Feature Artist: Samuel Moore

By Gina Malone

Samuel Moore’s late uncle, Puryear Mims, was Vanderbilt University’s former sculptor-in-residence and a powerful presence in Sam’s life. “My family still owns many of Mims’ original sculptures, and he completed numerous large public pieces in the Nashville area that I still visit whenever I can,” Moore says. “Because of my uncle’s presence in my very early life, art was my first and most powerful love.” He grew up near Greensboro, but spent every summer in Brentwood, TN, where Mims lived and worked.

Moore became an educator—a teaching job brought him and his family to Black Mountain in 1994—then went to work in project management for a health care company in 2008. For more than 20 years, he also worked on the side as an arborist, recreational tree climbing instructor and therapeutic climbing facilitator for youth at risk. This work, he says, was “a connection to the natural world that helped lay the foundation for what was to come.”

He had never been encouraged by his immediate family to pursue art, though throughout the years he dabbled in woodcarving and clay work. “The more time passed,” he says, “the more strongly, and mistakenly, I believed that I would never become an artist myself.”

In 2019, he left his job to care for an adult daughter who has special needs. “After I left my job to care for her, I was, of course, home a lot, so I started to carve, first with knives and chisels, then with bigger tools, taking volumes of notes of every trial and triumph along the way,” Moore says.

“Reading and watching tutorials. Every day. At first I carved simply to create, not to make a living from it. Supporting myself through sales of my work happened unexpectedly and organically. I say all this to give credit to my daughter for giving me the gift of becoming an artist. If I had not left my project management job to care for her at home, I never would have started carving in the first place. And, she has become both my biggest fan and most valuable critic. Despite her cognitive limitations, she has a gifted ability to see art in a way that most people can’t.”

Throughout his life, Moore has considered the forest his home—climbing and identifying trees there, backpacking and long-distance trail running. “I am drawn to beauty, harmony and resilience,” he says, “not coincidentally some of the same elements found throughout the flora, fauna and firma in our area. The natural world is not something separate that I go to. It is a part of who I am wherever I am, who we all are. I am Nature. We are all Nature.”

He carves from mostly local, salvaged wood. “I carve with my entire body in motion,” he says, “fully absorbed in the process, the world around me absent from my consciousness.” The finishing process is an art as well, he adds, and whenever possible he prefers to use natural oils and waxes.

“Most of my carvings contain the same key elements—strong contrasts, transitions, curves—and attempt to convey feelings of both resilience and compassion.”

When a piece doesn’t work, he will set it aside to try again for something different on another day—or it becomes firewood. His favorite piece of work thus far was carved from a piece of black cherry being loaded into the stove. “I pulled it out,” he says. “It was an ugly, gnarly piece of wood, really. I remember not having any idea what I was going to carve, but there was something about that piece of cherry in its natural state. So I carved a bear—(or the bear carved itself). That was what I believed then, and still do today—real art. It is figurative in form, just a ‘suggestion’ of a bear, almost abstract, emerging from the rough wood as if a metamorphosis. I sanded and finished the top portion smooth as silk, but left the transition from the rough log unfinished. I titled it what it is—Juxtaposition. I felt, for the first time in my life, like a real artist, a creative, like I had made something both beautiful and original. Three years later, it sits on my desk and remains the one and only piece that I refuse to sell.”

Moore is represented by The Lucy Clark Gallery, where owner Lucy Clark is delighted to show his work. “Sam’s mastery with his original carvings has grown exponentially since I first became aware of his work a few years ago,” she says. “From his whimsical bird carvings to his abstract form work, Sam is attracting a collector base that will only continue to grow.”

Moore considers himself lucky to have found expression through his art. “Not many people are as fortunate to discover what their true voice is during their lifetime, much less be in a position to express it and share it with others. I live a thousand beautiful lives every day that I carve.”

To learn more, visit SamuelMooreArt.com. Find Samuel Moore’s work at The Lucy Clark Gallery, 51 West Main Street, Brevard. Visit the gallery’s website at LucyClarkGallery.com. Mark your calendars for September 21, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., when Moore will be the featured artist during The Lucy Clark Gallery’s Meet the Maker Series.