Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Moran.
Hi Mary, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I learned to love painting from my grandmother. She was a phenomenal painter. When I would go visit her as a little girl she would dress me up in a warn smock (her husband’s old white dress shirts) and we would paint with oils in her back yard. She would say, “oh the painting looks like a Monet” and I would feel so proud of my painting. For a brief time I went to Hollins University in Virginia and I mostly took art classes. I would load my easel onto my back with paints tucked away, and I would climb the hills around the college and paint the lush green fields and deep blue skies.
As I moved forward in my life, I went to culinary school and graduated, and for the last 20 years I’ve been food styling and I’m currently the Resident Chef at Traditional Home Magazine. I meticulously design and create food for editorial. It is my passion.
The pandemic hit, and I found myself as a teacher, mother, home cook and sadly my profession got put on the back burner. I began baking bread and painting.
In the last couple of years, I started taking a weekly art class, but over the pandemic, I found myself painting daily for as many hours as I could find in a day to relieve the stress and the pressure of the situation.
My inspiration and focus is and was food. As a chef and food stylist, I look at food differently than most. I see the lines, contours, ridges, blemishes and most importantly the beauty.
Sitting in the salon chair of my favorite hairstylist Troy Zestos, he mentioned that he wanted to have a new art show, and in that moment, I knew I needed to continue to push myself. Thus my Savor Summer Show was created. I painted large and small-scale paintings with acrylic of foods most prevalent in summer.
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