Ken Moore is a painter who operates a studio and offers private art lessons out of his San Marco home.
ELEMENTS OF STYLE
“Design and color are my inspirations. I’m what is known as an abstract expressionist. I view things, absorb them and paint what it felt like to me.”
PREFERRED MEDIUM
“Watercolor is my favorite. I like oil because of the intense colors you can achieve. I work in pastel and pen and ink as well.”
WHAT MESSAGE DOES YOUR WORK CONVEY?
“Freedom of color, freedom of line, freedom of space, freedom to express oneself.”
WHERE DID HE HONE HIS TALENT?
San Francisco Academy of Art.
WHAT DO YOU ENJOY ABOUT YOUR WORK?
“The process. By that I mean the building stages of a painting, watching it develop. Each one has its own idiosyncrasies.
“The wetness of the paper and the wetness of the brush [for watercolors] are control mechanisms. It’s getting them in balance to do what you want to do. I’m doing a series of large heads in oil and attempting to make them look like watercolor. I like to push the medium to where
it doesn’t look like what it
is anymore.”
FLOWER POWER
“San Francisco was fun. The hippie movement had just begun. People were hugging and kissing, giving you flowers and beads on the street. It was heavenly. Nobody even argued because they were so stoned on drugs.”
WHEN DID YOU START PAINTING?
“I’ve been painting since I was six, if you call watercolor kits ‘painting.’ I was a free-form expressionist even then. I’ve had a love affair all my life with color but it was difficult in my small hometown to find art paper. I think my mother ended up buying me shelf liner paper.”
WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
DeKalb, Ill.
WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO FLORIDA?
“I fell in love with a travel brochure. It implied that St. Augustine was an arts community so I moved down here. I was a museum artist for the St. Augustine Preservation Board for three years.”
WHAT DOES A MUSEUM ARTIST DO?
“I did street displays, publications and brochures to let tourists know what happened in a building or archaeological discoveries. I painted large information panels.”
WHAT ARTISTIC AFFILIATIONS DO YOU HOLD?
“I was a member of all of them —Jacksonville Watercolor Society, the Jacksonville Coalition for the Visual Arts — until I became ill. I paint when my body will let me.”
SURVIVOR
Five years ago, Moore suffered from a debilitating stroke. Recently, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer as well.
“I’m not strong enough [to do shows]. I’m concentrating on getting my website completed. Before I was working 10, 12, 14 hours a day. Now I only have four or five good hours in a day but I’ll be back in no time. I’m getting stronger every day. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me and I don’t want to dwell on it. I’m recuperating fine.”
ANY SNIDE REMARKS ABOUT BEING NAMED AFTER AN APPLIANCE?
“Sometimes I use it to introduce myself. I’ll say, ‘I’m the only thing you can’t get out of the Sears catalog.’ or ‘I’m in one out of every two American homes.’”
PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK
“Artists do a great number of things to support themselves. I was one of the first Go Go Boys in San Francisco. I was a dancer for three years. That’s how I got through art school, that and a scholarship. I have also been a fine dining waiter and have an extensive retail management background. Art has always been the constant, though.
“This [art] is my mistress. She’s a very expensive mistress but I choose that over someone else’s baggage.”
WHO’S YOUR HERO?
“Maxfield Parrish. He invented Parrish Blue [a paint color]. He used to do covers for Harper’s and Life magazine [in the early 1900s]. He had a wonderful sense of color but I’ve been influenced by so many of the masters; one element of something they do may touch me. Someone I respect is John Curington. He is an entrepreneur and real estate broker. He has helped me over the last 18 years with my art work. I used to work for him at St. Mark’s Restaurant.”
WHO COLLECTS YOUR WORK?
“I have work in the Federal Reserve Bank, a piece at Vistakon, Panini Oh!, pieces in several lawyers’ offices and many private collectors that still keep in touch with me. Attorneys need artwork for their home, office and conference room. They need original energy.”
PERSONAL PREFERENCES
A movie buff, Moore’s favorite film is “Two for the Seesaw.” He also finds reading biographies or tuning into the television show “Frasier” entertaining. When he’s eating out, Moore craves the entrees at The Wine Cellar.
—by Monica Chamness