c l a r e profile picture

c l a r e

My life is slowed up by thought and the need to understand what I am living. -Nin

About Me

"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."
Bukowski
"After running full speed through the green segment of your route, you reach a point where you realize that more care is needed. An imaginary yellow light is flashing and demands that you make more exact use of the Orienteering skills you have learned. It is a matter of locating and passing all the checkpoints you have on your map that lead you in the right direction."
Bjorn Kjellstrom, Be Expert with Map and Compass (1976)




Detail, "The Give", Photo by Jon Goering
"Look at any inspired painting. It's like a gong sounding; it puts you in a state of reverberation."
Phillip Guston
"When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself."
Shunryu Suzuki-roshi
"I am a night painter, so when I come into the studio the next morning the delirium is over. I come into the studio very fearfully, I creep in to see what happened the night before. And the feeling is one of, "My God, did I do that?"
Philip Guston
"Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.�
Henry Miller
"One of the pleasant things those of us who write or paint do is to have the daily miracle. It does come."
Gertrude Stein
"My mind I send
with the moon
that goes beyond the mountain,
but what of this body
left behind in darkness?"
Saigyo
"Whatever we cannot easily understand we call God; this saves much wear and tear on the brain tissues."
Edward Abbey
"That is what it finally comes down to: to see everything, all elements equal, in life; even the mystical, even death. No one thing may extend beyond a second, each must reign its neighbor in. Then each has its own meaning and, what is most important: their sum will be a harmonious whole full of peace and security and equilibrium... And you must, if you wish to be artists, grant all forces the right to lift you and press you down, to shackle you and set you free. It's only a game, don't be afraid. Wait. There is so much newness crowded before me, I cannot name it nor sort ot out. But gaze for a while into forest and ocean, into the great beneficence of this splendor, and wait: clarity will come.
And clarity arrived."
Rainer Maria Rilke
"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds."
Edward Abbey

My Interests

Painting, used bookshops, live music, red wine, playing soccer, yoga, kung fu (movies and just in general), meditation, vinyl, old maps, writing, hiking, vegetarian food, literary quotes, dogs, the moon, big cities, freakishly strong coffee, people under the age of 10

Detail, "Drum of the Magus", Photo by Jon Goering

I'd like to meet:

Anselm Kiefer


Myspace Layouts - Myspace Editor - Image Hosting

Music:

Zoom, Built to Spill, Beastie Boys, Low, Sleater-Kinney, Pixies, Pavement, Rolling Stones, Born in the Flood, Mercury Rev, Television, Sonic Youth, Nick Drake, Feist, Arcade Fire, Minus Story, MC5, Reverend Horton Heat, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Urge Overkill, The Cramps, Cat Power, Velvet Underground, My Morning Jacket, PJ Harvey, Bjork, The Roots, Common, Thelonious Monk, Wilco, Ali Farka Toure, Antonis Anissegos, Manu Chao, Stan Getz, Art Blakey, Tortoise, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Afel Bocoum, Barry White, Rainer Maria, Split Lip Rayfield, Stereolab, Jill Scott, Jane's Addiction, Fugazi, Iggy Pop, Baaba Maal, Ultraman, Big Black, Flipper, Morphine, Digable Planets, Dead Prez, Blonde Redhead, Radio Tarifa, Afro Cuban All Stars, Curtis Mayfield, Camper Van Beethoven, Orlando 'Cachaito' Lopez, Black Flag, A Tribe Called Quest, Roy Ayers, Boss Hog, Dinosaur Jr, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Yo La Tengo, Man or Astroman, Count Basie, The Selector, Skatellites, The Specials, The Kinks, Stevie Wonder, The JB's, Neko Case, Girls Against Boys, Guitar Romantic, Descendents, Sonic Youth, Sarah Vaughan, Interpol, David Bowie, Dead Kennedys, Guided By Voices, Supersuckers, Billie Holliday, Nina Simone, Charles Mingus, John Lee Hooker, Orchestra Baobab, Erykah Badu, Modest Mouse, Conner, Leonard Cohen, Talking Heads, Al Green, Leonard Cohen, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Drakkar Sauna, Vitreous Humor, The Danny Pound Band, Trip Shakespeare, Elliot Smith, Nine Horses, Afghan Whigs, Operation Ivy, Descendants, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Marvin Gaye, Bad Brains, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Cars, Fela Kuti, INXS, Boy's Life, Rufus Wainwright, Mudhoney, Einsturzende Neubauten, Blossom Dearie, The Flaming Lips, Frank Sinatra...etc

Movies:

