15 Nov ClayreBreslin Heaslip 12/5 – 1/2
Reception: Sunday 12/6 2-4
Clayre’s first involvement with art was at Marymount College in New York City in the 1950’s when she took an art course to fill out required credits. Unfortunately, the “involvement” was quite intermittent, sandwiched in among a marriage, raising children and eventual career(s) as a psychotherapist, and a professor at Arizona State University.
Not entirely self-taught, Clayre was able to take several art courses at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, when she lived in the area during the 1970’s. Then, feeling a desire to return to school, she submitted a portfolio and was accepted as a candidate in the newly formed Art Therapy program at what was then Trenton State College. It was here that she first experienced sculpting, life drawing and painting, and art history. However, life has a way of surprising us, and Clayre withdrew from the program to support her children by supplementing her education in other areas, earning a Master’s degree in social work and a Ph.D in nutrition.
She had never lost the desire for creative expression, so when she finally retired at the age of 75, she turned to writing and art as a way to satiate her inner observations. “Now, painting for me has become an obsession that provides hours of pleasure and discovery,” says Clayre. “Sometimes frustrating but always compelling.” Clayre paints or draws every day, and perhaps this accounts for the diversity of her subjects and style. “I consider myself still in the experimental stages, and as I grow and become more confident, my hope is to become more abstract and impressionistic, but not absurd or arcane.”