We were lucky to catch up with Clark Valentine recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Clark with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
The discipline that comes with the journey of being a creative is something that I think about nearly every day in both my studio and my classroom. Just this last semester, I was talking with a friend about the most important quality someone needs to be an artist. We decided that it’s stubbornness. I don’t think this is a god-given gift. Nor is it something that can really be taught. Many artists discover this as a key ingredient to their success only after they first experience the effects that an unbridled determination has on the work. It’s almost like an act of faith. My art practice is deeply tied to time. Each of my large-scale drawings takes several months to create. In that time, a single mistake, often from one moment of distraction, can ruin the drawing. Sometimes, you do everything right and the final image still just doesn’t work. And yet, the work needs to be made. I have found that the only antidote to the risk in my process is to make enough art to account for my margin of error.
In late-June, 2023, I was invited to put on a solo exhibition of my drawings at a cultural center in Dolores, Uruguay. Due to the constraints of travel, I decided to only make small images for the show. Without being able to visit the venue beforehand, I estimated that I would need about ten works of art to fill the space. So in January of 2023, I gave myself the goal of making fifteen drawings to take with me. This would give me enough images that I could eliminate any bad works of art and still have more than enough images to choose from. By April, I had completed my fifteen drawings, so I extended my goal to twenty. Once I hit twenty, I pushed to twenty-five. When I finally landed in Uruguay and began to curate the show, I had over thirty completed drawings to choose from. To choose ten, cohesive and interesting drawings from a pool of thirty was one of the most fluid and joyful exhibition experiences I have had. I remember feeling gratitude to myself for the work I had put in leading up to the show because it made the actual event so much easier.
I teach this same tactic in my classes when working with students who are developing their studio practices for the first time. In my intermediate and advanced drawing courses, I give a single, semester-long assignment to students: Make a cohesive portfolio of 5-7 artworks that center on a single research topic. This open-ended assignment offers students the ability to play, explore new materials, and take unique risks. Each student goes in their own direction over the course of the semester. But within this chaos of exploration, we as a class tackle a single topic of making – discipline. Without fail, the students who make the most work are also the students who have the best final portfolios. Nothing brings me more joy than having to talk with a student about how to narrow down their portfolio to just seven artworks at the end of the semester when they have produced double or triple the number of expected works. I believe that a creative practice is something that is so unique to an individual that the most helpful thing I can do as a professor is to provide students with a clear structure of work-ethic within which their creativity can run free.
There is danger in the message that the creative culture industry is trying to sell young artists. It feels good to hear a successful creative advise us to just play, or to patiently wait for inspiration to strike. The romance of this message sells a lot of books and gets million of views on a TED talk. But what these creative-turned-guru folx often forget to mention is that their ‘play’ exists within tedious twelve-hour studio days and years of disciplined making. I don’t believe the secret to creative success is just in the joy of play. It lies in building a structured life where there is more than enough time and space for one to discover that sense of play on their own. This is less romantic or bohemian than we would hope, but there is a deeper fulfillment that comes with a strict dedication to one’s craft – and within that we give ourselves the agency to discover freedom and joy when making.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I am an artist and professor currently living and working in Little Rock, Arkansas. As an artist, I create in both a drawing practice and a collaborative practice which sit alongside each other. I have exhibited in museums, universities and galleries on five continents and widely throughout the United States. In the last year, I have shown my work in a solo exhibition at the Centro Cultural Nacional in Dolores, Uruguay, and in group exhibitions at Bradley University in Peoria, IL, the Maeso Museum in Villa Soriona, Uruguay, and at the University of Melbourne in Australia. I have attended residencies with the School of Visual Arts in New York City, as well as in Uruguay and Germany. I have work in both public and private collections around the globe. Most notably, my work is included in the permanent loan collection at King’s College, Cambridge in London and in the Heintzman collection, which is pledged to the Peoria Riverfront Museum. I’m grateful for my ongoing connection with the Heintzman brothers and their investment in my drawing and collaborative work. Their prestigious collection includes artists such as Agnes Martin, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Richard Diebenkorn. Not only do I feel encouraged to have my artwork included amongst so many incredible artists, but I am proud to be connected with John and Jeff Heintzman on their mission to give back to their community in Illinois and throughout the Midwest.
My drawings explore ideas of spiritual practice and phenomenology through processes of repetition. In my drawings, each mark becomes a unique repetition of the mark before it. Over time, the disruptions of the hand change the marks and the drawing takes itself in new directions. These variations of the marks become key compositional features. The process of drawing then becomes a balance between an active meditation of the mind and a passive response of the hand. In the making process, I seek to find moments of stillness where it feels as though my hand is moving on its own, responding to the needs of the drawing.
Additionally, I am a founding member of the I Found U Collective – a group of artists living on four continents who work together to create international collaborations. Our work includes installations, digital works, and a social practice which explore the intersection of digital and physical spaces in a post-modern world. Our collective meets weekly, using Zoom to plan and prepare for our projects, which often involve international travel for the construction and installation of the finished works.
In the coming year, I will have multiple solo exhibitions around the country. In August 2024, I have a solo exhibition at the Maners Pappas Gallery on campus at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where I teach. Shortly after, I will be exhibiting in a solo show at Auric Gallery in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This second show will be curated by Abigail Kreuser and Gundega Stevens. One of my first exhibitions was at Kresuer Gallery, Abby’s previous business. I am eager to exhibit a collection of drawings at Auric which have not yet been shown in the US. It is always a pleasure to work with Abby and Gundi and partner with them in their mission of investing in the Colorado Springs community.
