If these walls could talk

By Meagan Deuling, Arts Contributor

Candles lined the stairs leading to the garage, and white lights decorated the otherwise bare trees of the artist’s tiny yard. The festive sounds of clinking glasses and a mingling crowd drifted through the open back door, but I followed the candlelit path to the garage. I was greeted with the sight of two enormous, softly lit, charcoal drawings.

Halifax-based artist Stephen Moore says he wanted to show his work in his home because of the natural connection between his family and his house. “It was my grandfather’s house, and they left a residue,” he said. “Especially my grandmother.”

The life size drawing in the dining room, “If These Walls Could Talk…”, was the centrepiece of the show. The drawing depicts living and dead members of Moore’s family, some of whom he has never met or did not know well. He drew those members from photographs, and as he drew he would imagine their personality and life. This translated through the paintings. A fellow art gazer said she felt she was a part of the family. Another felt so at home she nonchalantly left her camera on the kitchen counter as she browsed the rest of the house.

The fact that the drawings are presented in the artist’s home is an integral element to the feeling of comfort present at the art show. I thought the house was part of the show itself, and as I wandered through the rooms it was as if I was wandering through the history of Moore’s family. The wooden floors were worn, and the drawings were gently lit

with old fashioned fixtures and flickering candles. The music was distant and soft, almost as if it were wafting in from the past.

It is important to Moore that the public receive a visual experience from his work, which is why his art is not for sale. “If you put a price on something people start to qualify it in a manner outside of the visual experience,” he says,. “The big piece is meant to be a public piece and not to hang over somebody’s couch.”

Moore believes that art is a language that comes through where language fails. He likes the thought of his art encouraging the public to practice this language.

Stephen Moore will present“If These Walls Could Talk…” again on Oct. 2 and 9 from 1 to 6 pm, or by appointment at 422-3082.

Photo by the author.