Creativity Q+A with Alice Moss
The outdoors comes indoors to the Lobby Gallery at the Glen Arbor Arts Center. By The Side Of The Road is a series of abstract, mixed media landscapes out of the imagination of painter Alice Moss, 67. Moss has been watching, and walking, and thinking about the roadside and woodlands of Leelanau County since the early 1960s — when her parents first visited the area. Moss’s ramblings are also a chance to source casts-off and other materials that find their way into her charming paintings. By The Side Of The Road runs September 1 – December 15; or view the exhibit here.
This interview was conducted in June 2023 by Sarah Bearup-Neal, GAAC Gallery Manager, and edited for clarity.
Pictured left: Alice Moss
Describe what you’ll be showing in your Lobby Gallery exhibit.
Abstract landscapes inspired by places I’ve been, and objects I’ve seen. And I’m calling it By The Side Of The Road because I think of that as not just what I find by the side of the road, but what you see on the side of the road when you’re driving around.
Are you working from photographs? Or, from recollections?
It’s right out of my brain. There are no photographs. Just things I see, and the shapes that impress upon me.
Why don’t you work from photographs?
I like to depart from the actual reality of it, and if I work from a photograph, then I’m trying to match the shapes and colors more closely. I want it to be more of an impression of an idea, instead of trying to make it look like what it actually is.
Is the imagery in your work reflective of what you’ve seen in your travels around Northern Michigan?
Yes. And, other places from around the world. But from Northern Michigan, I do get a lot of ideas about the horizon and landscape you’d see — the lakes, the trees, and the hills.
What do you like about the landscape from this particular part of the world?
I find it more calming than something that’s frenetic or jagged. A straight, horizon line is more soothing than something that’s vertical, or jumbled up, or zig-zag-y.
You have a home in Glen Arbor that you have called a home for more than 60 years. What’s your Northern Michigan backstory?
My parents came here when I was four [from Troy, Michigan in the 1960s], and they built a place on Lake Michigan.
You use a lot of recycled and salvaged materials in your paintings. Will these materials show up in your Lobby Gallery exhibit?
Yes. I use found objects — I don’t like to think of it as recycling because I’m not using something and then turning it into something else. It’s salvaged. The wood [in the compositions as well as framing materials] I find, some of it is from post-construction tear-downs. Or, I find it on the beach. The metals I find along the road a lot while I’m out walking. I do find it in the woods, and the forests — old cans that are rusted, and coming apart. I cut or shape or bend them. Some of the metals I use are new. I use raw copper that hasn’t been in something else previously. My daughter, who’s a chemist, has made ground copper for me, and I’ve used that in quite a few paintings.
Recently, I was in conversation with an artist who talked about finding inspiration in the cracks in the parking lot pavement at Meijer. There’s so much creative inspiration and material everywhere — if you keep your head down.
Or, looking around. Your head doesn’t need to be down. Finding things in the woods, you have to be observant because stuff is buried under leaves and things.
What is it about these found materials, and non-paint materials, you like to bring into your paintings?
Some of the scrap metal looks like hills or mountains or a horizon. It sparks my imagination, [trying to figure out] how it could be incorporated into a painting. Like solving a puzzle: How’s this going to go? Sometimes I’ll start the other way. I’ll have a painting, and I’ll [realize] I need something to stick right here. So I’ll look through my stash, and see if I have something. Sometimes I’ll make it work. Sometimes I have the perfect piece. One of the other, weird things I’ve used is road paint — when they stripe a road with that glue-on sticker, well those come off, and crumpled up by the edge of the road. I’ve used some of those because they have a really nice texture. I did a sailboat [composition], and the paint was the sail.
What do you want people to know when they’re looking at your work?
That I’m inspired by landscapes and the objects around us, as well as the interplay of objects and color. Certain objects connote a mood in a color. I like people to think, What could this be? What is this? It will be something different to different people. That’s the thing with abstracts: It’s whatever [the viewer] thinks … That’s why I have a hard time titling things. I don’t want to give preconceived notions. I’d like people to go in with an open mind, and see what they see, like, and think about it.
