Expanding Your Soul in Wild Places: Two Artists' Stories

Baer Art Center Residency that I did in 2016 and 2017.

I'm always interested in remote places and what draws people there. What words do they use to describe the journey and what sort of work comes out of this experience? I asked two artists if they would respond to these questions: Amy Clay and Laura Moriarty.

AMY CLAY: I followed Amy Clay's adventures a few years ago as she travelled around the world from one artist residency to another for an entire year.

Amy Clay walking in the gorgeous greens of Ireland

"My life and art is all about the Epic Quest and mysterious journeys to places of the imagination. Pushing beyond the familiar to new territory - facing the fear of the unknown, and seeing what’s on the other side. This relates to my love of wild and remote places. I’m especially drawn to Northern landscapes - as I know you are too! One of my favorite places is a residency on the far southwestern corner of Ireland called Cill Rialaig. It’s remote, hard to get to, and the wind and weather lash your cabin and rattle the roof! I also love Iceland. I'll be doing a residency at Pouch Cove in Newfoundland this November. Very excited for that one!

I’m not even sure why my internal tether takes me to these wild places, but I have no interest in tropical beaches or well worn paths. It could be some old Viking gene in me, or generations of family from Scotland/Ireland/Scandinavia, but it’s my true north, so to speak, and I don’t question it. One of my dreams is to do an artist residency in a lighthouse somewhere in the northern seas!

I’m most definitely inspired by the moody changing skies and the crashing of waves against black rocks. The cool greens and aquas of those places always find their way into my paintings when I’m working in these locations. I don’t paint literal landscapes but the environment is never far from my creative process and seeps in somehow, someway."

Fire and Ice inspired by Iceland

LAURA MORIARTY: I met Laura at the Baer Art Center artist residency in July 2016. She did some fascinating work there with ink on Japanese paper but her main interest is in creating sculptural paintings with wax.

"I make free-standing sculptural paintings with encaustic (pigmented beeswax), using layered sediments of vibrant color and folded accretions that reference geologic formations. The processes used in making my art––heating and cooling, and the window of opportunity I have to manipulate the wax at different temperatures, has led me to contemplate the parallels between human and geologic time."

Laura Moriarty on the Outer Cape

Spillway 2017

Color Field: Ecru 2018

Color Field: Warm Pink on Aqua Stem 2018

"Cy Twombly once said of his work, "It's more like I'm having an experience than making a picture." I can really relate to this and that's probably why travel and direct encounters with nature has always been a vital aspect of my creative practice. Artist residencies have let to some of the most pivotal breakthroughs in my work. Each one has been like a gift from heaven.

My first residency was in 1996 at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming. Located in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains, with a population of a walloping 25, I spent my days at Ucross being swallowed by rocks; just absolutely getting lost in them. It gave me a kind of enlightenment, as I entered the oblivion of deep geologic time. The inspiration resonates to this day."

Thanks to Amy Clay and Laura Moriarty for sharing their stories of travel and inspiration, each processing their experiences in a such unique, and personal way.

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Janice Mason Steeves

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