Jay Moore completes massive Colorado commission
At the beginning of 2023, Colorado painter Jay Moore was contacted by an art consulting firm about a commission for an 8-by-16-foot landscape for the newly remodeled Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village, Colorado. “Coming from a golfing family, I knew the prestige of this club and was very excited to do a painting of this size for them,” Moore says. After negotiating a price for the work and the final size, which would come out to 62 by 160 inches, Moore took on the assignment and got to work.
Starting with 20 different Colorado images, the artist and his client narrowed it down to four images that were turned into small oil mock-ups, and then from there a final selection was made for the larger painting. At that time, a countdown of two months was started so the painting could be unveiled at the club’s 100th anniversary.
“All was going well, until about a month into the painting. I woke up with severe sciatic pain and ended up in the emergency room. I could not get out of bed for about two weeks,” Moore says. “After trying every treatment including injections, the hope for a quick recovery ebbed away, and the reality sunk in that I would have to work through the pain, and the completion of the painting in time was seriously in doubt. I started working an hour or two at a time, then back to bed. After a week or so, my wife came to the studio and said it was a good effort, but I am not going to finish on time. I agreed, and started grinding through six- to eight-hour days with ice strapped to my back and strong pain meds.”
In a video documenting the painting, Moore reveals he could paint standing with relative ease, but he could not sit.
He pushed on, though, and completed the painting on the last day before the deadline passed. All that was left was for him and his sons, Wyatt and Luke, to varnish the painting, load it into a moving truck and then install the 250-pound painting on the lobby wall of the club. When it was all said and done, they were done with one day to spare.
The piece, San Juan Mountains of Colorado, is the largest painting Moore has ever completed. —
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