Staff Pick: Drew Baron
Hey, y’all! I’m Drew Baron, the executive producer and content strategist at the Columbia Museum of Art. I help lead our communications department at the museum, so my job is often a little different every day, from producing and editing the museum’s Binder podcast, working with our curatorial and education teams to create digital educational content like our multimedia gallery tours, and even helping create social media posts like the one you are seeing right here. I’ve been at the museum for 10 years now, so I’ve had a lot of opportunity to get to know many of the works in the CMA Collection. It’s hard to pick a single "favorite" piece, but I’d love to tell you about a painting I often return to and admire.
Moonlight by Ralph Albert Blakelock is one of the smaller paintings located in Gallery 15. Nestled among epic and bright landscapes and seascapes, this subtle and contemplative painting may feel a little underwhelming by comparison, but it is the quiet and intimate nature of this work that keeps me coming back. I wasn’t aware of Blakelock before working at the CMA, but after seeing his painting here I’ve had the good fortune to see several more of his paintings at other museums throughout the country. His work is often easily recognizable due to his recurring use of silhouetted trees backlit by the glow of a full moon. In many ways, I feel like Blakelock is somewhat of a kindred spirit to myself. In the label for this painting, it says he ‘found himself emotionally obsessed with the visual poetry of darkness.’ I share this obsession. There is something about the transformation of the world around us at night, the abstraction of familiar places into shapes engulfed by gradients of shadow, that I find truly beautiful.
It's not only Blakelock’s aesthetic that draws me in — this painting also fills me with a deep sense of nostalgia. It reminds me of my teenage years growing up in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, staying out late at night sitting by a river or marsh surrounded by the sound of cicadas and the gentle tide lit only by the moon and our other celestial neighbors. I didn’t appreciate how good I had it back then, but I’m grateful that I can visit this piece at any time and be transported (if only metaphorically) back to a time when the only things that could take me away from the peaceful serenity of night were the rising sun or my impending curfew.
