Rocks & Minerals

ISSN: 0035-7529 (Print) 1940-1191 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vram20

Minerals and Me: A Look at Alexey Moore's Art (b.

1979)

Susan RobinsonSUSAN ROBINSON

To cite this article: Susan RobinsonSUSAN ROBINSON (2020) Minerals and

Me: A Look at Alexey Moore's Art (b. 1979), Rocks & Minerals, 95:1, 38-41, DOI:
10.1080/00357529.2020.1670562

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00357529.2020.1670562

Published online: 26 Nov 2019.

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 Minerals
and Me
A Look at
Alexey Moore’s
Art (b. 1979)
SUSAN ROBINSON
9654 Highway 37
Ogdensburg, New York 13669
pebble.art@outlook.com

A
lexey Moore, the daughter of Thomas “Tom” P.
Moore, editor and advertising manager of the Min-
eralogical Record, is, through her art, making a
name for herself in the mineral world. She has been creating
paintings of minerals with gouache (pronounced “gwash,” a
water-based art medium of watercolor mixed with white pig-
ment) and pen-and-ink for only two years, but her work re-
Figure 1. Then and now: Alexey and
her father, Mineralogical Record’s
Thomas P. Moore, enjoying looking
at minerals.
veals her knowledge and familiarity with minerals as well as
her skill with the medium. Moore says: “I’ve been enveloped
by the mineral world my entire life. My earliest memory of
assisting in selling mineral specimens is from a show in Kop-
parberg, Sweden (1990), when I was only eleven years old.
My father always had this strong, scientific looking mineral
collection that he would show my little brother and me when
we were children. As children, we never quite understood
the appeal of it all.” At that time, Tom Moore was the Euro-
pean correspondent for the magazine, and his two children
sometimes accompanied him to the Munich Show (Miner-

38 ROCKS & MINERALS

 Figure 2. Connecticut Minerals Triptych, 2018; 110 × 170, gouache on illustration board.

Figure 3. Alexey Moore hanging her paintings of minerals for an art show; each painting is approximately 110 × 170.

Volume 95, January/February 2020   39

 Figure 4. Arizona Minerals (collection of Tom Moore), 2019; 110 × 170, gouache on illustration board.

40   ROCKS & MINERALS

 Figure 5. Doug Toland’s Epidotes, 2017;
110 × 170, gouache on illustration board.

alientage München) and also the show at Sainte-Marie-aux-

Mines. She had little interest in minerals as a child; however,
today minerals are a significant part of her life.
Moore lived in Portland, Oregon, for ten years and at-
tended the Pacific Northwest College of Art, where she ma-
jored in illustration and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts de-
gree. Her education in art and her knowledge about places
and their history are reflected in providing a narration to
some of her art. She says: “I work in series to organize my
busy thoughts and to better tell a story, which is why you
often see pairs and triptychs of [mineral] specimens in my
paintings.” In her travels, Moore has also created and illus-
trated art narratives about coffee shops titled “The Disgrun- Figure 6. German Classics (left: galena; right: galena pseudo-
tled Baristas” and another about urban scenes titled “Scenes- morph after pyromorphite), 150 × 220, gouache on illustration
capes.” These works and more can be viewed on her website: board.
www.alexeymoore.com.

During the Tucson Gem and Mineral Shows of 2012–

2017, Moore worked for mineral dealers Don and Gloria
Olson, and then she moved to Tucson. Moore states: “I’ve
become enamored by crystal variations, localities, and the
history of mining and discovery. Currently I’m fascinated by
Bisbee, Arizona, where I’ve traveled several times to study
the mining community and the beautiful native copper and
azurite crystals once found in the region. I’m currently work-
ing on a series dedicated to that . . . beautiful mining town.”
Moore’s art has been featured in many shows hosted by
the Pacific Northwest College of Art, including the Society
of Illustrators Exhibition in 2014. Other, more recent shows
have been at coffee shops and restaurants in Portland and
Tucson. She says: “I prefer showing at food establishments
because they are more approachable than art galleries, and
they encourage community.” Her work is currently on view
in the following businesses: Bisbee Breakfast Club in Bisbee;
the Hotel Congress and Café Passe in Tucson; Miss Zum-
steins and Jezebel’s Last Merrygoround Café in Portland; and
The Hygenic, in New London, Connecticut. Moore also sells
her art at the Old Town Artisans shops in downtown Tucson.
❑

Susan Robinson, a freelance artist specializing in painting

Figure 7. A selection of paintings of minerals (printed on tote mineral and gem specimens as well as birds and wildlife, has
bag). been writing this artist series since 1987.

Volume 95, January/February 2020   41