Soft Serve: Chelsea Clarke

About The Exhibition

“I collage with textile, print, and found materials to create colorful sculptures that demonstrate resilience, both conceptually and materially. I took an interest in this subject after disability decidedly altered my practice and led me to a more accessible approach that is firmly rooted in craft. Building on the incredible history of fiber, I want to express thoughts about seeking comfort, softness as strength, and the importance of play. Weaving, knitting, sewing, and quilting have become my primary focus, with a number of adaptive tools like my risograph and floor loom brought in to fully articulate each idea. My portfolio has evolved rapidly in the process of adapting to my body’s changing needs and I am excited to see where it will go as I continue to move forward (or maybe sideways).”

- Chelsea Clarke

Blue and White, Yet Far From Traditional

Essay by Cydney Pickens

Blue is the sky, white are the clouds; cerulean is the sea and milky white is the froth on the crest of each rushing wave. The balanced and natural coupling of blue and white is both comforting and ubiquitous. Although these colors are often evocative of earth’s serene beauty, this colorway is prominent in the global histories of craft, from painted ceramics to bleached and indigo-dyed cotton textiles, thus evolving into a motif of domesticity as the common color choice for functional wares. For Houston-native Chelsea Clarke, this chromatic combination kindles adolescent memories of her grandmother’s quintessential Southern suburban home. Crocheted afghans, delicate doilies and plush cross-stitchings are all ephemera of her upbringing that inspire her practice to this day.

Clarke’s passion for art was encouraged early on by her grandparents: her grandfather, the painter, and her grandmother, a homemaker with a knack for craftsmanship. Clarke nurtured her artistic talents as a youth and began to focus on painting and printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University. Years of dedication to lithography began to present a physical challenge to Clarke when she noticed her deteriorating health, including chronic nerve pain. Limited mobility challenged her artistic experience, and to overcome this frustration, she took a step back from printmaking to return to something more comfortable and familiar.

Ten years after the passing of her beloved grandmother, Clarke returned to her roots. Incorporating the essence of her grandmother’s handiwork with the design skills and wealth of research from the university, Clarke’s rejuvenated artistic direction was as natural as blue and white. Her collection of inherited textiles became an unsullied source of inspiration for Clarke as she explored the new territory of mixed media in soft sculpture. The dichotomy of her freeform artistic upbringing and her structured academic experience produced a series of fluffy and firm, round yet flat, messy but neat works that holistically captured both of her heterogenous schools of thought.

While homemaking was an aesthetic endeavor of her grandmother, “un-making” is an important and meticulous task for Clarke. “I love being unable to tell if a work is coming together or falling apart,” she remarks about her work Taut. Inspired by the dainty and feminine fiber creations of her grandmother, Clarke’s current body of work weaves traditional and contemporary aesthetic values while challenging the associations of feminine and masculine through material “softness.” Pieced together from salvaged fabric and embellished with stainless steel grommets, Taut is a nod to the multifunctional and multipurpose nature of a traditional Southern quilt as it intentionally juxtaposes cool linen bed sheets and rough cotton duck cloth with sumptuous silk and more.

Clarke resides quite comfortably in the design phase of her multi-staged creative process. Her sketchbook is an illuminated manuscript, abounding with floral musings and neon accents. These drawings, some of which have become risograph prints, are intended to become fabrics of her own, eventually to be woven on a loom or stamped with ink. Her fascination with design speaks to her relationship with functionality and accessibility, two terms that interrogate craft’s obsession with the term handmade. “I find ‘mastery’ to be ableist,” Clarke remarks in reference to the problematic associations of technical perfection. The term “handmade” can be exclusionary to those with physical disabilities and “mastery” of a certain process requires an inflexible adherence to a specific way of making that may not be practical for all. In her studio, Clarke defines handmaking as an approach or technique not delimited by the inclusion of machines. She seamlessly joins traditional and technological perspectives in a way that celebrates the legacy of American Studio Craft while representing a new wave of craftspeople, centering her practice on a little something borrowed and a little something blue.

