Carnegie Visual Arts Center

Jahni is more than just an artist. As an educator and writer, he believes that creativity in all its forms should be an integral part of any true education or healing process.

Born as John Moore in the Madison County Alabama, he was quick in his arrival and had to be delivered at home by a local midwife. He grew up in Huntsville, Alabama and his love for art and nature became apparent at an early age. Spending time in the wooded area behind his parents’ home, reading, and drawing were his favorite pastimes. His earliest heroes included Jack London, Jim Kjelgaard, Walt Disney, and George Washington Carver.

In elementary school, because of his vivid imagination, non-stop reading, and daydreaming, he often found himself in the hot seat. Jahni soon became known as the boy who could draw and received his first art award as an eighth grader. In high school he excelled in every subject and his creative arena expanded to writing and drama. Upon graduation from high school, Jahni attended Alabama A&M University in Normal, Alabama. As a focused but wide-eyed dreamer, he was an active member of the Thespian Society and President’s Scholar’s Society. Restless with creative energy, he won the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Contest, wrote several stage plays and a screenplay called The Darken. He graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. degree in Commercial and Advertising Art and a minor in English. However, soon after graduation, he realized that one of his college instructors was right in terms of his being a fine artist rather than a commercial artist. His desire to create his own work began to take precedence over his freelance commercial work. From that time he has worked as a fine artist and art educator, earning a Masters degree in Art Education and utilizing art as therapy with organizations such as Children’s Advocacy Centers, Hospice Caring House, and Youth-In-Action. While living in Chester, PA he spent time with artists Andrew Turner, Bill Dandridge, Cal Massey and others.

Jahni has received numerous awards in for his art and has had work featured in a major motion picture. Jahni has exhibited his art in many show, both solo and group, and his murals are on permanent display in various cities. He also studied with muralist Joshua Sarantitis, and worked on one of the largest public art projects in Arizona’s history before moving back to his native Huntsville, Alabama.

Jahni’s life mission is to bring art to everyday people and “to inspire the imagination as something very much real, possessing the ability to alter circumstances.” Jahni states that, “Art is a vehicle, a wake up call, a morning bell that beckons the true self to come out play in this thing called life.”