PULLMAN -- Pullman artist Victor W. Moore's latest offerings are a departure from the whirligigs and other carvings for which he is well known. The new works still delight, however.
The majority of pieces in Moore's current exhibit, "Peeled Sticks and Ready-mades,'' are created from forks and crotches of willow branches with the bark peeled to expose a rich brown surface speckled with white chip marks.
The exhibit opens Monday in Washington State University's Compton Union Gallery and runs through Jan. 31.
"My past carvings have been subtractive,' that is, they were carved down from a larger block, usually Idaho white pine,'' he says. "In 1991, I started making additive' wood sculpture by assembling limbs of local brush to make figurative works.''
Often the pieces Moore created separately seem to be drawn into one because of the unity of their forms and surfaces.
"I would make two pieces of sculpture and the minute I stood back to look at them -- they became one!" he says. "They just seem to click' together as though they belong to each other.''
Moore taught art in public schools for 27 years. While teaching in the Pullman school system he also was completing his masters of fine arts degree from WSU. His masters thesis project was a massive junk assemblage built next to his home outside of Pullman. The castle,' as many local residents refer to it, received national recognition through the Associated Press wire service and was included in the book, "Fantastic Architecture,'' published in 1980.
The "castle" continues to draw attention and is one of the "strange sites'' featured in Jim Christy's 1996 book of the same name.
Moore's sculptures have been exhibited in galleries in Seattle, Chicago, San Diego, Bellingham, Tacoma and elsewhere. He first received international recognition in 1985 when all 17 works in a one-person exhibition in the Redmann Gallery in West Berlin were purchased by the gallery.
Most recently, three of Moore's works were displayed in an exhibit of "Yard Art'' at the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, and the Mia Gallery in Seattle featured his "Tabloid Headliners'' whirligigs that document some recent events.
The Washington Arts Commission has commissioned Moore to create works for the Bethel, Yakima and LaCenter school districts as well as 10 pieces for the "Who We Are'' exhibit for Art in Public Places.
Compton Union Gallery is located in the WSU student union building. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. The gallery will be closed Jan. 20 in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
