JOHN CLARKE, visual artist and photographer

The Meadow John Clarke

JOHN CLARKE

PHOTOGRAPHER / ARTIST

INTERVIEW BY H. CANDEE

I am looking at a pastel on pigment print, The Meadow, (Sohn FA site) and I am curious to know if you listen to your inner voice; pay attention to what your instinctual feelings tell you to do when it comes to creating art? Many artists go by their skills and what is literally in front of them to work with. What goes on in your mind during the pre and post process? John Clarke: My art is very much instinctual. I do not start with a vision of what my images will look like when they’re completed. I may start with a conceptual idea, but that is not usually visual. Having said this, the voice I listen to is not just my own…

The Meadow is part of an ongoing series I call The Bridge. It is a mixed-media piece that combines photography, abstract drawing, and music. Pieces from this series begin as long-exposure photographs, usually taken at dusk, when the low light allows for long exposures. While the shutter is open, I gently move the camera, a dance with the scene at hand. This softens the capture, gently blurring the image the way river water wears away the edges of stone. I print the photograph on Moab Entrada Rag paper, a beautiful thick matte paper that is perfect for drawing. Square pieces are printed 34 x 34”. Rectangles are typically 40 x 30” or larger.

16 •THE ARFUL MIND SEPTEMBER 2019

The next step takes some time. Abstract drawing for me is a response to music. I need to find the right music for each image. I work primarily to neo-classical composers like Arvo Part, Max Richter, Michael Nyman, and David Diamond. Once I have the music selected, then a second dance commences, a dance between me, the photographic print and the music. For most of the work in The Bridge series, I draw with chalk pastel and pencil. The music dictates the drawing and infuses my line with a lyrical quality. The dance is one of efficiency, balance and grace. Bouts of drawing are balanced with periods of reflection, making sure the overall effect is in harmony with the background image, the music, and the feeling this combination creates in me. Keeping the music consistent aids in keeping the work from straying too far afield. The same music casts the same spell, making it easier to work a piece over days and weeks.

As far as the pre and post process, I enjoy work that has multiple, distinct stages. Shooting images is one step in the overall creation of this type of work, but it is also an end to itself, completely separate from any thought of drawing or music. The selection of music to work to is more personal, emotional, and can take many months. The studio work is again its own process, drawing off the photographic image, my lifelong

pursuit of drawing, and my deep love for and response to music.

How do you know what medium and when to use those choice materials you have to work with? John: I’m somewhat pragmatic when it comes to what medium to work in. I’m represented by Sohn Fine Art in Lenox, which is a photography gallery, so much of my visual work these days is at least photographically based. My love for abstract drawing and painting brings paint, pastel and pencil into the mix, but paint ripples paper unless the paper is mounted, so I only add paint to my photographic work if I’m mounting the print to wood. Chalk pastel and pencil respond best to the Moab Rag paper. Oil pastels leave a waxy line with little color, so I don’t tend to use them in my mixed media work. I’m preparing for a show at the Stockbridge Train Station that will open the weekend of October 19th, and for this show, I’m incorporating my writing into my mixed media work, using drafts of my short stories as the background images instead of long exposure photographs. These pieces will be on wooden panels, so I am free to use pencil, oil and chalk pastels and paint.

How has your work over the past 5 to 10 years pro-

John Clarke

gressed in terms of using your developed skills and experience? What have you opened your eyes to for the first time? John: My photographic vision was forever changed in 2012. My tripod was broken, which basically meant my camera was broken, as I always shot with a tripod to ensure the sharpest focus possible. After almost a year, I reluctantly took my camera on a fall hike at Jug End, thinking at the very least I could document the striking early fall palette of rust, gold and green. Early in the hike, as we headed out of a canopy of trees, I turned around and, without stopping, shot a few images of the tree-covered path. The first of these captures was a revelation to me. The bounce in my step as I walked had blurred the image, creating a photograph that looked like a painting. That single image opened the door to a whole new approach to photography, and ultimately, to visual art in general.

The Bridge series, begun in 2014, had been brewing in me for a few years… how to bring together my love for photography, abstract drawing and music in a meaningful, personal way. It was inspired in part by Nancy Spero’s large-scale piece Cri du Couer that I’d seen in 2013 at the Worcester Art Museum. Spanning three rooms, Spero used a single etched plate and printed it thousands of times in a running frieze. Sometimes

clear, often lost in a riot of ink, the piece brought the viewer on an emotional and spiritual journey. The myriad iterations of the printing plate, thousands of combinations of ink and image, was fascinating to me. I wanted to make that process my own.

It was shortly after my son Orrin’s birth in May, 2014 that I tried my first piece in this style. The goal was to work abstractly, hanging one visual language on the balance of another, letting my abstract line interact with the underlying photograph in unexpected ways, producing an image that lives somewhere between reality and abstraction.

