Morgan Walker was born and spent his early life in rural Louisiana. His mother left off the study of English Literature with one year remaining on a scholarship to Sophie Newcomb College to marry his father, a rodeo cowboy who raised Brahman-cross cattle and later became a pioneer catfish farmer. His maternal grandfather, a lifelong Shriner, took him to any carnivals and circuses that passed through the parish. The paternal grandfather for whom he was named was a small-town businessman and farmer (cotton, sugarcane, oranges) with a distinctive wooden leg. His grandmother was a well-known breeder of show horses, dairy cattle, and rhesus monkeys. Morgan’s great-grandparents include a distiller of undocumented spirits, two Confederate soldiers, a French Quarter shopkeeper, and a professional fortune-teller who roamed Louisiana and East Texas in a horse-drawn wagon. After an early education in the cattle and catfish businesses he was sent away to study philosophy and law. It was during this period that he studied with the Chinese painter I-Hsiung Ju and worked as a line-handler on the Mississippi River (Port of New Orleans), heavy equipment operator in a gravel mine, and other professions including cook, bartender, and meat cutter. As a Fulbright Fellow (Fine Art) to the United Kingdom he spent significant time working in London, as did his brother D.H. Walker (film) and uncle Lestarjet Martin (architecture). This family peculiarity has never been adequately explained. Originally arriving in Oregon after traversing the North American continent by bicycle, he settled here to paint, raise a family, and play the ukulele.