Janet Moore

Janet Moore’s Artist Statement

Four years ago, after 35 years on the West Coast of the United States, I returned to the Midwest. I am daily moved by the beauty of my home state, Missouri, and take plenty of opportunity to enjoy the treescapes, rivers, birds, animals, acres of prairie-style gardens, and civic plantings in Saint Louis. The great Rivers of the country join together here, and the resulting Confluence inspires the mind and eye with plentiful migratory birds, small wild animals, and great trees with enormous leaves, and huge spreading branches. Metaphors abound for one’s life and spirit. While I miss many things about California, not least my tapestry community, I am grateful for the pull of the beauty around me, and the time I have to create in my studio.

Inspiration first surfaced in the form of my backyard! Beautiful fall leaves and a multi-tiered bird feeder gave me much to work with. Then, in September of 2022, I joined the Waterline Project, and my delight in the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers found the perfect outlet. I felt my work in tapestry beginning to shift, and I explore that transformation on a daily basis. My challenge now seems to be to take my fascination with Nature and move from a naturalistic approach to a more designed one. I look forward to the year to come, to see where this leads me.

Janet Moore’s Artist Biography

I was born where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, and it seems I have always had a love for nature, animals, seasons, making things. I apprenticed to tapestry artist Joy Rushfelt of Overland Park, Kansas, in 1972 and have never stopped moving forward with my tapestry goals, completing a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1979. I was inspired by a visit to the San Francisco Tapestry Workshop in the early 1980’s and completed a Master of Fine Arts program at San Francisco State University in 1990. It fascinated me to learn that SFSU had played a strong role in the revival of tapestry weaving in the United States. Over the next few years, I worked as a production weaver for clothing designers, was inspired in my own tapestry practice by the amazing places that I lived, most notably Bolinas, California, a small coastal town in West Marin. I joined Tapestry Weavers West after an ATA slide presentation at San Jose State University, and later became their vice president, then president for four years. I taught fiber arts and crafts at the NIAD Art Center and the Cedars of Marin Fine Arts Studio and was the Director of the Baulines Craft Guild for several years, organizing fine craft exhibitions for the Guild throughout California. I retired from my wage work in 2019 and moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, where I live and work in my studio. I am still a member of Tapestry Weavers West, the American Tapestry Alliance, and now the Weavers Guild of Saint Louis and Missouri Fiber Artists. This summer, July 2023, I was awarded an Artists Support Grant by the Regional Arts Commission of Saint Louis for my project “A Year in Tapestry”, and currently has an exhibition of 13 of my tapestries at the Gretchen Brigham Gallery in Saint Louis.