Seattle Web Gallery Physical Gallery: The Jeffrey Moose Gallery

JEFFREY MOOSE GALLERY

Rainier Square Atrium
Fifth Avenue Entrance
1333 Fifth Avenue, Suite 511
Seattle, WA

(206) 467-6951
fax (206) 667-9443
Open Monday through Saturday
10 am to 6 pm

Jeffrey M. Moose, Director
e-mail jmoose@oz.net

Jeffrey Moose Gallery represents many Washington State artists but has an unusual regional affinity. In 1989, on Bainbridge Island in Kitsap County, a cooperative gallery, Net Contents, was founded by a group of artists working in many media, with the simple goal of supporting each other's creative vision and maintaining a forum for the exhibition of work which was very personal and often non-commercial.

Jeffrey Moose, a printmaker, multi-media artist and graphic designer, was a co-founder of this endeavor along with sculptor and glass artist Bob Lucas. Net Contents operated in two locations for over six years, collecting a dedicated following among artists and art lovers in the community. Several artists associated with the cooperative are now exhibited at Jeffrey Moose Gallery including Bob Lucas, painter Peggy Brunton, ceramist Rick Stafford, collage artist Suzy Kuekelhan, video artist Gary Nicholson and sculptor Brian Berman.

But the gallery is by no means limited to artists from Washington State. Represented artists hail from Hawaii, Oregon, Washington U.C., Illinois, Indiana, Australia (last year's Aboriginal exhibition was a big hit and will be repeated in the fall of 1997), France and Japan. Also scheduled for late 1997 is an exhibition of selected Native artists from the often neglected Columbia Plateau region. This show will he co-curated by Native American art historian Erin Dunn.

The gallery has a relaxed environment. The floor plan is augmented by the unique interior design; a riser in the center of the gallery is surrounded by low exhibition walls punctuated by windows and breaks allowing fascinating glimpses across the space into the various sub-galleries. The experience is intimate and contemporary. From the exterior, the whole can he readily viewed since the entire front of the gallery is glass. In the sky light-lit ambiance of Rainier Square one can sip coffee and stroll among the various retailers with easy access to the Fifth Avenue Theatre, the Olympic Four Seasons Hotel and numerous restaurants.

I was born in Mexico City in 1959 and raised first in Cameroon, West Africa and then Alexandria, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. At age 12, I began drawing from models at The Corcoran School of Art in Washington, part of the Corcoran Museum. In high school I studied printmaking at The National Portrait Gallery and became fascinated with lithography in particular. Wishing to continue studies in art and in French literature in an environment which was both academically competitive and rural, I attended Hamilton College in central New York state.

As art became more and more the passion in my life, I decided to transfer to a school which had art as its central focus. I selected and was accepted to The School of The Art Institute of Chicago where my studies included lithography and other forms of printmaking, art history (especially Renaissance and Third World movements) and studio painting and drawing. For two years I taught art and art history at an inner city Boy's Club. I received my BFA in 1984 with concentrations in printmaking and art history.

My curiosity about the cultural scene on the West Coast led me to California. I began experimenting with abstract imagery in my drawing, painting and printmaking. I continued my studies in these media as well as contemporary American art history at The University of California at Santa Cruz. My love of printmaking led me to take a job as a lithographic printer with world-renowned Master Printer Ernest Desoto in San Francisco. For two and a half years I learned the craft of fine art printing from a man who had few peers. I printed editions of prints for many nationally and internationally known artists including Mel Kames, Koy Deforest, Robert Buchanan, Jose Luis Cuevas and Rufino Tamayo.

In 1988 I moved to Washington State where I found work at Stone Press Editions. A year later I married and moved to Poulsbo. In July of 1990, together with my wife, Mary Shutak, and eight other artists I founded Net Contents Gallery on Bainbridge Island. Net Contents was one of a handful of gallery cooperatives in the state and the only one in the West Puget sound area. I acted as co-director of the gallery along with Suquamish sculptor and glass artist Bob Lucas for five years until the gallery closed in 1994. I waged a highly successful public relations campaign for the gallery as well as producing and exhibiting work in monthly shows for seven years.

After some training in graphic design I worked as Field Director and graphic artist for the successful 1992 re-election campaign of Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott. During this period I also designed a nationally distributed Presidential campaign button and a highly popular logo for Eddie Bauer Corporation. My graphic design business, Media Moose Design, continues to produce identities for businesses ranging from espresso bars to biomedical firms.

From l992 through 94, I helped to found an unusual business, Seattle Art Resource, representing fine artists using scanned images and digital presentation tools. This company was the subject of several newspaper articles and a couple of radio stories and provided artwork to the Seattle and Pierce County Street of Dreams in 1993 and 1994. During this period I established a curatorial relationship with the Alexis Hotel, an intimate luxury accommodation, and its accompanying four star restaurant, The Painted Table. I provide rotating exhibitions of art in these venues, promoting them in all the local arts press. The Seattle Times has run two separate stories on my work there, and The Painted Table is now a regular stop in the First Thursday art walk.

In the fall of 1995, I opened Jeffrey Moose Gallery located in downtown Seattle on the second level of Rainier Square. The gallery represents local artists, including myself, national talents and artists from around the world. The first year of exhibitions included a well-received theme show entitled "Goddesses" including portraits, textiles and sculpture, an immensely popular "Introduction to Aboriginal Art" (a show which coincided with a special exhibition on the same theme at the Seattle Art Museum) and strong showings by sculptor and glass artist Rob Lucas, painters Peggy Brunton, Suzanne Haddon and Jan Erion, fine art jeweler David Weinstock and nationally known photographer Maxwell MacKenzie.

My tastes are ecclectic; the gallery features contemporary and traditional artwork in all media and styles. Much of the work in my gallery is of a spiritual nature. One area of specialization is "Contemporary Indigenous" which includes, in addition to Australian Aboriginal art, work by artists such as Inuit sculptor Larry Ahvakana, Wasco-Wishram mutli media artist Lillian Pitt and recently immigrated Chinese Master painter/carver Gao Long. Jeffrey Moose Gallery is now publishing and representing prints by various artists including Sam Hamrick, Jan Erion and Michael Kareken as well as an exclusive line of giclée antique map reproductions from the collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.

Bob Lucas' web site. Bob Lucas is a frequent contributor to the Jeffrey Moose Gallery.