Jim Clark in conversation with Ossian Foley
O: Your work that I've seen, in person or in pictures, however engineered and abstract (which is the wrong word because nothing's less abstract than light) and ephemeral (which is the wrong word because only light is, as far as I can tell, though there's something the matter with the dark) a given piece might be—no matter all that, your work always tells me something about the natural world, the world of form and growth.
J: When I came out of college in PA, the art world was all about concepts, not much attention to materials and fabrication. Arriving in the city, I had no idea how to do the basic human housing systems. I was forced to learn to do electricity, plumbing and heating. Structurally, I learned how to put walls up and stop roofs from leaking, then how to keep people from breaking in. It was a very fast learning curve, the basics of Darwin’s Law of survival of the fittest in reality. Not evolution but solution. As a creator, it comes from all our information from day one to day now. Light is the basis for life—it is that simple. We are but the fireflies bathing in the glow and harvesting earth's nutrients. Light is the first thing we experience out of the womb, it is our connection to the outside reality. You’re always taking inventory of your life and experiences with keen awareness to a more engaging situation at any given moment.
O: These sorts of exchange of knowledge (interpersonal/across disciplines and media/translation from one domain to another/from physical survival to emotional and intellectual thriving) was absolutely an important fact for me, for my time in NYC. Do you have any stories that really get at how your early career formed through exchange with other artists? Some show that really goosed you, or a particular community that influenced you? What, or who, happened that provoked your work to evolve?
J: I am blessed by so many terrific people who I’ve met over the years. Things happen in life and it is hard to figure out at the time what great or not so great impact they have had. I feel lucky on this one because the positive seems to tip the scale. Meeting artists whose work I had the deepest respect for was paramount in my development, artists like Ron Bladen and Robert Grosvenor. As a young sculptor, I cut my teeth on their work and it stands the test of time, like great art does. Later, I met Mark DiSuvero, another pioneer still making great work. I was introduced to Mark by Lenny Contino, a terrific painter who is having his first one-man show of his life this year. Lenny is 73 years old and has been painting for 50 years. I met Frosty Myers in the mid-80s and he’s been important in my development. Frosty is known for the sculpture in SoHo with tee structures sticking out of an existing building on the corner of Houston and Broadway. Another piece of his is the Moon Museum, a ceramic wafer that was placed on the Apollo 12 Lunar Lander. It’s still there. He had organized with a handful of other artists to make drawings which then were placed on the wafer and attached to the leg of the Lunar Lander.
Really, there have been many terrific painters and sculptors. Guy Goodwin, Bill Jensen, Victor Pesce and Margrit Lewczuk, to name a few. That is the magic of being in the creative environment - having an exchange with artists who hold the torch for excellence, the guiding light. I did not come from an art world background and it was rough to get my footing. I fell
doing constructions jobs, busting myself up, broken arms, etc., but I never lost focus on what my inner voice told me. Alongside of me is my wife, who should be given her wings or called Saint Linda for tolerating my vision. In fact, a dear writer friend said to me that Linda is really lucky to have me and she also feels so sorry for her.
I have not been at this as a competitive adventure but as a search. When friends have success, it is good for everyone. That is the way it should be. The belief that another must fail so that I might succeed has a terrible odor. If one is true to their art their art will be true to them. I really believe this, in my heart. Success is an elusive butterfly. Others call it the bitch goddess. The reality is that success is not a universal perception, no matter what field of endeavor one is in. Many terrific artists do not get the breaks they deserve for so many reasons. Why others do is not to be comprehended. A great example is the artist and dear friend, Kent Floeter, who went to school with Bryce Martin and Chuck Close. Kent was considered the golden boy in college. He had some success, as they did, when he moved to NYC and his first solo exhibition was in a tony gallery. Chuck and I helped him install his work. But Kent just never got his dues. Another example: in real estate, it is “location, location, location;” in art, it is presentation, presentation, presentation. I placed some work in a show on 57th street in early 80's. Another artist was taking his work down and put it all in a garbage bag to transport it. He said, “Look, it all fits into the garbage bag,” then got on the elevator. The art dealer responded, after he left, “That is where it belongs. In a garbage bag.” A lesson to be learned about presentation, respecting your work and self. I make sure when my work is delivered I am taken seriously as an artist. These are lessons that you learn from being in the art trenches—on the job training. It is a lifelong journey, a continuum.
