Under A Silver Moon— Notes from the Studio
- Kristen Dorsey
- Apr 6
- 2 min read
"Day Is Done" sold before the show opened. I'd had an email from a collector named Stephen Smith expressing interest, and I let him know the painting would be at the Wilmington Art Association's Winter Show at Gallery Citrine. He showed up on drop-off day. I got the call while the work was still being hung.
That painting — a brown pelican on a piling, gold leaf sun behind him, watercolor on canvas — had been an experiment I wasn't sure about. Gold leaf felt like a risk. It turned out to be the thing that made the painting alive in a way I hadn't expected, the way the leaf caught light differently depending on where you stood.
After that, I wanted to try silver. Gold leaf has warmth, a kind of ancient weight to it. Silver is cooler and more mysterious, and I kept thinking about which subject would earn it. Not every painting wants metal on it. The wrong combination feels costumey, decorative for its own sake, and that's not what I'm after.
I waited.
Kate Magill Walters, a photographer here in Southport, posted an image of a boat-tailed grackle perched on a metal pole with a full moon rising behind him. I'd been thinking about grackles for a while — they're dismissed birds, noisy and iridescent and everywhere, which means most people have stopped seeing them. But catch one in the right light, and the feathers shift from black to green to purple, a whole spectrum living inside what looks like nothing at first glance. The moon in Kate's photograph was exactly the shape and placement I'd been turning over in my mind.
That was the painting.
I worked in watercolor on prepared canvas. The eye first, always — until it looks back at me, I don't know if the painting is alive. Then, the body, built up in layers, the iridescent feathers suggested with mica pigments glazed over the watercolor. The silver leaf moon came last. The leaf goes down with adhesive, the metal leaf sheets are laid down and burnished, and what remains has a texture you can't replicate any other way — slightly irregular, catching light at its own angles.
The result is a painting that changes depending on where you stand and how the light is moving. Which is, I think, the most honest thing I can say about a grackle.
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