Biography

   Susan Clinard
Clinard Sculpture Studio
14 Gilbert St., Unit M207
West Haven, CT 06516-1639
USA

Phone: + 1 (312) 375-7018
Phone: + 1 (203) 435-7304
Email: susan@clinard.org

Susan Clinard began her sculptural studies as an apprentice at the age of nineteen. She continued her fine arts education at the University of Michigan where she also pursued her interest in Cultural Anthropology. Her strong interest in the social sciences brought her to Chicago in 1994 where she began her career as a social worker with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. She worked exclusively in child and family welfare. During these emotionally trying years, Susan kept sculpting intensively. She collaborated with various fine art studios throughout Chicago, worked on several monuments and established strong working relationships with fine art foundries. It is at this time that Susan first understood that sculpture was the unquestionable voice, which would allow her to be true to herself while also giving back to her community.

Clinard's sculptures express her strong affinity with Nature and her genuine love for all human beings. Whether she is sculpting from models or using memories from her diverse background, she uses Nature's raw forms to narrate the struggles and joys of her subjects. Susan often finds beauty and truth in life's most challenging times. Her passionate observation of the human body and of its distortion by life has given her a profound knowledge of human nature. Together with her extensive sculpting skills, it enables her to capture the individuality of her subjects and to create sculptures that express strong and vital emotions.

In addition to her figurative work for which she has been awarded scores of commissions, Susan Clinard began experimenting with waxes, found wood, and textile eight years ago. Inspired from her puppetry theatre work, she incorporated mixed media to her ceramic and stone sculptures. The strongest work evolving from this discovery period are her found wood and ceramic sculptures. Susan finds weathered wood with organic flowing curves and sees the human form within it. The ceramic heads and hands are added to the wood, illustrating the metamorphosis from one organic life form to another. She also uses clear and brown waxes to soften contours and add fluidity to the form. The wax's transparency glows and mutes the sculptural surface, giving the figures an almost dream-like quality.

She tought stone carving at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and figurative sculpture at the Palette and Chisel Academy and at Gallery 37 (an award winning arts education organization). She has conducted demonstrations and workshops at the Musée Pierre Gianadda in Switzerland, The Art Institute of Chicago Museum, Lizzadro Museum, Museum of Science and Industry, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

After twelve years in Chicago she is relocating her studio in West Haven, Connecticut.


ARTIST STATEMENT

When I sculpt a dialogue is created between personal and global realities and a direct fire that responds to these concerns; that fire is transmitted from the heart to the hand to the material to the composition to the public. Wood, clay, wire and thread find themselves in harmony and opposition to create tensions and breath that are shared in both materials and our human condition; that these materials become a vibrating, unified composition in the end is truth that humanity is connected despite and in celebration of our similarities and differences.

The studio environment provides a sanctuary for my lived experiences. It is literally and figuratively, a personal space where ideas cannot be touched, weighted, seen, or counted. A mutual dance of surrendering and exertion in this atmosphere guides me to find hidden realities in materials, gestures and their placement in space; my work is found rather than sought. These sculptural puzzles are distorted and abstracted as I work within the spectrum of personal and shared consciousness. The puzzle, the abstraction frees the eye and heart so that we can know clearly what is common between us all; these manifestations of sculpture are ugly, menacing, graceful, playful and numbing.

The composition itself is the final playing field where I work to integrate and balance the above mentioned ideas and materials. If we look wholeheartedly we find the whole; the whole world, the whole human, the whole lived experience. We cannot have the joy without the suffering. I am a tight rope walker finding balance in an open space, tools in my right hand, heart in my left and extending outward from my core.

CAREER
Present Professional Sculptor. Clinard Sculpture Studio, West Haven, CT.
Monumental, figurative, and portrait commissions.
Stone, Clay, Bronze, and Wood
2002-2006 Professional Sculptor. Clinard Sculpture Studio, Chicago, IL.
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Stone Carving Instructor.
Palette and Chisel Academy for the Fine Arts. Sculpture instructor.
Gallery 37. Art instructor.
2001-1998 Palette and Chisel Academy for the Fine Arts. Sculpture instructor
Gallery 37. Award winning arts education institution. Stone carving instructor
Large-scale puppet instructor City of Chicago's Halloween Parade
Monument modeling and casting at Rotblatt-Amrany Studio.
Redmoon Theater. Designer for All Hallow's Eve Ritual Celebration
Olé Olé Puppet and Dance Theater. Co-founder / Set Designer
1997-1994 Ulich Children's Home. D.C.F.S., Chicago IL.
Figurative Sculpture. Clinard Sculpture Studio, Chicago IL.
1993-1991 Sage Art Center. Two-year apprenticeship with monument sculptor.

