<p>Staff photo by E.J. Harris Jenny Morgan uses manicure scissors and dexterity to create her artwork from plain pieces of paper.</p>

A paper cut is a good thing in Jenny Morgan’s world.

The Pendleton artist transforms blank pieces of paper into intricate scenes and designs, using only a tiny pair of manicure scissors. Manual dexterity coupled with imaginative design is Morgan’s recipe for compelling art.

Nineteen of Morgan’s pieces hang inside the Betty Feves Memorial Gallery at Blue Mountain Community College through April 17. One of them contains no images. Rather, Morgan snipped away at one piece of paper for more than two weeks recreating one of Prospero’s speeches in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.”

One tiny misplaced snip in the 81-word soliloquy could have ruined hours of toil and trouble. Since she had drawn the design on the paper’s white backing, the cursive letters appeared backward like mirror writing. After painstakingly fashioning each word, Morgan had the Prospero speech memorized.

Other pieces in the exhibit are nature scenes, cityscapes and Shakespeare-inspired images. One piece is personal, depicting Morgan’s memory of herself and friends on a covered porch experiencing a lightning and thunderstorm. She depicted the revelers reaching out to catch the rain.

“It was one of those magic moments,” she said. “I wanted to capture that.”

She carefully cut out each raindrop.

Another is a nature collage with hidden letters spelling “JUMP.” Nervous about her show, she had decided to fearlessly jump right in. As she thought about it, Van Halen’s “Jump” came to mind and she decided to incorporate the word into a design. To see the four letters running down the left side, one must look carefully. A mirror image runs down the other side.

Morgan’s obsession with paper cutting started in New Mexico where she worked at a resort called Ghost Ranch. Artist Elzbieta Kaleta taught a class on Polish paper cutting, which Morgan attended. She was hooked, though she called her first attempt “pretty awful.” The class opened Morgan’s eyes to the world of paper cutting, an art traditionally done with sheep shears.

The Shakespeare influence comes from Morgan’s time living in England, a short bus ride from the playwright’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon.

“I love the language of Shakespeare,” she said.

Two other pieces beside the Prospero speech were inspired by the Bard. One features the main couples in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — Oberon and Titania, Lysander and Hermia, and Demetrius and Helena.

Morgan works as a vault teller at Banner Bank, so she doesn’t have all day to practice her art. To get ready for the BMCC show, she cut regularly into the wee hours. Ignoring her husband Kit’s concerns about lack of sleep, she settled each night onto a stool by the fireplace in her living room. Often, she was still there at 2 a.m., cutting and listening to the television. Occasionally, she must fend off one of the family’s four cats. By the time she stops for the night, tiny pieces of paper litter the carpet.

On the Sunday before her show, Morgan woke up and got to work while still in her pajamas, ready to “knock out the final piece.” She finished at 3 the next morning.

“My husband worries about me,” she said, with a grin.

Occasionally, Morgan accidentally cuts where she shouldn’t. Instead of despairing, she incorporates the mistake into a new creation.

“You modify your design,” she said.

The Pendleton Center for the Arts regularly sells Morgan’s work in the Pendleton Foundation Trust Fine Craft Gallery. Arts center director Roberta Lavadour is a huge fan of Morgan. Lavadour said Morgan possesses spatial skills, design sense, vision and the technical dexterity that allows her to work accurately hour after hour with tiny scissors rather than cutting flat with a hobbyist-style utility knife.

“She has a technique and a style that is totally different,” Lavadour said. “It gives her work such a warm character.”

Morgan was featured on March 22, along with some other Pendleton artists and musicians, on the Oregon Public Broadcasting show “State of Wonder.”

Contact Kathy Aney at kaney@eastoregonian.com or call 541-966-0810.

This story originally appeared in East Oregonian.