 |
| Photo by David Paul Bayles |
| Biography
"The Vibrant One: Carolee Clark"
by Mj DeArmitt
Style and
technique
are two important
components to an
artist.
Every artist seeks time to
develop
her craft
and
Like many
artists,
Clark’s love of
art began
at an early age. “My mother always enjoyed painting,” Clark says,
“and she
would encourage
me and
my sisters
to draw while she
set
up
her easel.
I’ve been
drawing as
far back as I
can remember,
but when
I was
twenty, my
mother gave me a small set of watercolors,
and I
was hooked.
They
unlocked a
world of color for me.” Clark would eventually become
known for her vibrant use of color. Clark worked in watercolors for years, yet even after winning awards in the medium, she suddenly and unexpectedly switched to acrylic. Like any artist making a jump in medium, she was nervous her body of work would shift and become unrecognizable.
“I decided that I would experiment with a completely
foreign
subject matter,
non-objective
abstract,
when I
made the
transition. I had a
showing of
these
paintings in a local hospital and
some time afterward, a woman came up
to me
and said
she had
known
immediately that they were my paintings!”
Clark grew up in the beautiful Okanagan
Valley
of British
Columbia.
Her family
would spend the hot summers at their cabin on the
lake, where Clark and her two sisters would draw while her
mother
painted en
plein air
on the
shoreline.
Clark recalls, “I have been exposed to
art my entire life. My mom had her paintings around the house and she enjoyed sharing the experience of creating artwork with her
daughters. I
always had
crayons and
pencils in my hand, and I loved it.”
Having grown up surrounded by art, and interested
in
exploring and
expanding
her own abilities, Clark knew she wanted to pursue
art. Her
parents
however,
were
concerned that Clark wouldn’t
generate enough income with her art, and encouraged her to
pursue a more traditional career
path.
“On one hand they wanted to encourage my
love of
art, and on the other,
they feared for my ability to feed myself.”
Clark entered school for business, focusing on economics,
even though she knew art
was her
true passion.
After several years of college, Clark left school to open a
business providing freelance
secretarial
and
office
services
to small
businesses. The
business grew,
and eventually Clark sold it for a tidy profit.
At first,
Clark
thought about
starting another business but quickly reconsidered.
“I realized that I didn’t
want to reinvest
in another venture
and delay
my desire
to follow
artistic
endeavors. I want
to enjoy
life doing
the things
I love.
I decided
that I would live more
frugally,
and focus
on the things that
make me
happy.”
Art quickly became her highest priority.
As she began focusing on creating, Clark also started
spending more time in nature. On a
seven day
bike tour,
Tour
British
Columbia, Clark
fell in
love with
a fellow
adventurer
and wasted no time marrying and moving with him
to Oregon. “Our
courtship was not
a long one
before we were
married,”
she admits
with a laugh.
As with her whirlwind marriage, one can see
Clark’s
adventurous
spirit
in each
of her
paintings. Her paintings seem to be
of common
places - homes,
landscapes, cars, or
even the steps of a coffee
shop - but the color and vibrancy
of her
work
invite the
When asked what subject matter
she
prefers, Clark
says, “I
need very
little
to inspire
me. I carry my sketchbook with me wherever
I go.
I’ll
draw people
in cafes, airports
and
restaurants. I’ll draw cars in parking lots or while
I sit
in a
traffic
jam.
I’ll draw buildings, houses, or garbage
cans—anything in front of me.”
Clark primarily learned what she liked to paint when
she set
a goal
to paint
six
paintings every
week
for a
year.
“I
think it
was
When
asked
who her
major
artistic influences are,
Clark
is not quick to
drop
the
names
of
the
famous.
“The
Willamette
Valley
has amazing artists and I was lucky to be included. I was working closely with a critique group
of
some very
strong
artists.
I
learned a lot.”
In fact,
one of
the
most
educational projects Clark has
ever
completed is
a
series of
collaborative paintings she completed with Donna
Beverly.
“We
had
been painting
together
once a week for about seven years when, in 2007,
Donna, who
also
works with
acrylic,
jokingly asked if we
could
paint on
one
another’s
paintings. She was
frustrated with her
painting
and was thinking about starting over.
I said sure!”
Clark’s artwork can be
found lighting up public
and
private
collections
in different
corners
of the world. Clark has sold her work through galleries and even
more
broadly on the
internet. Her work has been featured on the
cover
of the
Portuguese journal, Psicologia, as
well as
Bethesda
magazine,
and the
artistic
journal
Calyx. She
is also
a
member of
When she’s
not in
her
studio, Clark
can be found playing golf, adventuring with her
spouse, or taking
care of
her
three cats.
She is
always expanding her
media or
technique, and is perpetually inspired by the
beauty of her surroundings.
|