EDUCATION
1995-1993 The University of Michigan. B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and Sculpture
1993-1991 Hillsdale College. Fine Arts Concentration

DEMONSTRATIONS / WORKSHOPS
2004 National Center on Poverty Law
Health and Medicine Policy Research Group
4Arts Inc. Gallery, Chicago, IL
2003-2000 WGN Morning News. Channel 9. 4/28 and 5/15/2003
The Art Institute of Chicago Museum (annualy)
Foundation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny, Switzerland
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Blue Note Ball (annually)
Barrington Junior Women's League.
Rotary Club, The Museum of Science and Industry
Dearborn Garden Walk (annually)
St Peter and Paul School benefit
1993-1991 Lizzaro Museum, Elmhurst, IL Alabaster
Chicago Latino Arts Festival. Shadow puppet workshoap
Around the Coyote Arts Festival.
Galeria Diez y Ocho.
Pilsen East Arts Festival.
Chicago Public Schools. Guest sculpture instructor at several CPS

PUBLICATIONS ABOUT THE ARTIST
2005-2000 Life by Design Magazine, 4/07
Kalamazoo Gazette, 10/05
Chicago Home and Garden Magazine 4/05
Ponte Vedra Recorder. 3/04
Today's Chicago Woman Magazine. Woman About Town 8/03
The Collegian. 4/03
Fine Arts Ceramics. 2/02 feature article.
Sculpture Journal 11/02 feature article
The Chicago Tribune 9/2/02 On the Job
The Chicago Reader 12/1/99, 9/5/01, 2/28/03
The Art Institute of Chicago News and Events Magazine 5/02
New York Times Magazine 6/00
Chicago Magazine 6/00

PRIVATE/PUBLIC COMMISSIONS & COLLECTIONS

Carnegie Foundation, New York, NY
Randall Publishing, Tuscaloosa, AL
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CA
City of Chicago, Gompers Park Statue, Chicago, IL
LaSalle Bank Mural Building. Gallery 37, Chicago, IL
The Rehabilitation Institute, Chicago,IL
Vjera & Ivan Decker, Zagreb, Croatia
Dr. Adam Jones,Britsh Columbia, Canada
Dr. Christian Mottet, Lausane, Switzerland
James Kasler Statue, Momence, IL
Boys Club of St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
Dr. Catherine Burns, Durban, South Africa
Dr. Jonith Breadon, Chicago, IL
Sorjorner Truth Elementary School, Chicago, IL
Dr. E.Pollard, Berkley, CA
Dr. Jilda Williams, Chicago, IL
Doris Haddock "Granny D", Dublin, NH
Maravilla Hall, Lincolnshire, IL
Claudine Pignolet, Martigny, Switzerland
Kion Parsons,Chicago, IL
Joanne Sweeney, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
Corrie Schreiner, Menton, France
Dr. E. Kostas-Polston, West Plains, MO
Las Guitarras de España, Chicago IL
Mari Cruz Gómez Reñasco, Canary Islands, Spain
Robert Alsaker, Winnetka IL
Patrick McCoy, Chicago, IL
Ele's Place, Lansing, MI
Greache Memorial. Moscow, Russia
Edward Hospital Angel Memorial, Naperville, IL
Francois and Laetitia Gevers, Alsemberg, Belgium
Julie Rotblatt-Amrany, Highland Park IL
Oglethorpe Memorial Gardens. Hendrix Memorial, St. Simons Island, GA
Dr, Mark Connolly, River Forest, IL
Paul S. Benjamine, Atlanta, GA
Edo Sie, Seville, Spain
Dr. Harry and Karly Spell, Oregon, IL
Paula Hiuser, Gilford, NH
Damien Barta, Skokie, IL
Ms. Quimsom, Los Angeles, CA
Bernt Wolfgang Lewy, Chicago IL
Shyvette Williams, Chicago, IL
Bruce Novak, FL
Judee Gallagher, Chicago, IL
Pam Knowles, Elgin, IL
Richard Adamiak, Chicago, IL
Branko and Lillian Ruscic, Downers Grove, IL
Jeffrey Breslow, Chciago, IL
Rick & Bic Callahan, Evanston, IL
Edwin Apricio, Washington DC
James Tracy,Wabin, Ma
Marvin Harris, Highland Park IL
Peter & Susan Gray, Chicago, IL
Zorka Cottle, Lisle, IL
Ronald Bacaras, Chicago IL
Ramond Mc Clinton, Hazelcrest IL
Jayne Ellen Murray, Chicago IL
Audrey & John Cramblit, Chicago, IL
Amanda Jentry, Oak Park IL
Alex Pozatopolis, Bolder, CO
Patricia and Philippe Emonet, Martigny, Switzerland
Betty Rosenstien, Chicago, IL