O: Some tough lessons there, and important ones. The dealer agreeing that the guy's work was garbage is stomach turning. Such a slim line. Your community seems like it was, and is, a very healthy one, that you and your friends really pulled each other along artistically and personally. There were some things you all did that it seems easier to describe as events or even sculptural happenings, like lighting ponds out in PA. What were some of those group happenings like? Who all was around, and who made what? Did anyone break someone else's piece?
J: Funny - today, I was talking to a guy who is in from Canada. We spoke about the old Williamsburg and how some friendships fall to the side over the years. That happens all through life for reasons known and unknown. In our short lives, it is not profitable to lose friends so I try to nurture the group that I have.
There were never really any happenings in the early years, maybe a small handful, less than five. They were artists making work. On many occasions the audience was just a photograph, with no one else there. For awhile I shared a studio garage with two other artists but that never worked out well. Like all the arts, sculpture is a very personal voyage, alone with whatever inner voice is trying to come out. When any kind of work is public, sometimes a celebration is created among people you trust to share thoughts, feelings and possibilities with. In the process I broke my own art many times but no one else did. It was not that kind of scene. On one occasion, I got the
group loaded and gave them paint balloons that we threw at this billboard, turning it into a painting. And once while in school I showed a small plaster pigmented painting. I handed out hammers to some friends and it was all planned that on cue they would run up and beat it with the hammers. It really flipped the rest of the class out.
O: While we’ve been writing back and forth, you’ve put up a show at LTD Los Angeles that marks a new event in your artwork - you use the gallery’s existing lighting and spaces. You mentioned to me that modifying LTD’s fluorescent light fixtures was like a trip down memory lane, back to all the times you had to take down fluorescent lights before you put up a show. I’m struck, though, by how inevitable such a show seems to me, given the trajectory of your work. (And by “inevitable, I don’t mean inevitable “duh.” I mean, “Holy smokes, of course!”) In this case you go another step past using light to alter a space and instead use space to alter light, all contingent on the presence of another. What was it like putting this show up? How did the trip down memory lane affect you, and how did that affect the installation? I also have a technical question—do the motion detectors turn the lights on or off? I hope off!
J: When I mentioned that about the show at LTD Los Angeles, I was thinking about a series I did with random gestures of light onto film lying on the floor. That body of work was never shown or shared. It was like sketching with light lines and I kinda felt my way through it, very similar to the process at LTD LA recently. The pieces in the front area of LTD LA turn on when you come into the space and are on a fast 30 second off mode. These fixture’s covers are painted with a phosphorescent paint, so the fixtures illuminate the space after the lights go out. In another room I painted the walls with phosphorescent paint and the motion switch is controlled by a delay relay. Instead of turning on, the light goes out when someone enters, leaving the room aglow.
O: I've wished since I first heard about them that I could have seen the lit ponds. There are some good pictures of these, and other pieces, on your website, but maybe you can help me picture it. I love the idea of just doing this cool thing for yourselves, for fun, for experiment.
Your recent works with electroluminescent wire make such a beautiful demonstration of something maybe a little taken for granted, the simple fact of form as slow cool light, and too, they seem to invert as disclosure the idea of a holographic universe. Like the work is greater than granting the just artist freedom of expression, and by extension, other people, but you are opening new opportunities for nature, energy, light, being able to express itself. This is an idea taken up by the argon pieces of late - gas is about as close as we can get to masslessness but still have something to work with. Is there some new source of light just over the horizon that's exciting to you that you're learning to work with?
J: I did these pieces, the ponds, like I stated before, usually alone or maybe someone, not an artist, would stop by to view. It was a total learning experience but not fun by any means. I was dealing with many unknowns and still do. Something inside me made me do it, it’s that simple. I make work not for shows. It is like the material is going through me with its ego. The work speaks for itself - res ipsa loquitur. I am nothing more than a vehicle for the medium and the force of creativity. I made them but I feel like a small part of a bigger picture.
The artist does not seek the material but the material finds you. If you keep your antennae of possibilities open, the forces become a natural magnetic field. When you least expect to you get a moment of light. It is your life, your complete existence. I see objects in my dreams and I see sculptures completed. I have had dream people talk to me about a sculpture that is visible in my sleep. The surrealist worked with dreams but what I’m talking about have not been fragments but completed works with criticism from a dream viewer. I did not look for the electroluminescent wire, it found me. The EL wire can be twisted, bent and formed but it is also mysterious. So, yes, art in all its forms can not be grasped, it is the elusive butterfly. When you think you understand, the volume of emptiness places you into a labyrinth of stupidity.
