Rain or shine, at 7 a.m. every Tuesday for five months last year, honors landscape architecture major Hannah Moll showed up, camera in hand, to document the university's farm just north of campus. It wasn't easy getting up that early, but proved to be well worth the effort for a designer and painter sensitive to the light and color shifts that come with daybreak.

"I was on site, looking at the soybean fields where different cultivars were starting to die back," Moll recalls. "It was so beautiful! Seeing the rust colors slide past silvery grays, with the morning light shining through them."

Moll worked to capture that experience and others in a series of 32 paintings that record the shift of seasons at the Agricultural Research and Extension Center. This body of work comprises her honors thesis, which presents a familiar working landscape in an entirely new light. Two of these paintings and Moll's best source photos, stitched into three flip books, are currently on display in the second-floor Honors Study Hall in Gearhart Hall. In some of these photos Old Main, silhouetted at sunrise, can be discerned. 

Guided by faculty mentor Laura Terry, an associate professor of architecture, Phoebe Lickwar, an associate professor of landscape architecture, and Kristin Musgnug, an associate professor of art, Moll decided to explore how painting enriches site inventory and analysis, a critical first step in landscape architecture design. She discovered that paint beats software when it comes to capturing the essence of a place: "One thing about painting that's so great — it allows you to break away from the conventions of drawing with a pencil or on a computer. It's very tactile; you get a sense of place you don't get with drawing. The medium sort of frees your mind."

Moll has dabbled in painting and drawing as a creative outlet all of her life. She began to paint more regularly after a studio project several years ago, when students were charged with painting a site on Fayetteville's Mount Kessler. Unsatisfied with her first effort, Moll ended up painting three different pieces, and won a Student Merit Award from the Arkansas chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects — the first of four ASLA merit awards she's won, which culminated in a 2017 Student Honor Award from the Arkansas chapter of the ASLA. 

Moll earned her Bachelor of Landscape Architecture summa cum laude from the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design last May. Currently she is working for Lickwar's firm, Forge Landscape Architecture. 

When visiting the Honors wing of Gearhart Hall, be sure to look for Moll's Field B4 – 7:00 AM Triptych, on display in the second-floor conference room (GEAR 243). This 144" w by 32" h triptych records the play of light and color on Field B4, a soybean field later planted with rye grass, over five months' time. Dean Lynda Coon purchased this work for the college's permanent collection, which celebrates work by honors students and alumni. 

Moll's work will be on display through December 2017. Honors students, faculty and alumni interested in exhibiting their work in Gearhart Hall are encouraged to contact Kendall Curlee at kcurlee@uark.edu.