EXHIBITIONS
2007 Marsh Botanical Garden at Yale University, New Haven, CT
Michael Zschoche Gallery, Newport Beach, CA
Johnsonese Gallery, Chicago, IL
The Gallery at Hawthorne, Overland Park, KS
Art on the Avenue, Greenwich, CT
Small Space Gallery, New Haven, CT
Clinard Sculpture Studio, West Haven, CT
Richard Mark Gallery, Lake Forest, IL
2006 Madron Gallery of American Art, Chicago, IL Best of Show Award
4 Arts Gallery, Chicago, IL
Parts Unknown Gallery, Chicago, IL
Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts, Chicago, IL
Ruth Page Dance Theater, Chicago, IL
Clinard Sculpture Studio, Chicago, IL
Thomas Masters Gallery, Chicago, IL
Lake Forest Academy, Lake Forest, IL
2005 BigTown Gallery, Burlington, VT
Richard Mark Gallery, Lakeforest, IL
ALmquist Gallery, Winnettka, IL
Thomas Masters Gallery, Chicago, IL
4 Arts Gallery, Chicago, IL
Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts, Chcaigo, IL
2004 Johnsonese Gallery, Chicago IL
Phoenix Gallery, MI
Acme Artist's Coop Gallery, Chicago, IL
4Arts Inc. Gallery, Chicago, IL
The Cultural Center at PVB, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
Centerspace Gallery, Chicago, IL
Palette and Chisel Gallery, Chicago, IL
Fairfax Gallery, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
Springman Gallery, Chicago, IL
2003 Columbia College Dance Center, Chicago IL
One Woman Show, Clinard Sculpture Studio, Chicago IL, 05/2003
Political Library, Concord, NH
Hilsdale College, Hilsdale MI
2002 Art Institute of Chicago. Richard and Ellen Sander Gallery. Chicago, IL
Vittum Theatre Gallery, Chicago, IL
Adagio Fine Art Gallery, Oregon, IL
Gallery 37 Cultural Center for the Arts, Chicago IL
Dr. Scholls Gallery, Chicago,IL. Best of Show Award
Collage Gallery, Chicago IL
Chicago House Gallery, Chicago IL
2001 Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst IL
Harold Washington Public Library, Chicago IL
St. Louis Artist Guild, St. Louis, MO
Palette and Chisel Academy, Chicago IL. Best of Show Award
Dr. Scholls Gallery, Chicago IL 1st Place award
Sanctuary Gallery, Chicago IL
Bic's Gallery, Chicago IL
Gallery 37, Chicago IL
2000 New Hampton Public Library, New Hampton, MS. National Monument Finalist
Palette and Chisel Academy, Chicago IL
Maravilla Hall, Lincolnshire IL
Sanctuary Gallery, Chicago IL
Settlement House Gallery, Chicago IL
1999 Monolith Fine Arts, Chicago IL
Pilsen East Art Expo, Chicago IL
Rotblatt-Amrany Gallery, Highland Park IL
Ziggurat Studio, Chicago IL
Bic's Gallery, Chicago IL
Palette and Chisel Academy, Chicago IL. Harriet Brittery Show 1st Pl. Award

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© Susan Clinard 2001-2007. All rights reserved.