Meet Connie Morgan | Neon Tube Bender

We had the good fortune of connecting with Connie Morgan and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Connie, as a parent, what have you done for you children that you feel has had the most significant impact?
I am a single mother to two boys, Griffin 15 and Angus 18. I have been their sole provider for over six years now and it has been a wild ride to say the least. I think the biggest thing I have done to impact my children is to show them that a person can change if they work hard enough and want it badly enough. Telling someone that this is the way I am and never putting in effort is a quick path to loneliness. I have worked really hard on myself to become a better communicator with my children and learning to step away when it is necessary. I have also tried my best to model how to follow through with tasks and to never give up. That no matter what happens to them in life, most problems and difficulties can be worked out. My kids and I have been through some really tough situations but at the end of the day we love each other so much and that is really all that matters. The world needs more love.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

When people call me an artist I get super uncomfortable because I have always thought of myself as an artisan. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an artisan as “a worker who practices a trade or a handicraft”. I don’t make art for the sake of art, rather I practice a trade that requires many, many hours of being in the fires all the time and being able to take critiques from better benders than you. I have been working at my craft for 26 years and I am still learning from people with more experience and those with even less experience. I am open to constructive criticism and new ways to bend neon glass because I do not by any means have it all figured out!

I got to where I am today because of the lessons my parents taught me at a very young age. I learned how to have grit and a strong fortitude to never give up. No, it was not always easy, but anything worth doing rarely is. I would not have wanted it to be easy because people who have an easy life are not interesting. I overcame the challenges by being tough when I needed to be and allowing myself to be weak when it was necessary so I could come back stronger. Some of the most important lessons I have learned along the way are to keep my trusted circle small, don’t overextend myself on projects, value myself and my trade, and to charge what I am worth.

What I want people to know about me is that I never give up no matter how the deck is stacked against me. I am too stubborn to not see things through to the end.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
This is a great question! I LOVE living in Wyoming and my favorite thing to do is go exploring the wilderness. If my best friend was visiting I would take them to Casper Mountain for a 10 mile early morning mountain biking session on the hiking/biking trails then to Eggington’s for breakfast. After that we would hit the road to head to Thermopolis to soak in the mineral springs and explore the area’s petroglyph sites. I am a very active person who doesn’t like to sit around much so most of the days would look something like that. Casper has a lot of great hangouts, breweries like Frontier Brewing, coffee shops such as Metro Coffee, and museums like the Casper Trails Center, we could surely keep ourselves busy for a week!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My first shoutout would be reserved for myself. I don’t say that arrogantly, but I mean it wholeheartedly. I am a driven and disciplined person and I have been that way my entire life. That would naturally lead to my parents for my second shout out. I am the youngest of five children with a 14 year age gap between myself and the oldest. By the time I was a teenager my parents were already grandparents and they had a different way of looking at the world than my peers’ parents. My dad didn’t tolerate bullshit or whiners and because of that I learned to help myself and figure out problems when they would arise. My mom and dad taught me discipline by showing me grit and tenacity and how to have a constitution to forge ahead in the face of adversity. I am forever grateful to them both for that gift. When I was a young adult I didn’t see it that way because I would become complacent but through counseling and raising my own children I began to understand why my parents were hard on me. Their old fashioned ways have helped keep me grounded in this world that seems to do nothing but enable us to be helped and therefore become dependent. If it wasn’t for my mom and dad I would not be where I am today.

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Image Credits
Connie Morgan