Michael Mosca Artist in Residence at Chatham Mills Center - Open Studio October 10, 2009

Chatham Mills Center has a new artist-in-residence, Michael Mosca. September through October, the local abstract painter will draw inspiration from the historic warehouse, as it becomes his temporary studio.

“The space works well for the exhibition of the arts,” said Tom Roberts, owner of the Center and patron of the arts. “We presented the three Loom exhibitions there and last year, Mardi Gras.”

“When I’m in the space, I can’t help feeling a connection to the pain and struggle of the label mill workers,” said Mosca. “It’s a heroic story of survival that moves me to dig deeper and create work worthy of their endurance.”

Mosca intends to produce a body of work from which he can select five pieces for consideration by his alma mater, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) in Boston, Mass., for the Traveling Scholars Show. For more than a century, SMFA alumni and students have been selected through juried competition to earn the chance to show their work at Boston’s acclaimed Museum of Fine Arts and also, stipends for travel abroad.

Mosca entered the SMFA at 27. “By that time, I’d decided what I wanted to do and I had the maturity and work ethic to hold down a job and attend classes too.” He began his career at the SMFA as a sculpture but by senior year, his professors saw his real talent explode on the canvas.

Until it closed in April of this year, Mosca’s dynamic interplay of line, color, and movement was on display at the Side Street Gallery, in downtown Pittsboro. He says he misses the students he taught at Side Street but the decision to give up the gallery has enabled him to devote more of his time to his art, particularly with the support of patrons like Roberts.

“Tom’s offer of this evocative space for exploration, and eventually, display and sale to the public, was a huge assist,” said Mosca.

Mosca’s new studio will open to the public for a tour at the Chatham Mills Center, 480 Hillsboro St., Pittsboro, N.C., October 10, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You may view images of Mosca’s work by logging on to www.sidestreet-gallery.com. For further information, you may call (919) 200-2249.