Artist of the year: Former chef Merrilee Moore now cooks up glass art

Published 6:13 pm Thursday, March 5, 2009

It’s easy to tick off the parallels between cooking and glass blowing.

They are both physical jobs. They involve heat and quick decisions that you can’t take back.

For former personal chef and current glass artist Merrilee Moore, both mean creating colorful things.

“When I cooked, I’d like to go to Pike Place Market and buy all these textures and colors and fill up my basket,” Moore said. “The main course didn’t matter. I just knew it was going to be so pretty.”

It’s been a while since Moore was a personal chef, cooking on yachts and for parties of 200 people. It’s been some time since her starving artist days, too. Still, it’s an appropriate time for her to reflect on how she started.

Moore has been named Arts Council of Snohomish County’s Artist of the Year for 2009. A retrospective of her work is on exhibit starting Thursday at the arts council gallery in downtown Everett.

For the 44-year-old Everett native, the award means more because this is her community.

“When I was young, I just wanted to be an artist and somewhere along the line I didn’t realize it, but I became one,” Moore said in a phone interview.

“It’s a thrill to be artist of the year in the town I was born in.”

For Moore, the transition from cook to glass blower happened both suddenly and over time. She studied outdoor recreation and art at Central Washington University and graduated in 1987.

It took her time to decide to do art full time, starting with courses at Pratt Fine Arts in Seattle.

One course was glass blowing. It was instantaneous love.

Moore then took a class at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood. She went from love to a life change.

“I put 100 percent of my heart and soul into this thing,” Moore said.

Moore also knew what she didn’t want. She didn’t want to make absolutely perfect glass pieces.

“So what I make is square, thick and crooked. That’s my style: wonky and weird,” Moore said with a laugh.

“I want people to really see what glass is to the point where it doesn’t seem like glass anymore, it’s this molten gooey stuff moving constantly. If you don’t show off that part of it, you are missing the point.”

Many private collectors, such as Sir Elton John and Ann Getty, own her sculptures, as does the city of Everett.

Moore said she’d now love to have one of her pieces placed in a sculpture park or possibly bought by the Whole Foods Company.

There’s that food connection again. Moore’s cooking past is part of the reason she’s a success.

“You are having to make the quick decisions, like in the prep kitchen, and there is no turning back and that helped me,” Moore said.

“If something doesn’t work, you start over. You can’t set it down or take a break. You go for it.”

Merrilee Moore: Artist of the Year 2009

The exhibit opens with a free Meet the Artist reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Arts Council of Snohomish County gallery, 1507 Wall St., Everett. The exhibit runs through April 23. For more information, call 425-257-8380, or go to www.artscouncilofsnoco.org.