Index

Works Listed in order of appearance in catalogue:

Pom Pom (detail view, 2023)

Image courtesy of the artist.

Pacing (detail view, 2023)

Handmade rug featuring cotton, wool and acrylic, quilt with grommets, knit flagging tape, cinder blocks, Pompoms, and spray paint

Image courtesy of the artist.

Slump ( detail view, 2023)

Polyfil, cotton duck cloth, handwoven Blooming Leaf of Mexico with a cotton/wool blend, plaster, paint, Pompoms, and a store bought rug

Image courtesy of the artst.

About The Artist Studio Program

Established in 2006, the Lawndale Artist Studio Program offers residencies to Texas-based artists who are developing a practice in the visual and performing arts. Lawndale awards residents with access to a welcoming and vibrant community of working artists, curators, critics, and patrons of contemporary art. Throughout the nine-month residency, the artists work closely with each other and Lawndale staff on the development and production of new work that will be exhibited in the spring. Lawndale is pleased to announce Chelsea Clarke as one of our 2022/2023 Artist Studio Program participants. Major support for the Artist Studio Program is provided by Kathrine G. McGovern/The John P. McGovern Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

About The Wrtier

Cydney Pickens is the current Curatorial Fellow at The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC), a nonprofit art space and residency with a focus on craft. Pickens has a BA in Art History from the University of Houston, where she authored the honors thesis Transitive Healing and the Metaphysical Properties of Relational Aesthetics: Uniting African Art Philosophy With Avant-Garde Participatory Practice examining “the critically influential role of pre-colonial African art philosophy and theory on select instances of participatory practice in Modern American and European art.”

In her current role, she has worked closely with local craft guilds to curate exhibitions such as Limitless: The 2021 Recipients of ClayHouston’s Award for Texas BIPOC Ceramic Artists and Sawed, Soldered, Constructed: The Work of Houston Metal Arts Guild. During her Curatorial Fellowship, she aims to “highlight the influence of heritage and tradition on contemporary craft” while maintaining close relationships with local artists and neighboring arts organizations.

About The Artist

Chelsea Clarke recently completed her MFA at University of Kentucky in Lexington, where she investigated the intersection of print and fiber. Her work centers around themes of perceived contradiction, seeking comfort, and living in a state of recovery. She received her undergraduate degree in Painting & Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University, followed by a Post-Baccalaureate in Nonprofit Management with the goal of one day founding a radically accessible artist residency. She currently lives in Houston, Texas and works at the Lawndale Art Center as their Artist in Residence.

Mission

Lawndale is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center that engages Houston communities with exhibitions and programs that explore the aesthetic, critical, and social issues of our time.

About

Lawndale believes in the role of art and artists to inspire and inform the world around us. By serving as an intimate gathering place to experience art and ideas, Lawndale seeks to foster connections between communities in Houston and beyond. Lawndale presents a diverse range of artistic practices and perspectives through exhibitions and programs, including lectures, symposia, film screenings, readings, and musical performances.

Through exhibition opportunities, the Artist Studio Program, institutional collaborations, and the engagement of an advisory board comprised of artists, curators, and scholars, Lawndale seeks within its mission to support all artistic and cultural communities of Houston.

Supporters

Lawndale is grateful for the support it receives from individuals, foundations, government agencies, and other organizations.

Lawndale’s exhibitions and programs are produced with generous support from The Anchorage Foundation of Texas; The Brown Foundation, Inc.; the Garden Club of Houston; David R. Graham; The Joan Hohlt and Roger Wich Foundation; The John M. O’Quinn Foundation; The John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation; Houston Endowment; Humanities Texas and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the federal ARP Act; Kathrine G. McGovern/The John P. McGovern Foundation; The National Endowment for the Arts; The Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation; The Rose Family Foundation; the Scurlock Foundation; the Texas Commission on the Arts; The City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance; and The Wortham Foundation, Inc. Additional support provided by Lindsey Schechter/Houston Dairymaids, Saint Arnold Brewing Company, and Topo Chico.