Clarie Moran’s path to graduation has been strewn with academic laurels. But for the Iola High School senior — one of this year’s valedictorians — it’s the art that counts.
In March, Moran was selected to show an oil painting, “Sizzling Bacon,” at the State Capitol, and, in April, the 4.0 student took best in show at the Pioneer League Art Show for a watercolor called “Chinatown.”
“Chinatown” grew out of a trip Moran and her family took to Chicago’s South Side last summer.
“I was taking a bunch of pictures there,” remembers Moran, “and ended up using a photograph I took of some silk robes and made the watercolor from that.” Another work in the show, drawn from the same batch of Chinatown slides, is a charcoal drawing showing a tank full of crabs. “I’m always taking photos of stuff and always looking for more source material.”
Where her peers might have been satisfied parking their vacation slides on Instagram, Moran’s compulsion to process the real world through her art is a tendency that reaches back to her youth.
“During church, when I was really young,” remembers Moran, “my mom always had me draw stuff, to keep me occupied.”
It’s appropriate that Moran’s mother, Lori, features in this formative memory. Moran’s family must be one of the few clans where not going into the arts constitutes the greater rebellion. “Everyone on my mom’s side of the family is artistic,” says Moran. “They either play an instrument or do art.” Her great-uncle taught art in Iola. So did her great-aunt. Her uncle in Wisconsin taught art. And her brother, currently a student at Emporia State University, is scheduled to do the same.
“So,” says Moran, grinning, “I might be teaching art someday, too. I don’t know.” In the meantime, she’ll be attending Allen Community College for a year, starting in the fall, and then transferring to either the University of Kansas or Emporia.
As with so many of her classmates, Moran can’t promise she’ll return to Iola to make her life after college, but she’s in no way indifferent to the features of her hometown that shaped her. One in particular.
“I’ve been involved with the Bowlus [Fine Arts Center] since I was probably 4,” reflects Moran. “I had dance recitals there, I had my orchestra concerts there” — Moran is an accomplished cellist, who plays with the Iola Area Symphony — “and then, of course, my art was always there.”
Moran’s personality, of course, includes facets more diverse than her passion for the arts. In fact, as befits a student of her intellectual luster, Moran lists her years in Scholar’s Bowl — especially the team’s third-place finish at state last year — as the chief highlight of her IHS years. She loves music, her tastes running from classical to classic rock. And she works part-time at the Iola library and will continue in that role past graduation.
But she’s wise enough, even at 18, to know not to turn away from her talents, to know that the ability to depict her imaginative life on canvas is a gift not afforded everyone.
And so, as for her plans immediately following graduation, Moran doesn’t pause: “I’ll have more free time again, of course. So, probably, I’ll be doing more art.”
