Art’s Alive, celebrating the ‘Web of Life’, is pleased to introduce you to the 2026 Featured Poster Artist, Christopher Moench!
Chris Moench was raised in the Colorado Rockies by a geologist dad, poet mom, and siblings, and his early memories of that wild country inspired his interest in art, land preservation, and wilderness travel. His Aunt Marge, a spirited sculptor and art professor, first planted the “seeds” that art is a path for self-expression.
At a public alternative high school, Chris's art teacher, Susie Bogard, boosted his mud-slick path. His senior project, "ceramics and glaze chemistry," made it possible to co-start a pottery studio in the San Juan Islands of Washington where, at 18, Chris moved to raise his new young family in a hand-built cabin minus electricity and running water. In 1992 he founded Dancing Dog Clayworks and produced garden sculptures, tiles, and functional houseware.
Tragedy struck his hometown of Bellingham in 1999 when a gasoline pipeline ruptured and exploded. Chris was deeply troubled by the loss of the 3 young lives and the environmental destruction to forests and salmon habitat. He wanted to make a sculptural response that would help people reflect on the event and to encourage people to live by their highest ideals. After a year of meditation, Chris came across a photo of a pre-Columbian Mayan clay sculpture. It was a simple cylinder with bas-relief images depicting some mythic tale around its circumference. In a flash, the concept of using the form to tell the story of the gasoline spill and inferno became clear to him.
On his studio kick wheel, Chris threw and built a three-foot-tall clay cylinder. On the outside, he carved the Whatcom Creek Memorial "story." Working on the revolving wheel, he realized the images came "alive" when the piece turned. The viewer could see a story unfold simply by turning the wheel with one hand. Soon after, the sculpture was mounted on a revolving stand at an outdoor gallery, Big Rock Garden. It became a vessel to touch, turn and interact with. Some people place pieces of paper with words, thoughts, or prayers in the small opening on the wheel's top. Without knowing, he had created his first prayer wheel. “Prayer” in this sense is not tied to any particular religious or spiritual tradition, but is simply an expression of the universal human ability to act out of our best intentions and dearest hopes.
Today, Chris works full-time designing and sculpting modern prayer wheels for his company "Axis of Hope.™” His prayer wheels are meant to encourage hope, healing and peacefulness. They have been revolving and evolving in private and public settings across the nation and internationally.
