Artist running for president, from the porch

He doesn’t have any TV commercials lined up. He won’t appear in any debates. There is no tour planned, and there sure as heck is no budget.

For North Fork artist Peter Moore, this is his third run for president of the United States, but he has no plans to leave his cabin porch if he can help it. Shoot, he hasn’t even followed the race. To do that, the cabin would need electricity, and as the days get shorter, his small solar panel makes less and less power every day.

“I haven’t listened to any of the politics at all,” he said. “If I get the news on the radio, I get Canadian news.”

The cabin he calls home is tucked away in the woods up Red Meadow Road. He moved there in 1979. Originally it was his grandfather George Tachney’s homestead. Tachney came to the North Fork in 1918 when World War I ended.

When Moore arrived, the land was undeveloped. He cleared the meadow and cut the trees for the cabin with help from family and friends. The cabin was finished in 1983.

“It was all done by hand,” he said last week. “The only power tool I had was a chainsaw.”

He’s called the place home for about eight months a year ever since, although he spent a few winters there. But winter is dark and snowy up Red Meadow, and the cabin has no running water. Heat comes from a wood stove.

The land is still family owned. As far as Moore can tell, it’s the only remaining intact homestead in the North Fork that hasn’t been subdivided.

Sixty-four now, Moore heads to Mexico for the winter months. It’s easier that way. He’s a much better artist than a politician, honing his craft since he was a young man, although he admits he doesn’t make much money at it.

His art is eclectic, sometimes surreal, always interesting. Last summer, he had a show of portraits he painted of people who have visited his cabin. Since 2006, Moore has left a disposable camera in a basket on the porch. Folks who stop by take a self-portrait and leave a note. Moore, in turn, paints portraits from the photos.

Next year, Moore will have show at the Hockaday Museum of Art in Kalispell from September to October with about 30 pieces, including North Fork landscapes and other works. He’s working on pieces for that show now. Moore never went to art school and his style holds its own.

“I don’t think anyone else paints like I do,” he said. “(Viewers) are always trying to lock you in. They want to say who they remind you of. No one has been able to do that with me. I like that elusiveness.”

Moore’s work lives in a world of brilliant colors that aren’t exactly natural but somehow seem in place. As for the political campaign, it amounts to a few whimsical flyers he’s made, one of which hangs in the Polebridge Mercantile.

“Vote Moore and Moore,” it says. The other Moore is his nephew, Colin. Moore first ran against George Bush Sr. in 1988. He formed the Agree Party.

“I’d agree to what anyone said,” he said. “No one could pin me down.”

Moore ran again in 2008. By then, he could look up how many votes he actually received on the Internet (he drives to town to check his e-mail). He got five write-in votes. He figured he was better than five votes, so he ran again this year.

“I might get 8 to 10,” he said with a smile.