Seasonal Coffee Artist Series: Winter With Anne Moore

Our latest coffee from the Seasonal Coffee Artist Series is Winter Seasonal featuring artwork from Ottawa Valley artist Anne Moore.

Introduce yourself, as a person and as an artist.

I was born and grew up in England in a small village in Wiltshire. Most people know of Wiltshire because of Stonehenge but the place is awash in history and it became one of my great interests and led eventually to my career as a history teacher here in Canada. When I was very young, we lived in an old millhouse and some of my earliest memories are of searching for arrowheads on the banks of the river Avon and of the swans who used to peck at our front door for bread and who were the same height as I was at the time. I was a shy and introverted child and took solace in drawing and painting. I won my first prize in art at the age of five with a painting of nasturtiums. They awarded me a prize even though I was supposed to have only painted one flower not several. As I grew older I dabbled in various media including water colours, acrylic and oil paint. I always thought that I would have a career in art and was accepted in art school when I left high school, but I couldn’t go because of a serious illness that kept me in hospital for several months. Later I studied history at university, became a teacher at a private school and was able to set up an art department so that all the students were able to have art classes every week as part of their regular curriculum.

I arrived in Canada just before Christmas, many years ago now, with a new born baby. My husband, an electronics engineer, had arrived here a few months earlier as part of an influx of Brits who came to work in the high-tech industry. My first impressions, driving from the airport, were of endless fields of snow. By the time it finally melted sometime in April I was beginning to believe that I would never see grass again.

Where do you look for inspiration?

It took a while but I grew to love this country and especially the Ottawa Valley where I live and it has become the inspiration for many of my landscape paintings. We have such wonderfully different seasons and I would argue more than four. The way the light strikes the trees or shimmers on water; the colours of the shadows on snow. I still find that creating art is my happy place to be. My hours in the studio with my paints have been especially important during these last many months of the pandemic. My aim always is to create something that is beautiful or at least thought provoking and that inspires some emotional response from the viewer.
As an artist I am largely self-taught. I work now mostly in acrylics and oil and my work is in various art galleries locally as well as in Britain, and can be found at local art shows and various online galleries. I enjoy landscape painting but also paint portraits and streetscapes and take inspiration from the many countries I travelled to when we were allowed to do that. I also work on commission and have a line of wearable art inspired by my paintings.

Describe the perfect winter day.

My perfect winter day is when I hike in the hills near where I live just outside of Carp. I do this most days once the snow has come and the trails are open.

Please tell us a bit about the piece you selected

My painting, Icetime, was inspired by a walk I took several years ago towards the end of winter at sunset. I passed an area of what was really swamp land. The ice was partially melted and was turquoise and the sky was dark pink for just a few brief minutes and then it faded away.

My artwork can be seen on my website https//.www.anneheathermoore.com.

The Seasonal Coffee Artist Series invites local talent to be featured on bags of Equator Coffee. Changing with every season, each limited edition coffee blend label will feature the season-related art of one artist or designer selected by Equator from the diverse communities connected to our coffee. Inquiries regarding submissions can be sent to outreach@equator.ca