I am eager for opportunities I have in 2024 to exhibit both in my hometown of Colorado Springs, and in my new home of Little Rock, as I plan to have a continued presence in the art communities of both regions.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Throughout my journey so far as an artist, I have had an exceptional opportunity to work with mentors who’s lessons have taught me how to grow both as an artist and as a person. I can easily pinpoint three lessons which have changed the way that I approach my artwork, my teaching practice, and life as a whole. The first of these has been the lesson of ‘grit.’ An undergraduate professor and now close friend of mine — the painter, Corey Drieth — speaks often of grit when it comes to art-making. Similar to the stubbornness I mentioned before, I think grit in an art practice means continuing to wrestle with the challenges a project presents until you reach a place of stillness in the conclusion of the work. I find a lot of pushback in my work, both from the materials and from the mental challenges of the studio. It would be easy to step away from a project or a body of work when I receive that pushback. But, I feel that the development of grit is what allows me to push through during these times. I don’t think grit is fighting against the work, but rather a steadfastness that keeps one showing up to face the challenges regardless of their outcome. I have learned to find satisfaction in the toiling instead of viewing studio problems as an obstacle to overcome as quickly as possible.
The second lesson that I have learned has come as a collection of my experiences both in the art world and as an educator in the university classroom. It is the lesson of falling in love with uncertainty. I have learned that not only to make good artwork, but also to have good connections with others, one must learn to be continually less attached to one’s own world-view. I find that the greatest artworks I have encountered ask questions instead of claiming to present answers. My studio practice continually pulls me into places of greater uncertainty. Sitting within that uncertainty, rather than attempting to solve it, allows me to create works which are personal and authentic to my growing experience in the world. This is an idea I have taken into the classroom. Rather than spending most of my instructional time lecturing, I focus on investigating questions with my students through conversation. The topics we discuss are often questions to which I don’t have answers. The act of exploring challenging topics with other creatives without an end goal in mind offers the chance to uncover new ways of thinking and looking at the world, which inevitably trickle into more authentic and sensitive expressions in the art.
Finally, the last year or so of my life has brought me the ongoing lesson of learning to embrace the role of ‘artist’ as a way of being. This sentiment had previously felt like a cliché to me, but as I have encountered many changes in my life, I find that embracing my identity as an artist allows me to both prioritize the work and draw the right people into my life. At its core, the act of making art is a seeking to be understood by others, even as we seek to understand ourselves. Embracing making as a process of self-discovery, rather than as a performance to make what is ‘right,’ has allowed me to grow both within the studio and in my connection to those in my life. When I choose to show up in a spirit of honesty to the work, I find myself growing in independence and confidence of who I am beyond the studio. From this, I can share myself in truer ways with my viewers, fellow creatives, and my community.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
I’m a reader, for sure. I love books of poetry, philosophy, and religion – all of which inform the work I create. There is one book I have that encompasses all of these, while also including the images of an artist’s fifty-year-long career. Arne Glimcher’s publication, “Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances,” has a permanent home on my coffee table (unless I’ve loaned it out to a friend or student.) This book is a collection of images, essays, notes, and letters that Glimcher collected during his nearly thirty-year, professional relationship with the painter, Agnes Martin. I won’t get into Agnes Martin’s story, but her visual language and her way of understanding the world was formative in my journey to discover my place within the conversation of abstraction. Glimcher’s book, not only shows the works of Martin, but within the book, he has bound photocopies of letters, notes, and essays which she sent him over the years. To read an artist’s thoughts in their own handwriting creates a sense of intimacy which I have not experienced in any other book. When I read Martin’s notes, I often begin to feel like I am having coffee with a friend… or perhaps sitting at the feet of a guru.
More than any other book I have read, I feel that this collection provides a holistic image into the mind of an artist. It documents the development of Martin’s thoughts as she moved through life and developed her oeuvre. One can begin to track her shifts in feeling and pair it with shifts in the images she made. It reminds me that the painting hanging in a gallery is not a commercial product. The work of art is a document of an artist’s being. A painting is a culmination of everything one has experienced up to that point, now fixed permanently in the moment the image was made. Then, as that moment lives on, the images sits in conversation with what came before and what comes after. The shifts in the work document shifts in the artist’s soul as she grows through life. As I have sat with Glimcher’s book, I have learned more about how the life of the artist becomes a work of art in itself, merely summarized in the images the artist produces. I find that the tranquility present in Martin’s work is a result of her lifelong interest in the sacred experiences of the mundane.
Early on in the book, there is a copy of a notecard-sized sheet of paper which I envision sat somewhere in Martin’s studio. On it (scrawled in a quick, half-cursive script,) a small poem begins with the koanic sentence, “The silence in the floor of my house is all the questions and all the answers that have been known in the world.” This sentence perfectly captures the quiet, reflective stillness I find when I stand in front of one of Martin’s grids in a museum, or when I see the sunrise though my own studio window.
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- Website: clarkvalentinefineart.com
- Instagram: @clark_valentine_fine_art
- Other: ifounducollective.com
Image Credits
Clark Valentine Andrés Boero Harlan Bozeman Nikolaus Lorenz