Another absolutely crucial way that I’ve developed is in my personal identity around BEING an artist. I remember in my late twenties being very proud at having come to the idea of NOT identifying myself as ANY- THING… I might be a writer, or composer, a singer, a painter, but those were just facets, different sides of me. Around that time, I had realized I was greater than any of those individual sides. Naming myself was a limit. A box. As I’ve gotten older, especially now that I have a family, I realize that the best way for me to keep my creative life alive and paramount in my life is to have it be financially sustaining, or at least not an absolute drain. This in itself was a two-year battle, wrestling with fears that came with placing a financial value on

my creative time and output. But when I finally saw that if I don’t identify myself as an artist then no one else would either, and that however useful my old beliefs of resisting labels and boxes might have been, it was now time to adapt a new belief system that would better serve me and my family in this phase of my life, it was clear to me that I not only WAS an artist, but that I WANTED to be an artist. To keep that alive, I needed to own it.

Have you been daring and experimental? How so? How not so? John: I don’t actually feel daring or experimental. It’s possible that my approach or the resulting work may seem that way to others, but I don’t feel like I’m pushing any boundaries, at least not consciously. I’m looking for something that pleases me, something that comes from the depths of me, something that only I can offer the world. This is not necessarily daring or experimental. It just needs to be personal, truthful. I love Robert Henri’s quote from early on in The Art Spirit: “We are not here to do what has already been done.” This simple sentiment is a guiding light for me. It’s not about being daring. Continued on next page...

THE ARTFUL MIND SEPTEMBER 2019 • 17

John ClarkeDrive By

Tell us about the photography show you had, ‘Lyrical’, last year at the Sohn Fine Art Gallery last year? I heard it was a huge success! John: Lyrical was the first overwhelming success I’ve had. I have been putting on my own shows in the Berkshires since 2009, and for many years before that in other areas. To me, success has always been based on the strength of the work. A sale would help ease the financial burden of production, but wasn’t necessary for a show to feel successful. If the work was strong, and the exhibition space looked great, and the opening was full of friends and fans, then it was a success.

Lyrical was my first solo show at Sohn Fine Art in Lenox. We exhibited seven large-scale hand-worked photographs, which were all done in the past year, and three large drawing/paintings from my Alina series (done back in 2007), as well as a few much smaller photographs and drawings. The exhibition showcased the evolution of my work, and highlighted the drawing style that I developed in 2007 and continue to use today. Even though it was winter, seven of the ten large pieces sold. It was a nice confidence boost, as well as my first financially successful show.

What are you exhibiting at the Berkshire Museum this season? Is this one of your bigger venues in your career so far? John: In the summer of 2018, the Berkshire Museum held its first-ever juried show called Art of the Hills. My hand-worked long exposure Trees by the Pond

18 • SEPTEMBER 2019 THE ARTFUL MIND

was selected, and at the opening reception, it was awarded the third juror’s prize. This awarded me a solo show this year in the museum’s Berkshire Now viewing area. Although not a room in the museum, the work is in a high-traffic area just past the admission’s desk.

The work on view is a mix of drawing/paintings from my 2007 Alina series, newer mixed media pieces from the Bridge series, and pure long exposure photographs. I approached it as a bit of an overview, touching on the major types of work I’ve been focused on over the past decade or more.

John, we all in the Berkshires have watched you and your beautiful family grow. It seems like such a happy and wonderful balance for you. How are you influenced by your family in terms of what to create next? John: Admittedly, with two young kids at home, a full-time job as printer and framer at Sohn Fine Art, and my practice as an artist, finding balance is hard. Summer in the Berkshires affords so many events and opportunities, and yet it’s also the busiest time as far as work for both my partner Liz (who is a gardener) and me. Finding balance has always been a challenging part of life. It’s why I quit my band Bell Engine back in 2014. With Orrin on the way and no way to know what to expect, I couldn’t imagine feeling the tug between weekly nighttime rehearsals, weekend gigs and raising a newborn. I continued to draw and work on my short stories at home during that time,

but the band was too much. Now, even my stories have taken a back seat as my visual art continues to gain traction. There’s a great scene in the movie Basquiat, directed by the New York artist Julian Schnabel, where Basquiat and the critic Rene Ricard are in Basquiat’s studio. Basquiat is getting his first real taste of success in the New York City art scene. The phone rings and Rene answers it. It’s someone from Basquiat’s band Gray wondering why he isn’t at rehearsal. Rene takes a message and when he tells Basquiat who it was on the phone, Basquiat remembers that he’s supposed to be at band practice. Rene, realizing the focus and commitment one needs to succeed at this level, chides him, saying, “What are you, Tony Bennet, you sing on stage and paint in your spare time?” Basquiat responds innocently, “Oh, I didn’t know Tony Bennet painted!” Ricard replies curtly, “My point exactly.” It’s so hard to get noticed for anything in the arts. At some point, some focus is necessary.

