Jay Moore

Born and raised in Colorado, Jay's family lived in Evergreen in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. As a boy, he remembers hiking everyday and fishing the streams around his house. He and his two older brothers would frequently walk in to the woods and often get lost only to figure out how to find their way home. "I always enjoyed the outdoors. It's where I belong, it's how I grew up. I'd just go in the mountains and climb trees and make forts and go fishing." That deep love of the wilderness is at the very core of Jay's being.

After graduating from art school, Jay worked in a graphic design firm in Denver for two years before working on his own as an illustrator. He recognizes that the pressures of illustration pushed him to a level of professionalism that he carries with him today. But it wasn't until Jay participated in a workshop with a master landscape painter that Jay truly considered abandoning illustration for fine art. "After that week painting outdoors, that was it. I knew I wanted to be a plein-air painter. It took a lot for me to be in that class - I'd just gotten married. I stayed in a tent and bathed in the Crystal River in the morning before I'd go paint." But it wasn't until the Art Students League of Denver offered a week long workshop with a well-known landscape painter, that Jay truly considered abandoning illustration for fine art.

Jay firmly believes that any artist is an amalgam of artists who have come before him, "A musician can't lock himself in a room and become Mozart all on his own. You need that push and that inspiration from other artists to get you to go further in your own work. It's like a big tree - each influence takes you to another branch, then another and another until you are your own little twig, your own part of the tree."

As he progressed as an artist, Jay would seek out the masters of his genre and solicit critiques. "I have bugged most of them. I figure, if you want to be the best, you have to learn from the best." He also finds inspiration from visiting museums and taking notes, as well as consulting his library of nearly 1000 art books.

"Morning Sun, Lake Dillon"
Oil
Jay Moore
$6,000.00