Take Your Act Outside
interview with Joshua Clare
- Can you tell us a bit about yourself, both as a person and as an artist? Where did you grow up and how did your interest in art develop?
I grew up in Salem, Utah, surrounded by farmland and mountains with no neighbors in sight. I think that’s where it began for me. There was a huge picture window in our living room that framed the mountains south of our home with open fields stretching up to it’s foothills, and I looked at that every day. I never dreamed I’d be doing what I do now — that I’d become an artist — I never even picked up a paintbrush until I was a sophomore in college, but I think growing up surrounded by so much natural beauty started me down the path that I’m on.
My interest in art probably began with Glen Kean’s work in the Disney movies I grew up with, like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Little Mermaid. He is a masterful draftsman, and as a kid I could pick out the parts he’d been the lead animator on. I loved his style then and I love it now. I think his drawings kindled that first flame in me — that desire to create… to draw. And that fire was fueled by Calvin and Hobbes — it’s an incredible comic! I loved it as a kid for the great drawings and the cheesy openers. As an adult I still appreciate those, as well as Watterson’s design, pacing, satire, insight, and great writing. I spent a lot of time looking at that strip.
In 5th grade our first art project was to draw one of our shoes in profile. I’ve always loved shoes, and I’d spent the whole summer pulling out the new Nike shoes I got for my birthday and looking at them from every angle. I had every detail of the shoes memorized, so I really enjoyed drawing them. The next day the teacher asked me to stay after school, pulled out my drawing, and told me it was one of the best drawings she’d ever seen from a student. That’s the moment everything changed for me, and I became an artist. So much of who we are is in our heads. We’ll never make good work until we believe we can. My life changed thanks to a teacher who went out of her way to compliment a child in her class. Her name was Mrs. Brady and she made me feel I was an artist, and I became an artist! I’m still grateful to her.
2. Do you only work from life, or do you finish your work in the studio? Most of your landscape paintings look like they’re painted alla prima, directly on site. Can you talk about your painting process?
I love working from life, but most of my finished works are done in the studio. My work from life is growing more and more raw. When I’m outdoors, I’m studying, learning and looking. To spend time ‘finishing’ out there feels somehow wrong. For me ‘finishing’ a piece involves a lot of editing, a lot of changing. So to stand there in the midst of the unsurpassed beauty of nature with my nose stuck in my painting instead of just taking everything in doesn’t make sense to me. I try to spend less time looking at what I’m doing and more time looking at what God’s doing when I’m outside. I love to work really small when I’m outdoors. I’ll tape off an 11x14 board into four smaller segments and do four studies in an hour. I’m not trying to work fast, but to look really carefully and make notes about what I see. I want my studies from life to be as truthful and as honest as possible.Then I bring those studies back into the studio for my color and value notes and use photos I’ve taken for more minute information — for details and drawing.
3. Are there any artists, either past or present, that you feel have influenced or inspired your work? If so, who are they?
I’ve been influenced by a ton of artists. I love the golden age illustrators — they were my first love as an artist, and have continued to inspire and encourage me. I love the Russian itinerants and try to go back to their work whenever I need to feel grounded. I can’t get enough of Joaquin Sorolla and John Singer Sargent. I love Nicolai Fechin’s work and Emil Carlson’s. Then there are a lot of contemporary artists I admire — too many to name them all, but here’s a few: Tim Lawson, Ruo Li, Bill Anton, Daniel Keys, Carolyn Anderson, Matt Smith, Ray Roberts, Mian Situ, Quang Ho, Mike Malm, Grant Redden, Rob Coombs, George Carlson…
4. Was your life as an artist an easy journey so far, or have you had periods where you have had to struggle, either emotionally or financially? If the latter, what helped you get through difficult times?
It’s definitely not an easy journey; but that’s what makes it so rewarding and so exciting. We had some pretty lean years, but I’ve been blessed with an incredible companion, my wife Cambree, who was willing to deal with the uncertainty of an artist’s life. She made my life as an artist possible, and I’m able to do art full time because of her. She’s amazing. So my first bit of advice to getting through emotionally or financially difficult times is this: marry someone amazing like Cambree. My second bit of advice is DON’T LIVE IN CALIFORNIA! I’m kidding. But not really. If you’ve got $2000 a month to pay in rent you’re going to probably find it pretty difficult to make ends meet when you’re starting out. So move. Seriously. My first three years as a full-time artist we lived in Arizona because we found a 50% off sale on houses. It was when the economy took a hard hit and the housing market in AZ took a big hit. My third bit of advice is you don’t need half as much as you think you do. Life is way more simple than we think it is. So live simply. Downsize.
5. Is there any advice you can give to those who are just starting out as artists? Perhaps advice you wish someone had told you when you were just beginning to paint seriously?
I already gave my financial advice, so all that’s left is the artistic advice.The best advice I got when I was starting out came from Bill Anton who wrote this to me in an email after I had enquired about how to make it as an artist: “Take your act outside as often as possible, and in a couple of years you’ll be painting circles around your peers.” So there it is. Take your act outside. I believe that God is the great artist, and that the best way to learn to really see, and to make beautiful things is to spend time studying what He’s made.
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