It could be said that Ryan Moran already is an international artist, his mother Lori noted.
The 19-year-old Allen County Community College sophomore has works hanging in private collections in both Panama and Rome.
Now he is ready to take on Wichita.
Moran will be a featured artist for a month at the Artists at Old Town Gallery in Wichita, with a show from July 10 through Aug. 13.
Moran’s art is known as “mola,” an intricate paper-cutting technique based on the layered cloth molas of the Kuna Indians of Panama. He learned of it through his eighth grade art teacher, Joyce Atkinson, while a student at Iola Middle School.
The form requires careful carving through multiple layers of colored paper.
When he first began, Moran used construction paper. At Iola High School, art teacher Cecelia Orcutt warned him such paper would not hold up to time, and his mother began purchasing acid-free art paper online for his hobby.
The switch paid off in that a portfolio of Moran’s work recently was accepted at two renowned art schools: the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Ga., and the Chicago Art Institute.
Lori noted that during a portfolio review at the university of Kansas, the woman evaluating student art “just threw her hands up in he air. I thought we were out of there. But she told Ryan ‘You can go anywhere you want.’”
Savannah, as a future school for Moran, is out, Lori noted, due to the $41,000 per year tuition.
Ryan has not yet pursued potential scholarship options at Chicago Art Institute. For now, he is happy living at home and attending Allen.
Moran noted he does hope “to do something involving art — either graphic design or illustration” after college. Right now he isn’t sure which. Lori noted that “These days, it’s really hard to just get a degree in fine arts and make a living at it. And teaching doesn’t fit Ryan’s personality.”
Until then, Ryan will make his molas.
RYAN MORAN takes his talent in stride.
“Really, it all just comes out of my head,” he said.
He doesn’t plan out the designs. “I just make it up as I go.”
Ryan staples together five to eight layers of art paper. He then carves through the top layer of paper, proceeding downward as he goes.
Each geometric fraction of a piece is carved, layer by layer, before moving on to the next segment.
“I really think it would be too hard if you had to cut each layer separately” and then align them, he noted.
“I just try to keep the colors evenly spaced and contrasted.”
Besides paper, Moran goes through craft blades regularly. He can, perhaps, do three smaller pieces before the blades go dull. Larger works take more. “One of them I used five blades on,” he said.
His works range from 4 inches by 8 inches to 18 by 24 inches. All have been framed for the show.
Because of his technique, “There won’t be any two alike,” Lori said.
Ryan plans to hang 20 pieces at the Wichita gallery. An artist reception will be July 30 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Images of his art will be available, once hung, at aaotgallery.com. The gallery is at 412 E. Douglas, Suite C.
Ryan hopes to sell most of the pieces during the month-long show. “He’s basically trying to get some money for college,” his mother said.
He also has 12 molas hanging in a gallery in Alma, Mo., Lori said.
One talent he doesn’t have is titling his art. But the pieces for the gallery all must be named, he said, something he leaves to his mom.
“I set them up at the base of the television and look at them,” Lori explained.
That might take a month or more, she said.
That positioning led to one piece, completed in July 2005, being dubbed “Ryan’s Katrina.”
“In August, Hurricane Katrina hit. I had the TV on constantly. All the scenes and all the pictures of New Orleans — I started seeing that in here,” she noted of the large, green, gold, blue and violet work.
“There’s a person in here,” she said of the design. “There’s a ball diamond, a casket in the flooded cemetery, the Super Dome. My sister even saw the word ‘help’ in there. That’s freaky,” she said.
Lori admits that everyone sees something different in the pieces. That might add to their appeal.
“He has taken ribbons at every show,” he’s entered, she noted.
A first place winner from Bourbon County now hangs in the Bowlus Fine Arts Gallery, she said.
Ryan would yet like to try other media and techniques, including pastels and portraiture, he noted. Drawing, he said, “is more important. Learning to draw will make these better.”
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