Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
Many forms of folk art have become traditions in Appalachia – weaving, quilting, woodworking and slate painting. The latter has been the art of choice for Ravens-wood artist Mary Jo Moore for more than 40 years.
Originally from a small town near Clarksburg, Moore moved to Ravens-wood to be a middle school music teacher.
During her 32 years of teaching students to find the musician within them, Moore unleashed her own creativity with paint.
“I was interested in painting when I was younger,” she said. “My husband bought me a set of oil paints for Christmas, so I started with that. A lady in Ravenswood gave lessons, so I worked with her for two years and she was a really good teacher.”
Moore began painting on canvas but, one day, her teacher did a lesson on slate painting and the spark was ignited.
“She brought one to class and I thought, ‘oh my gosh, this is great,’” Moore said. “Then I started doing shows years ago. I did seven or eight art shows around West Virginia.”
Moore and her husband, Dave, have a cabin at Droop Mountain and during visits to the area, they met local artists, including members of the Pocahontas County Artisans Co-op.
Moore joined the co-op about 15 years ago and has had success selling her slate paintings. She is also a member of Tamarack, where her slates are a big hit.
While Moore is the painter, Dave helps her with sourcing and cutting slates, as well as adding a protective coat on the paintings to weatherize them.
“When I finish the design, he will put a final coating on it,” Moore said. “A lot of people use them outside for a welcome slate.”
A lot of the slate Moore uses has been salvaged from old buildings, but she also purchases slate when she is running low.
“We used to take the slate off of old roofs,” she said. “My husband had to scrub them, water them down and brush them down to get all the dirt off them. They were really messy. That was a difficult thing.
“Then we started getting the slates from a company that is in the business of making slates,” she added.
Moore thought the roofing slates were pretty, but she said they also took a lot more work to prepare them for paintings.
Once the slates are ready, Moore gets set up in her painting studio at her house and uses both oil and acrylic paint to make beautiful and whimsical paintings.
She does a variety of subjects with scenery being her favorite. She does seasonal paintings, such as snowmen for winter and flowers for spring and summer, as well as college-themed scenes for Marshall University and West Virginia University fans.
“Sometimes I mix up three different kinds of paint in each color,” she said. “There’s a trick to it. The scenery is probably my favorite. It is sometimes the most difficult to do.”
With more than four decades of painting under her belt, Moore said she may be slowing down a bit, but she isn’t done sharing her artwork with the world.
“I’m eighty-two years old,” she said. “We stopped going to shows. It’s getting a little hard to do it because [the slates] are so heavy. It was a lot of fun, but it was a lot of work.”
