channel
• The Film-Makers' Coop - Deanna Morse