a promise in paintings serene landscape By Marimar McNaughton Crossing the Figure Eight Island swing bridge feels like driv-ing into a Mary Rountree Moore painting. Through the wind-shield, the savannah marsh sprawls in all directions the way her marsh paintings expand across the interior walls of private homes, art galleries and, more recently, hospital waiting rooms. “It has been the source of my inspiration for many, many years,” Moore says. “I continue to photograph it and paint it. It’s just embedded in my creative process.” Moore crosses the swing bridge as she comes and goes from her family’s home in Chapel Hill to its island retreat on the North Carolina coast. “Figure Eight is a place I enjoy with my family and friends, but when I’m there by myself I paint from the back deck. I paint en plein air anywhere. In this case it’s on the deck.” Moore speaks from Chapel Hill where she keeps a studio, separate from her home. The rehabilitated two-car garage is partially shaded by a mature tree canopy, surrounded by mani-cured lawns. “Two years ago I added onto it, updated it; it’s a great spot,” she says. The Chapel Hill studio is an oasis in an urban landscape and a startling contrast to the makeshift outdoor studio on the back deck of her north end island home looking across the marsh and the Intracoastal Waterway toward the mainland. “It doesn’t matter how many times I photograph it, I always see something different,” she says. For her the changing seasons are not articulated in the colors of leaves but rather by Moore’s return to the marsh at all times of year to capture its essence, dramatic sunsets and storms, in oil paint, sometimes textured with oil crayons, on canvas and board. Mary Rountree Moore in her Chapel Hill studio with Happiness Abides, 36 x 48 inches, oil on canvas. The painting on the easel is Brilliant Morning, 12 x 12 inches, oil on canvas, on the back deck of her Figure Eight Island home. 52 WBM september 2014
2014-9
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