Aside from this struggle to balance and prioritize, our life together is pretty amazing. Orrin and Maris are happy, beautiful kids. We live in Housatonic, just a short walk into town. We all love the train and the century-old mill complex. A poem I wrote when Orrin was born was actually inspired by the Housatonic water tower. One early evening, late in Liz’s pregnancy, she and I were walking past the tower. She commented on the graffiti at the top and, not noticing an obvious way to get from the main structural legs up to the body of the tower itself, said “Maybe there

John Clarke Branches 1 and 2

was once a ladder…” A few seconds later, a short section of ladder came into view, hidden but right where it should be. This idea stuck with me… the idea of the ladder that should be there but isn’t until, after looking a little harder, you realize it was there, all the time, at the crucial spot.

Orrin’s Ladder

Maybe there was once a ladder climbing, climbing through the sky past the things that do not matter past the need for asking why

Maybe there was once a ladder starting just below the sky lost amidst the endless chatter hidden from the downward eye

Maybe once there was a ladder reaching toward the highest high higher than the sound of laughter higher than our dreams can fly

So if there maybe was a ladder waiting for you all this time go find your strength, all you can gather…

then climb and climb and climb and climbBoth Liz and I have a wonderful collection of images

of the kids. Although I share some of these on social media, they are more for us and not about me as an artist. And yes, I have been teaching iPhone photography at a beginner and more advanced level since 2014.

What inspires you the most about our natural world? When you are hiking and have you camera in hand, do you expect to see something you have never seen before, or do you seek out what you are familiar with and endlessly captivated by revisiting its beauty? John: These days, two things in particular continue to inspire and excite me. The first is the use of long exposures. The magic of long exposure is if you gently move the camera, the resulting photograph provides an image of the world that is at the same time true and accurate but one we cannot see with our eyes. It’s pure creation. I’ve developed and continue to refine my own method of moving the camera during capture, resulting in images that feel like pastel drawings. For years, I reserved this type of imagery for the natural world, targeting the beauty of our Berkshire landscape. This past summer, however, I had a residency at the Red Lion Inn, in which I was encouraged to create work based on or inspired by the Inn and its grounds. The long, richly decorated hallways on the upper three floors were very intriguing to me, and after about two weeks of exploring, I took a long exposure of one of the halls as I walked from one end to the other. The resulting image was a shimmering,

blurred image of flattened space, over-saturated with the colors of the lamps, furniture and carpeted floor. I continued walking the hallways throughout my residency, capturing views of the halls and rooms infused with the spirit of movement, the bustle of the guests, the passing of time.

Rainy windows have been another continued source of inspiration. In much the same way that my long exposures offer me a glimpse of a world that is hidden from our naked human eye, raindrops produce a natural distortion, focusing the world in miniature lenses and blurring the background into an abstraction of color and pattern. By focusing on the window itself and letting the background blur, the texture and pattern of the water droplets become the subject, rich and abstract, while the world beyond the window provides the palette.

Curious why you are an avid collector and lover of fossils, rocks and minerals? John: I loved rocks, crystals and fossils as a kid. Back then, my parents would bring me to trade shows and I’d buy a fossil or a crystal that caught my eye and add it to my rock collection. Although I loved to look for rocks when my parents and I were out, the rocks in my town were not nearly as exotic or exciting as the incredible specimens on display at a mineral show.

In the summer of 2000, my best friend John Roberts and I took a three-week summer trip backpacking on the railroad tracks trying to learn how to ride freight trains. Continued on next page...

THE ARTFUL MIND SEPTEMBER 2019 • 19

John Clarke Trees by the Pond

The second train we jumped brought us to Hazleton, PA, where we got stuck for three days. During our explorations of the tracks around town, I found a three hundred million year old fossil bed of beautiful fern fossils, palm sized pieces of shale and slate imprinted with rust colored ferns. At first, I doubted they were real, since they were just lying out in the sun and no one had collected them already. I thought maybe they were someone’s pottery collection, or a weird, shortterm by-product of the coal region. Later that same day, I found a fist-sized chunk of rock with a vein of quartz crystals running around it. That day re-inspired my love for rocks. I even moved to Hazleton two years later and spent a half a year collecting fossils and crystals throughout the area. I continue to visit Hazleton as often as I can to revisit the land and look for rocks.

