Artwork copyright Victor Moore. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2017.

Artwork copyright Victor Moore. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2017 (detail).

Artwork copyright Victor Moore. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2017.

Artwork copyright Victor Moore. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2017.

Gardener II, 1991

Victor Moore
American (born 1926, died 2013)

Location: Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon

About the Artwork

Gardener II is part of artist Victor Moore's series of whimsical whirligigs. These charming, hand-carved, kinetic sculptures explore the humor and humanity in our everyday movements. They spin and come alive with the help of an electric motor.

This artwork is part of a series of ten wood sculptures created by Victor Moore for the collection "Who We Are: Autobiographies in Art." The series was commissioned by the Washington State Arts Commission in partnership with the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1990.

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Mount Vernon School District.

About the Artist

Eastern Washington artist Victor Moore (1926-2013) created artworks characterized by their resourcefulness, craftsmanship, imagination, and humor. He is most known for his carved-wood whirligigs, as well as for his "Junk Castle" west of Pullman in Eastern Washington. The art of creating whirligigs began for Moore when he was teaching high school art and directed his students to create whirligigs as an assignment. He enjoyed them so much himself that he began seriously creating whirligigs in 1985.
Moore taught art at Pullman High School for over twenty years until 1979, and he also taught at Columbia Basin College in Kennewick, Southeastern Washington, in the late 1990s. He was a veteran of World War II (1939-45) and the Korean War (1950-53). He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Central Washington University in Ellensburg and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Washington State University in Pullman.