Some lives seem to run in straight lines—from youth to maturity—guiding an individual’s efforts, aspirations, and talents in a single-minded direction toward specific, unchanging goals. “Such was not the case in my life,” author, Patrick Morelli, admits. “It seems as though my entire life has been a serendipitous adventure which appeared chaotic and unpredictable in each period but suddenly assumed logic and coherence, almost a fateful providence, when viewed in the retrospective of age and experience.”

Born in 1945 in Syracuse, New York, the son of a steelworker father and a farm- and-factory working mother and housewife, Morelli is a graduate of Duke and Syracuse Universities, and an Exhibiting Member of the National Arts Club. Morelli first directed his career efforts towards teaching literature in a university which he did for one year after graduating from Duke University Graduate School with an M.A. specializing in twentieth century American literature. After one year of teaching and disenchanted with the pedantic nature of academic life Morelli worked as an account representative for Prudential Steamship Lines in Manhattan’s newly constructed World Trade Center. His interest in corporate life waned quickly and, at the age of thirty-two, Morelli resigned from his high-paying and glamorous job working with major American corporations, dining aboard ships from South America and the Mediterranean, and began working as a sculptor in his studio in the Tribeca section of Manhattan, waiting on tables (many, many tables) to survive while perfecting his craft and marketing his work.

In the next twenty years Morelli accomplished what few artists accomplish—the creation of two major American works of public art that have been recognized worldwide as among the most beautiful, inspiring, and culturally-significant monuments in American culture.

The first monument was the ten-foot, bronze, father-and-infant Behold monument, dedicated to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for “His moral courage and nobility of spirit.”

Behold was unveiled by Mrs. Coretta Scott King in 1990 overlooking Dr. King’s tomb at the King National Historic Site in Atlanta, Georgia. “I believe,” Mrs. King wrote to the artist, “that the ‘BEHOLD’ statue is an appropriate recognition of the common struggle of all Black people in our nation to achieve the full status and blessing of first class citizenship and freedom from decades and generations of oppression.” Recognized by the New York Times as one of the “civil rights memorials that made America” Behold is viewed annually by over 750,000 American and foreign visitors and worldwide in numerous published books, websites, magazines, and televised documentaries. A separate casting of the Behold infant bronze sculpture is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. “The Behold project was one of the most personally and artistically rewarding projects one could hope to experience,” the artist says. “My working on this monumental tribute to Dr. King with Mrs. King; ‘Daddy’ King, Martin’s father; the King Family children; and major participants in the American Civil Rights movement gave me a profound appreciation for the courage, sacrifice, and dedication that thousands of people in the Movement, Black and White, exhibited in advancing the cause of human rights and social justice in the United States and around the world.”

The second major memorial, The Eagle Rock September 11th Memorial, designed and created by Morelli and dedicated on October 20, 2002, was commissioned by Essex County, New Jersey and budgeted for $1,250,000. The memorial, sited on a high promontory in West Orange, New Jersey, overlooks the former site of the Twin Towers and includes a 160-foot granite Wall of Remembrance on which are etched the names, ages, and hometowns or foreign countries of the over 2900 people who perished in the September 11th terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the four airline flights. The memorial is viewed, annually, by over 100,000 American and foreign visitors and is now under review by the National Park Service for designation as a National Historic Site. “To begin to understand the immense personal suffering and gravity of the September 11th attacks,” Morelli says, “as well as the utter senselessness of terrorism, one has only to view the 2900 names and ages on the Wall of Remembrance– innocent men, women, and children of all faiths, races, and ethnic backgrounds– or to stand at the memorial and speak, in person, to family members and friends who visit to reflect on the loss of a loved one.”

To view Morelli’s monuments, sculptures, paintings, and architectural designs or to schedule a Meet the Artist presentation for a university, company, church, or seminar log onto the artist’s visual arts website, www.MorelliART.com.

Two years ago Morelli turned his creative efforts towards writing fiction—both comic and serious—a life-long love of literature and creative writing that he always wanted to pursue but which was always interrupted by major commissions for monumental public memorials and private collections (he counts his blessings) and the exceedingly difficult work and amount of time needed to design, construct, cast, and install these works of art.

