A WORK OF HEART BY ANDREW STILWELL // PHOTOS BY TAYLOR MORENO
Taylor Moreno’s mother has helped influence her artistic endeavors
W
hen watching Taylor Moreno in the cage as a goalkeeper for the Carolina women’s lacrosse team, it might be cliché to say that it’s like watching an artist practicing her craft. In reality, there’s actually a lot more truth to that statement than you might realize. “Art is something that takes patience and time and the right technique, and lacrosse, especially my position as a goalie, is very technique-based,” said Moreno, a senior from Huntington, N.Y. “It takes a lot of time and patience to work through. I think understanding that it’s not always going to be perfect in art or lacrosse. Goals are going to be scored and things are going to happen because lacrosse is a game of runs. But at the end of the day, you have the ability to erase that pencil mark you made and redraw it better than you did before.” Moreno grew up in an artistic household. Her mom, Terry, was a graphic designer before becoming a freelance artist in 1991. Needless to say, Taylor was constantly surrounded by art and creativity growing up, and has continued her love of being creative into her college years. “Whether it was a coloring book and a box of crayons or markers or a trip to Michael’s craft store, my mom would always immerse us in that realm of those kinds of things that she loved,” Taylor said. “Even with school projects, I’d ask my
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BORN & BRED
mom to help me and she would always throw her creative side in there.” In high school, Moreno was a multi-sport athlete, but took just as much pride contributing to her team off the playing field as she did while on it. In high school, she not only played basketball, but also designed her team’s sweatshirts. “I was asked to design the sweatshirts we were getting for the team, and I would come up with an idea and go back and forth with the team until everyone liked it,” she said. “I remember that being a huge component of playing sports in high school; not only contributing on the field or the court, but also using my artistic abilities to contribute off the field with clothing or posters and things like that.”
“IT’S GOTTA BE THE SHOES”
A self-described “sneakerhead,” Moreno began experimenting with a new form of artistic media in high school, custom shoes, which she still paints to this day. “I saw a post on social media where people were painting on shoes, and I thought it would be something cool that I could try,” she said. “As someone who typically wanted to keep their sneakers nice and clean, taking an all-white pair of sneakers and then touching my paint brush to it, it kind of hurt me just
