Artist Rebecca Moran hosted a charcoal “painting” demonstration at the Silver Circle Gallery in Putnam, on Sept. 1.
Pages of charcoal studies lay spread out on a table inside the gallery. There were sticks of charcoal, erasers, paper towels, and a can of workable Fixatif. Behind the table were five recent charcoal works she had completed.
The 18-inch by 24-inch charcoals were the result of her latest artistic exploration. She created 20 works while taking a class at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, in Tennessee, this past summer.
“There’s a fine line between drawing and painting,” she said.
The demonstration was a vehicle for sharing what she learned during that two-week summer workshop.
Moran has been painting for years. She is also a graphic designer. She has an M.F.A. in visual arts from Lesley University, a M.S. in Art Education from Eastern Connecticut State University, and a B.F.A. in oil painting from the University of Connecticut. She studied graphic design at UConn and at the Rhode Island School of Design.
She is an adjunct professor at ECSU, a freelance designer, as well as an artist. Her training as a designer has taught her how to “make things look good,” she said.
“And if it doesn’t come out, I can always throw it in the garbage,” she said.
The five pieces on display showed the range of possibility that charcoal can provide. Moran considers herself an abstract and landscape painter.
“Abstractions can turn into things the viewer wants,” she said. “People want to be in the land. I want people to see the beauty of what we’ll lose if we don’t care for it.”
She aims for a visceral reaction to her work, like the one a woman had who bought a landscape for her home. The woman told Moran she’d look at it when she couldn’t walk in the woods anymore.
Moran’s piece, “Interior Mountain,” is a beautiful amalgamation of subtle marks, darks and whites, smudges and lines, curves and textures. For her, it is a representation of the glorious vistas along the Blue Ridge Parkway, the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains she drove through to attend the workshop.
She paid dearly for the feat. She drove down and back, taking almost four days to complete the trip. Doctors eventually discovered a blood clot in her leg, a condition exacerbated by the long trip.
She pointed to a piece called “Poison Wood.” Rounded shapes inside of other rounded shapes appear like blood cells inside the frame.
“That’s what’s going on here,” she said.
Moran uses the techniques she has honed over a lifetime to let the work evolve. She tries to create an experience of space and architectural design.
“You don’t want to force the work,” she said. “You don’t want to impose your view on it. You have to allow the image to come forward.”
That kind of work ethic requires a certain kind of courage and faith in the process.
“You need time to be reflective,” she added.
Moran showed how she first had to learn the kind of “vocabulary” charcoal could provide. She made marks, smudges, and lines with the charcoal. She smeared the charcoal for effect. Once she developed a language of mark making, she used it to create her paintings.
Jean Marie Paradis found the work inspiring.
“When people make things with their hands, it vibrates in a room,” she said. “It lifts us up.”
For more information, go to www.silvercirclegallery.com or http://rebeccajmoran.com.
