Darlene Moore wore a multicolored dress, painted with strings of lime and forest greens, hot pink, and hints of orange and black for one recent meeting. Pinned on her right shoulder was a yellow and pink fabric flower. Moore embodied a painting much like that of her unique art style. 

A former pastor for Camphor Memorial United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge, a published writer and artist, Moore uses mixed media collage and acrylic. A longtime resident of North Baton Rouge, she seeks community connection whenever she can. 

Her community often inspires her art.

“Normally it starts with me,” she said of her artistic process. “I have a little sketchbook that is just paper and pen, and I’ll kinda just see some drawings that God will inspire in my heart or from a scene that I’ve seen, and I’ll kind of sketch it out, and I may even write some words creatively by it.”

For the past two decades, Moore has been fiercely dedicated to the North Baton Rouge art community.  In 2005, Moore was named the Ambassador of the Year for New and Emerging Artists by the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge. Her art was previously selected to hang in former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s office. The Arts Council also selected her for two grants, which enabled her to host creative workshops at middle schools and at the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired. 

A small exhibit at the Carver Branch Library highlights Moore’s work. She was joined there recently by her friend and frequent collaborator, Randell Henry, distinguished by his handlebar mustache, colored silver-white, extending to each side of his face. Even motionless, his eyes sprouted lines at their corners, suggesting a decorated past of vibrant facial expressions. 

Henry, who is from New Orleans, is a professor of art and curator of the Southern University Visual Arts Gallery and has been part of the arts community in Baton Rouge for over 40 years. He completed his undergraduate degree at Southern University and attended Louisiana State University for his master’s in fine arts. His art style relies on paint, graphic media, and his own uniquely made pieces used to create collages. 

Selected works from his collection have been shown in exhibitions across Baton Rouge, the Art Copenhagen in Denmark, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the University of Science and Technology in Ghana, to name a few. 

The inspiration for Henry’s art lies in his love for libraries.

“I started my career off in libraries,” he said. “In a library at my elementary school and then at my junior high school, I was one who went to search for the art books, reading about artists, and looking up artworks and just learning all I can about art.” 

Moore and Henry often join forces to share their creativity with others. 

Henry recalls one moment while hosting a workshop at a nursing home, where residents initially insisted that they were too old to make art.

“Finally they came to sit with us and started making artwork. The lady, 90-something years old, started dappling on the paint like this [he mimics the gesture with his hands], and she got really into it and was having fun painting. A man tried to make artwork. All of a sudden it was time for us to leave, but we couldn’t get them to put the brushes down.” 

Moore also reflects on her work in penal facilities.

“We go in and when you find people who really have a heart to re-enter society and give their gifts outside of the system,” Moore said. “The system tries to stifle that, and they do it ongoingly, and so it’s so to discourage.” 

Each artist finds that art can move hearts and minds in unexpected corners of communities.There are no bounds to the impact that creativity can have.

“I’ve been a pastor and still an elder in full connection in the Methodist church, an artist and a writer,” Moore said. “I never knew or was expected to be in anybody’s box or limited by gifts that God gives to help communities and families be strong.”

Henry ties the impact of the arts to an intimate moment that he says was life-defining – when he saw Pablo Picasso’s 1937 oil painting, “Guernica”, in person. As he stood in front of the 12-feet tall by 26-feet long painting, he said, he felt like the only person in the world. 

“I want everybody to see artworks and be inspired by it,” Henry said. “Picasso made a painting, ‘Guernica,’ hoping that painting can stop wars. Look at the creativity in that painting. Every world president should stand in front of that painting and look at it.” 

With this moment in mind, Henry encourages others to use art to come closer to each other and their communities. 

Community can be found through art, where opportunities for learning and connection flourish. Moore notes. “Young can learn from the old, old can learn from the young, and we have to take time to have conversation. We have to have time to collaborate. We have to have time to listen, and so we don’t know it all. We’re always learning.” 

Moving forward, Moore’s and Henry’s indelible influence in the art world will not cease. Moore’s art is set to appear in the Glassell Gallery in a coming exhibition, “FELT,” at downtown Baton Rouge’s Shaw Center for the Arts. The show is set to run from July 12 until Aug. 23. 

Henry’s next art showing will be at the Arts Council Gallery of Greater Baton Rouge beginning in September.

With each art exhibition, both artists continue to inspire others and invite others to contribute to the evolving Baton Rouge art scene. 

This story was reported and written by a student with the support of the non-profit Louisiana Collegiate News Collaborative, an LSU-led coalition of eight universities funded by the Henry Luce and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur foundations.