Marlene Hilton Moore dips her hand into water and begins to rub Tim Zuck’s face with it.
Much to her dismay, she’s left a slight indentation in Zuck’s nose.
No bother.
She dips her finger in the water again, returns to Zuck’s nose and buffs it out.
It looks as good as new.
Hilton Moore is in her Springwater Township studio, working on a clay bust of Zuck, a renowned Canadian artist who died about a year ago. Beside the clay model are many photographs of Zuck — most of them direct, frontal portraits, head-and-shoulders only.
In addition to his likeness, Hilton Moore has captured Zuck’s essence.
Having interviewed and chatted with Zuck many times over the years when he lived in the area, this reporter can attest that Hilton Moore has captured Zuck’s calm and silent, almost distant, personality. His gaze and his features are, like many of his works, Zen-like.
Behind and to the left of the Zuck work-in-progress are walls of photographs and images, some of them featuring works by Hilton Moore.
One instantly catches the eye, Blue Circle, a public installation piece she created for the City of Fredericton in New Brunswick.
The work sits in the middle of a traffic roundabout, its shimmering blue metallic surface punctuated with hundreds of circles of various diameters that shine bright white. At night, the circles glow like the stars in the sky they’re meant to represent.
It instantly reminds the visitor of Hilton Moore’s latest work, Ad astra, a commissioned piece that celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Ad astra was unveiled during a ceremony last week at Canadian Forces Base Borden, west of Barrie.
“I wanted that work to be minimal,” Hilton Moore said of Ad astra during an interview at her Hillsdale studio, about 20 minutes north of Barrie. “I wanted one or two very powerful ideas embedded within it.
“I wanted to focus on the motto, pathway to the stars. It’s incredibly powerful," she added.
Hilton Moore says she was immediately attracted to the ideas she had around the word "pathway."
“The most obvious reference, of course, is the runway,” she said. “You could pick the runway up and thrust it up into the sky and make your pathway to the stars.”
The sculpture, standing almost seven metres tall, sits on a one-metre granite base.
Standing at its base, the viewer can see the monument has a small tip backwards. It’s not large, but it’s enough to evoke the sense of thrust, of departure.
Around the back, Ad astra has a sensuous curve that echoes the fuselage of an airplane.
“It’s a very minimal work, but it’s dense with reality,” Hilton Moore said.
Ad astra is the second commissioned work Hilton Moore has done for installation at CFB Borden and was installed right beside the first, the Borden Legacy Monument, which was created as a gift to CFB Borden in honour of the base’s 100th anniversary in 2016.
Ad astra, like the Borden Legacy Monument, was commissioned by Borden’s honorary civilian colonels.
“The honorary colonels this time were honorary colonels within the RCAF at Borden,” Hilton Moore said. “They knew I did the Borden Legacy Monument, so they came to me to see if I was interested in creating a monument for the 100th anniversary of the RCAF. Of course I was."
A self-taught artist who has been practising art for more than 40 years, Hilton Moore is recognized as one of Canada's foremost sculptors. She’s been commissioned to do works that range from $100,000 to more than $1 million.
Ad astra, according to Wayne Hay, one of the honorary colonels who authorized the piece, was a $250,000 commission.
Hilton Moore’s works, which cover the gamut from abstract minimalism to high realism, can be found across the country.
In Ottawa, she created the Valiants Memorial, which includes five life-size standing bronze figures and nine life-size busts.The bronze figures are anchored by a curved bronze wall at the Sapper’s Stairway level, designed in collaboration with sculptor John McEwen.
In Waterloo, she created a life-size bronze sculpture of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, depicted as a young newly elected MP at the beginning of his remarkable career.
In France, her sculpture of a bugler at the Vimy monument calls to its twin at the Borden Legacy Monument, where many of the soldiers who fought at Vimy trained.
In a couple of months, another of Hilton Moore’s massive works will be officially unveiled in a ceremony in Springwater Township.
The life-size Wiidookdaadiwin — comprised of an Indigenous figure, a settler figure and a birch-bark canoe — is located at 2816 George Johnston Rd., and is currently visible to travellers driving north or south along George Johnston Road.
Born in New Brunswick, Hilton Moore moved to Ontario in the late 1960s. She’s pursued a wide variety of artistic endeavours, from drawing and painting to photography and sculpture.
Her lack of academic training hasn’t hindered her success.
“I boil it down to desire,” Hilton Moore said. “If you want to do something, you can. Those who sustain their work, they believe in the work they’re creating and I think that applies to all the cultural fields, whether you’re a musician, a writer, an actor or whatever.
“I come into the studio and there’s nothing — it’s a blank canvas,” she added. “There’s no ‘how to’ guide for creating. You have to trust yourself on that.”