Wild at Heart, Kung Fu Hustle, Six Degrees of Separation, I Heart Huckabees, Evil Dead 2, White, Bill Hicks Relentless, Bill Hicks Live, Amelie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Garden State, Dave Chapelle's Block Party, The Hunger, Five Deadly Venoms, Army of Darkness, Bladerunner, Blue Velvet, Simple Men, Kentucky Fried Movie, Enter the Dragon, Repo Man, Raisin Arizona, Beastie Boys DVD Video Anthology (the sweet features moved me to give in and finally buy a DVD player), Down By Law, I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, Lost Highway, Army of Darkness, Rear Window, Vertigo, Trust, Henry Fool, Blue Velvet, The Unbelievable Truth, Brazil, Memento, White, Blue, Heathers, A Clockwork Orange, The Usual Suspects, Requiem For a Dream, Awesome: I Fucking Shot That, A History of Violence, Taxi Driver, Donnie Darko, Shaun of the Dead, and any hokey Kung Fu movies (Shaw brothers in particular)

Television:

Twin Peaks, Ali G Show, No Reservations, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office, Chappelle Show, Seinfeld, Sopranos, Survivor Man, Globe Trekker, Peepshow

Books:

Anais Nin, Hunter S. Thompson, Camus, Vladimir Nabokov, Charles Bukowski, Denis Johnson, Walker Percy, John Kennedy Toole, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolfe, Tom Robbins, James Joyce, William T Vollman, Phillip Roth, Rainer Maria Rilke, Kurt Vonneget, JD Salinger, Sylvia Plath, Shunryu Suzuki, Henry Miller, Seung Sahn, Henry Miller, David Sedaris, Friedrich Nietzsche, William Blake, Jack Kerouac, Red Pine, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William Faulkner, E.E. Cummings, Allen Ginsberg, Ayn Rand, William S Burroughs, John Fante, Chogyam Trungpa, Charlotte Joko Beck, Wallace Stevens, Franz Kafka, Philip Levine, Edward Abbey, Erza Pound, Ray Bradbury, Barry Gifford, Richard Rathwell, Basho, Saigyo

Detail, "Drum of the Magus", Photo by Jon Goering

Detail, "Lost One", Photo by Jon Goering

Heroes:


"I will wade out till my thighs
Are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
And leap into the ripe air alive
With closed eyes
To dash against darkness
in the sleeping curves of my body
I shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
With chasteness of seagulls
Will I complete the mystery of my flesh"
E.E.Cummings

My Blog

Milagro

Everything that happens, when it has significance, is in the nature of a contradiction. Until the one for whom this is written came along I imagined that somewhere outside, in life, as they say, lay t...
Posted by c l a r e on Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:51:00 PST

Isolario

In researching antique maps and my obsession withold cartographic images, stumbled upon referenceto the first printed books of portulan charts."Isolario" (island books) were left quite plain,embellish...
Posted by c l a r e on Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:41:00 PST

Burning

Having to do interviews this week and talk with various people about the show opening and the paintings reminded me of what brought me to a point of reverberation in the work (and my life). Reminded m...
Posted by c l a r e on Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:02:00 PST

Upcoming Show


Posted by c l a r e on Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:16:00 PST

Nin's Diary

I have started a new series of work I am referring to for now as "The Library". The process consists of taking a beloved book off my shelf - one that has shattered my soul with it's brilliance at some...
Posted by c l a r e on Sat, 21 Jul 2007 10:30:00 PST

The Building

oh the rabbits.it took a site-specific assignment to push them back in, but somehow i find myself miles away from my fields and back to this work. to tell the truth, i kind of missed them :) the field...
Posted by c l a r e on Wed, 02 May 2007 06:04:00 PST

The Seed

A cross-legged waitClouds the dayIn vacuous crutchesAnd giant gulps.Remember the sweats bead;Crystal ball of a brow.Haloing jewels,Our furrowed grins,They touch, run and seed.Here the rain plummetsDow...
Posted by c l a r e on Fri, 30 Mar 2007 01:37:00 PST

The Ancient Beat of Heart

Crux lean true:Our crimson beat.This wrap-utter refugeTucked and folded In elusive tide.Your unrelenting distanceAn eternal torchA constant know.Oh the familiar aches Of thisFor you.Warm hearts curren...
Posted by c l a r e on Thu, 29 Mar 2007 01:27:00 PST

Pound the Bruise

Garish light of morningShocks our moonless night.Palms down to raw. Half-mast and mourning dog.108 bows down the silence To honour still dark passing.And these calloused waves of dirt Are heavens fiel...
Posted by c l a r e on Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:07:00 PST

Relief From Prayer

Root in the bitter cold.White-earth down and ground taut and chalky groovesthat ferment my sweet lifewith your hell-borne relic.Such relief from prayer.A fine, round wish.Over low, backbent horizons,I...
Posted by c l a r e on Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:07:00 PST