The first fruit of his literary endeavors is The Doodle Letters, a humorous and touching comic novel about the adventures of a naïve and emotionally-vulnerable teenage boy, Lester Doodle, who escapes from a mental institution in upstate New York and flees to Manhattan to find freedom and inner peace. The story, told in epistolary letter form between Lester and his doting mother, Gertrude Doodle, who resides with her husband in the fictional upstate town of East Canolysville, gave the author numerous opportunities to express and to develop social satire, comic situations, eccentric characters, and the ingenuous exploration of universal human themes based on years of observations and experiences with his own family and the people of upstate New York all mixed with a Manhattan sensibility–or “insensibility” as the author jokingly describes it–gained from thirty years of experience as an artist and writer living in Manhattan.

Morelli is, presently, outlining and writing two comic novels in The Doodle Letters trilogy to be completed and published in the Fall of 2011 and the Spring of 2012. The Doodle Letters II: Escape from New York City will follow the adventures of Lester Doodle, his best friend, Louie Garibaldi, and his girlfriend, Princess Perdida, as they flee New York City to escape from Big Daddy, a brutal pimp who escaped from a penitentiary vowing revenge for the three cohorts he is convinced were responsible for his arrest and imprisonment. Their perilous and adventure-filled trip will take them south along the East Coast with unplanned stops in Washington, D.C., and other cities and towns along the way, as they seek to fulfill their long-time wish to visit Disney World in Orlando, Florida where Lester intends to propose marriage to Perdida. The third installment in the trilogy, The Doodle Letters III: New York Yankees in King Arthur’s Court takes Lester, Louie, and Perdida (now Mrs. Lester Doodle) to London to see the Queen and the Palace Guards, to sneak into as many competitive events as they can in the summer Olympic Games hosted by England, and to visit Perdida’s “royal” parents in Lucasa who she has not seen in over three years since coming to America as a frightened thirteen-year old girl looking for the same personal security and freedom from fear that her young husband, Lester, had been seeking all his life.

The first in a second series of novels, The Adventures of Amerigo, will be published in the Spring of 2013. Adventures follows the intriguing and daring adventures and explorations of three teenage friends, Vincent Ferlinghetti, and brother-and sister, Amerigo and Maria Vespucci, who live and play in a strange and enchanted tract of land, a one-million acre private estate known as the Land of Vespucci, in which they encounter beautiful and dangerous characters and adventures as they explore the million acres of vast, uncharted forests, mountains, rivers, and caves of the Vespucci Estate buried deeply within the Adirondack Mountain region of Upstate New York.

As far as his literary ambitions and goals are concerned Morelli says, “My hope is that my writing will exhibit the universality and timelessness of great literature and the humor and comic insight into human nature appreciated by readers of all ages, educational levels, and backgrounds.”

When asked who are the great writers he admires most he answers without hesitation, “Joseph Conrad for the challenging complexity of his storytelling and his superb ability to ‘paint’ a vivid picture of characters and dramatic scenes using only the written word; and Mark Twain and Joseph Heller for their humor, humanity, and comic insights into the foibles, frailties, and absurdities of human nature as each plays out his or her various roles in the human comedy.”

Morelli has always enjoyed playing sports and remembers the thrill of competition in playing on two, Christian Brothers Academy championship football teams in Syracuse; a NCAA small college championship baseball team for LeMoyne College competing for a regional championship in two games played in the original Yankee Stadium; and placing sixth in the East Coast Karate Championships at the Manhattan Center while a graduate student at Duke University. (Who says English majors are wusses?)

Morelli’s greatest joy is his marriage to Amy Wiles of Skaneateles, New York and their raising of their daughter, Gabriella, the absolute joy of his life. (the latter relationship subject to endless changes and adjustments, of course, as is the case with all parent/child relationships).

In addition to his present literary efforts Morelli volunteers much of his time to supporting the educational programs and Casa Israel senior home facilities of the North Ward Center in Newark, New Jersey; the work of the Joseph and Elda Coccia Center at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey; the mentoring of art and creative writing students at Siena College in Latham, New York; and the work of the Calandra Institute in Manhattan in developing educational programs and mass media entertainment and documentary productions and publications.

To view Morelli’s monuments, sculptures, paintings, and architectural designs or to schedule a Meet the Artist presentation for a university, company, church, or seminar log onto the artist’s visual arts website,

www.MorelliART.com.