| POMONA, Calif. —
There's no steeple out front, no rows of pews inside,
not even so much as a crucifix on display.
Still, this cramped little art studio in the middle of
what, until not very long ago, was a street with as many
broken dreams as it has potholes, is the closest thing
to paradise Father Bill Moore has found. It's the place
where the 60-year-old Catholic priest serves God by creating
abstract paintings that he sells by the hundreds.
No ordinary preacher, Father Bill, as he's known throughout
Pomona's fledgling arts district, long ago discarded his
clerical collar in favor of a painter's smock. Only on
Sundays does he trade it for holy vestments to deliver
Mass at a local church or one of several detention facilities
for youthful offenders.
All other times Moore is head of the Ministry of the
Arts for the West Coast branch of his religious order,
the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. His job is to serve
God by painting whatever comes to mind.
"That's Bill's gift, his talent, and we have to
support that," says Father Donal McCarthy, who is
the order's West Coast provincial and Moore's superior.
"When you've got a creative person, you shouldn't
stifle that creativity."
Leaders of the order, founded more than 200 years ago
in France, know of no other member whose only mission
has been to paint. But then Moore, a child of the '60s
who can quote the words of Jim Morrison, Bruce Springsteen
and Jesus Christ with equal facility, has been a barrier-breaker
since he ignored his provincial's order his freshman year
of college to study either philosophy or theology. He
majored in art instead.
"The next year, a letter came from the provincial
saying all the students are now encouraged to major in
subjects of their choice. I thought that was very cool,"
Moore recalls with a smile as he sits in the lobby of
his modest studio sipping coffee. A copy of underground
comic-book artist R. Crumb's "The Book of Genesis"
sits on the coffee table and works by Japanese artist
Kazumi Tanaka (a personal favorite) are displayed here
and there.
Since early childhood, Moore says, he knew he had the
calling - to be a painter. The call to be a priest came
later.
"I was doing little abstract paintings when I was
a little boy, like around 8, 9 years old," Moore
recalls.
"My grandmother would just think they were the greatest
things," he continues with a laugh. "The rest
of the members of my family, they were, ahh, kind of more
like art critics."
Not that the art world has been all that harsh on him.
Moore's works, which are often compared to those of abstract
expressionist Mark Rothko, sell for more than $5,000 apiece,
and he has been the subject of frequent shows at galleries
throughout the Southwest. Any profits he makes from those
shows go directly to his order.
"His work, as abstract as it is, has a definite
spiritual quality to it," says Fenton Moore, who
is curating a Moore exhibition that opened Dec. 24 at
the Galerie Zuger in Santa Fe, N.M. "It could be
that it comes more from his heart than what you feel from
other abstract artists. Or it could also be because he's
just a very religious person."
Although he once worked in a realistic style, doing figures
and landscapes, Moore decided a dozen years ago that abstract
expressionism would be his language.
That has caused some consternation among his order, like
the time he was commissioned to do the stained-glass windows
for St. Anne's Church in Kaneohe, Hawaii, and proposed
a series of abstract works.
"The pastor there said, 'That's not going to happen,'"
Moore recalled with a laugh. So he reverted to a traditional
style for that work, as he did for a recent commissioned
painting of Father Damien, patron saint of Hawaii, who
was a member of Moore's order when he went to live among
the lepers of Hawaii's Molokai island in the 1800s.
But when he works in his studio, Moore approaches each
new project with no specific plan. Working with acrylic
paints, he lets his ideas flow spontaneously onto canvas,
then adds bits of metal, glass or other discarded, seemingly
worthless materials to each painting. They represent redemption,
a central theme in his order's belief that God's love
is unconditional.
It's that approach, combined with his intricate brush
skills, that makes his art so appealing, says fellow painter
A.S. Ashley.
"I think the hard contrasts between the light areas
and the colored fields are very striking and they draw
you in," Ashley says. "And then, as you get
closer, you see not only the textures but also some of
the intimate details that exist within them."
Moore, who was ordained in 1975, spent much of his career
as a traditional Catholic priest who happened to paint.
That changed in 1998 when his superiors created the Ministry
of the Arts.
Soon he had moved into a studio in a century-old building
in this hardscrabble town 30 miles east of Los Angeles.
He secluded himself in a rundown industrial neighborhood
that was just beginning to reinvent itself as an arts
district.
He still lives there, with his cat, in a cramped loft
behind his work space. For entertainment he occasionally
tunes in an ancient TV that requires hanging a coat hanger
on its rabbit-ear antenna to pull in a local news channel.
But he doesn't mind.
"I don't know what it is to be really wealthy, but
I feel so rich," he says, rubbing his hands together
enthusiastically. "I get up in the morning and I
do what I love to do."
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Father Bill Moore: http://www.frbillmoore.com/
Galerie Zuger: http://galeriezuger.homestead.com/
The Associated Press
|
(These Photos) taken Oct. 29, 2009 shows Father Bill
Moore touching one of his pieces of art , in his studio
at the Pomona Arts Colony in Pomona, Calif., is head of
the Ministry of the Arts for the West Coast branch of
his religious order, the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
His job is to serve God by painting whatever comes to
mind. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
- AP |