Artist and teacher Christy Spence-Moore displays versatility in exhibit at Glenn House

Christy Spence-Moore picked up the painted, contoured papier-mache mask from her kitchen table made in the likeness of her cat and stretched the attached elastic band behind her head.

It fit perfectly to her face.

She comically proceeded to talk, the bottom portion hinging perfectly with her jaw and allowing for normal conversation.

"I wasn't going to pay money for a Halloween costume if I could make one," said Spence-Moore, a third-year art teacher at Saxony Lutheran High School. "It works. My students don't like it whenever I wear it because it creeps them out. I'm not allowed to wear it in the house because it freaks out my cat."

It definitely was not a typical Halloween mask, and Spence-Moore clearly is not a typical artisan.

Christy Spence-Moore works from her home studio Wednesday.Laura Simon

She lifted a small ceramic cup on the table and turned it upside down, revealing a sculpted, painted face on the bottom.

"Sometimes I like to hide surprises," she said. "People see this and might want to pick it up, and just put a face on the bottom."

Also on display in the room were ceramic plates and bowls, an elaborate but functional pitcher, paintings, sculptures, welded figures, drawings and colorful and painstakingly patterned batiks (cloths).

Spence-Moore is to art what a Swiss army knife is to cutlery.

She draws, paints, sculpts, welds, dyes cloth, carves wood, sews, weaves, cross stitches and crochets.

Christy Spence-Moore works from her home studio Wednesday.Laura Simon

Oh, and she can also make jewelry, even bending copper pipe into a crescent shape for a tight-capped container to hold her supplies.

"I'm happiest when I'm making something," she said.

What can't she do?

"One thing that I haven't done yet and I want to learn how to do is blow glass," Spence-Moore said.

Not that she hasn't melted glass in a kiln and used it to enhance her clay sculptures. One gets the impression that if she seriously put her mind to glass blowing, it would not be long before she would be performing before tourists at Silver Dollar City.

Christy Spence-Moore works from her home studio Wednesday.Laura Simon

The many skills of the 37-year-old artist will be on display for the public from 5 to 8 p.m. today in an exhibit at the Glenn House, 325 S. Spanish St. in Cape Girardeau.

"There are some people that prefer one medium, but for as long as I can remember, I really got into it all," said Spence-Moore, a 1997 graduate of Notre Dame High School. "In high school or grade school, whatever they threw at me I just liked to make stuff out of it.

"I think what it is, is I'm attracted to the challenge. So once I feel like I've gotten to where it's easy and kind of a no-brainer, I like to switch to a different medium to keep it challenging."

Spence-Moore graduated from Southeast Missouri State University with a BFA in studio art/painting in 2005 and obtained a master's in studio art/painting in 2006 from Fontbonne University in St. Louis.

In painting, her surfaces range from small canvases to walls. She worked on the riverfront wall in Cape Girardeau and helped reconstruct the Andrew Jackson mural in uptown Jackson.

Christy Spence-Moore poses for a photo with the mask she made of her cat, Adrian, on Wednesday.Laura Simon

"I think I'd be really bored if I did only one thing," Spence-Moore said. "I notice where I kind of go in cycles. I'll work on paintings for a little bit, work on charcoal drawings, I might do some water colors, I might do some painting."

She's never sure which of her skills will be tested when she takes on a project.

"For whatever idea, there might be a medium that might be best for it," she said.

Her creations might even combine mediums. Her art degrees are with an emphasis in figurative painting and drawing, but she applies abstract impressionistic touches.

She was working on a bust of herself, but was contemplating the possibilities.

Christy Spence-Moore poses for a photo with her cat, Adrian, on Wednesday.Laura Simon

"I like to kind of mix it up a little bit," she said, looking at the unfinished head. "What would happen if I added some copper wire and maybe some pieces of metal in there? Or even some pieces of hair made from clay but they still kind of move a little bit so you can adjust it?"

It's the creativity she encourages in her students at Saxony, where she teaches two classes of art fundamentals, a painting class and an advanced portfolio class. She's taught for three years but only recently received her teaching degree.

"A lot of times people are intimidated by making art, and they shouldn't be," Spence-Moore said. "One of the things I like about working at Saxony is that I can encourage these students into not being intimated by the white canvas that is in front of them."

She held up a blank piece of paper in front of her.

"Whatever they do to this, it is going to be a heck of a lot more interesting than this. Literally, if I spat on it, it would be more interesting than just the blank canvas. I think that you don't have to have degrees to make art. I think you should just be making art just because it's part of how we're designed to do. We have to have that outlet to communicate."

She likes to facilitate that process.

"I kind of feel like I have the soul of a teacher," she said. "I like to help people communicate visually 'cause I feel like visual literacy is very important in our day and age."

Artistry runs in her family. She has two aunts who are art teachers, and she said her grandmother did "amazing painting" despite no formal schooling in the area.

Spence-Moore said her mother died when she was just 6 years old, but she's seen her work and it's inspired her to learn her mother's skills.

"My mom could make anything," Spence-Moore said. "She was a sewer. She made her own wedding dress. She would cross stitch. She would teach herself complicated crochet and knitting stitches."

Spence-Moore said when her mom died of cancer, she had an incomplete blanket she was working on, partially because the perfectionism in her required her to undo a stitch near the beginning.

"My grandma went around trying to find someone who could complete the complicated stitch and she asked everybody she knew, even went through, like, the church circles, and finally they found an Irish nun in Ireland who could do the stitch," Spence-Moore said.

As an art teacher, she contests the notion people are born with talent or can be attributed to genetics.

"Everybody starts out drawing stick figures," Spence-Moore said. "What makes a difference is that people have the perseverance of either sticking with it until it looks right or they give up too early. I think that's where the difference is. I think there's some personalities that stick with it more and have more endurance, and that's why their artwork maybe finishes better."

Spence-Moore apparently has inherited her mother's perseverance.

The proof is at the Glenn House.

jbreer@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3629

Pertinent address:

325 S. Spanish St. in Cape Girardeau, Mo.