The act of discovering a beautiful, natural object like a fossil or a crystal feels very much like the joy of creating an image that has never existed before. It’s like a peek behind the curtain, a glimpse of another facet of reality, like finding that ladder on the water tower after doubting it’s there. To be out in nature and stumble upon the most exquisite ferns baked into rock and realize that the earth made them and that NO ONE has

20 • SEPTEMBER 2019 THE ARTFUL MIND

ever seen them before is magical. It’s pure discovery.

John, how can I introduce you also as a songwriter/musician to this talk we are having? Where are you now with your music? John: I wish I could say that my songwriting held importance to me right now. Maybe it will again someday. I can still sing, but don’t have nearly the stamina I did when I played all the time. When I left Bell Engine, we were discussing a second album and were playing live at least ten strong songs that we hadn’t recorded. I regret that we didn’t capture those songs in a studio setting at that time. I also had a collection of fifteen songs that I’d planned to record at home, but recording and mixing is such an isolating pursuit (“headphoneland,” I call it), and it didn’t fit well with being home with Liz and our newborn son. Lisa Anderson and Miles Lally (both from Bell Engine) and John Roberts helped me record my song Train Car Love. (https://soundcloud.com/johnclarkesongs) late in 2014 at my home in North Egremont, but after that, visual art, work and my young family were taking up my time.

Now, with two kids and a growing visual art practice,

I don’t know where my music fits in. But, as I’ve said, music in general continues to heavily influence my drawing, therefore infusing my visual art…

While in college, what studies did you find most interesting? Have you found any of those areas useful in ways to you now? Chemistry, math, archaeology, and a in classical music composition, it sounds right when you are referred to a Rennaisance man! John: In high school I was a serious student with a strong aptitude for math, chemistry and physics. I could also draw very well. And I was a good athlete. When I was looking into colleges, I wanted a small, liberal arts school that was strong in the sciences. But after receiving Chemistry Student of the Year at the end of my first year at Bates, my interests changed. A visiting professor from Bowdoin taught an archeology class my sophomore year that awoke my imagination. I continued with math another semester, but classes in art history, archeology, philosophy and religion were far more interesting to me by the time I was a junior.

When I was home from winter break in the middle of my junior year, I happened to be home one Friday evening. There was a long-standing rule in my parents’

John ClarkeRain (Housatonic Water Tower)

house… if you were home on Fridays when my dad got back from the video store, you had to watch at least the first fifteen minutes of whatever he brought home. After that, if the movie didn’t interest you, you were free to go. He was always trying to get us to watch important films, and this was one small way of trying to make that happen. I plopped down on the couch and watched Amadeus with him. This film changed my life. Although I could sing, I was not a musician. I didn’t read or write music and couldn’t play an instrument other than a few chords on the guitar. But the idea of creating music in your mind and then writing it down from there was a revelation to me. I returned to Bates as a second semester junior and went to the music department chair and pleaded my case. She said if I took nothing but music courses for the next three semesters, I would have enough credits to major in music. So that’s what I did. I wasn’t gifted, but I had a rich imagination and found my way to song writing from my classical studies. The influences of Beethoven and Mozart opened my ears to the nuances of The Beatles and Radiohead. The music was different, but the creative approach and emotional impact was similar. And as a songwriter and singer, it meant I could front a

band.

One thing my dad impressed upon me was that if you pursue avenues that interest you, you are more apt to learn, and the act of learning is as important, arguably more important in certain circumstances, that the subject at hand. Learn how to learn, and then you will carry that skill with you throughout life.

You got what it takes to be an accomplished artist. What does this statement mean to you? What are your real goals? John: My priorities are my family and my art. I want for the continued health and happiness of my family, both as four individuals and as a family unit. Artistically, my vision is to transition from working in the studio only after my daily responsibilities have been met to waking up, having breakfast with my family, getting the kids to school, and going to the studio for my daily work. We’re not in a financial situation to do that right now, but I can see it on the horizon. I have a wonderful studio space in Stockbridge, and will be sharing space in a photo collaborative at the old Country Curtains mill space in Housatonic as well. I am particularly excited to be part of this artistic community. And I am

represented by Cassandra Sohn of Sohn Fine Art, who continues to be so supportive and encouraging of new work and artistic growth.

Gaining a reputation in the artworld, especially nationally or internationally, takes a LONG TIME. It’s a long-range plan. Also, there’s no direct correlation between making good work, getting well-known, and selling. Continued evolution and artistic growth seem absolutely crucial to me, and yet anytime an artist has a financially successful body of work, there’s a potential to want to continue with that type of work. Keeping my goals focused on both aesthetic (personal) and financial (public) success seems to me to be course of action at this point.

Thank you, John!

THE ARTFUL MIND SEPTEMBER 2019 • 21