Nantucket Art

Artist

Your Name
Dan Moran

Website
http://dan-moran.fineartamerica.com/

How or when did you first “discover” Art? 
I’ve been drawing all my life, since before I could read or write..

Name one of your greatest creative influences and why?
Gustav Dore did a lot for me, in terms of both style and subject. I’ve always been steeped in Romanticism and enjoy melancholy, brooding images. His work also reassured me that mediums using lines (drawing, etchng, engraving) can really be used to fill a page just as much as paint or charcoal.
 
What made you decide to become an Artist?
My art is something that comes from me without decision, as raw expression. I’ve always been an artist; I’ve just never done much with my art in a commercial sense, because when it comes from me it is not for that purpose. That being said, I do sometimes see things that I like to draw from life (like many things in Nantucket), and sometimes I try to share/sell this sort of art, which comes from a different place in me.

What are you currently working on?
I’m working on some horror images (one of my oldest specialties), which I hope to have ready for a musical/artistic event next Halloween in the Boston area. I’m also working on some images of Julius Caesar, some of them inspired by vivid dreams.

What is the most rewarding thing about being an Artist?
Just doing the art. I love being in the zone, the singular kind of creative trance that comes over me. I also love the idea that I have this gift, that I can be like a doorway through which things enter our world by means of my pen. My creative powers are not just the most rewarding aspect of being an artist, but are the most rewarding aspect of ! being alive and human.

What is the hardest thing about being an Artist?
Much of my art deals with subjects that are not widely favored (dark, frim, horror, metaphysics), and this pretty much precludes me showing it in most venues (a lot of places just want to hang decoration for sale, rather than art). The other hard part is how terribly expensive it is to frame pieces and make them presentable for sharing with the public.

Briefly describe your studio.
I’ve never had a real studio. I just sit on a couch or at a desk at home (and through the years, some of my “homes” have been very sketchy, no pun intended), or wherever I am. My current home is a house I share with my wife, and it’s big enough for us each to have our own offices. My office is dark–blinds pulled down and taped to the windowsills, black cloth hanging over that. Most available wallspace is covered with bookshelves that are crammed to bursting. I also have a lot of little items here and there, like skulls, an hourglass, candles, some swords, etc. It looks a little like my idea of where the narrator in Poe’s “The Raven” is sitting (no fireplace, though).

What is in your CD player when you work?
First, I’ll say that I’m old school and still listen to cassette tapes. About half the time it’s some kind of dark metal (Slayer’s my favorite), and the other half of the time it’s books on tape (usually non-fiction: history or philosophy), my favorite being the six cassettes (9 hours) of John Keegan’s “The First World War.” This books relaxes me, and I’ve listened to it so many times that one of the cassettes is actually worn out and won’t play.
 
What is the last exhibition you saw?
It’s been a little while–I think it was a photography show with a nude figure theme. I was one of the models.

How does Nantucket inspire your work?
It’s the history ! that I love. A lot of Nantucket imagery these days focuses on the sunny, touristy, vacation aspect of the place, like sunny beaches or flowers in window boxes. But for me, Nantucket is hoary with age and sea salt, a place of narrow, crooked lanes and shadowed alleys, of dense fog and mystery, of weathered shingles and the weathered faces of grim sea captains. I see the old, haunting, black-and-white version of the island, and it speaks loudly to my soul.
 
How do you relax when not working?
Usually by reading–mostly history, or other non-fiction. I especially love reading old, musty, out-of-print books. I also downhill ski, sail, and fence.

All work copyright Dan Moran