Artist Statement
While in recovery from a life-threatening infection and hospitalization, I cannot sustain long hours in the studio, but I can manage a few hours of drawing by the wood stove. Strange images emerge as I explore the un-nameable disturbances beneath the surface. A dream triggered body-memories of a near death experience at my birth, declaring that it was time to integrate the intensity of that. Managing anything other than rest while experiencing bone-deep fatigue and weakness in my body when first home from the hospital was an enormous undertaking. Most of the time I felt vast and spacious, not anchored within my body form, probably a consequence of traveling perilously close to the otherworld for the second time in my life.
While in recovery from a life-threatening infection and hospitalization, I cannot sustain long hours in the studio, but I can manage a few hours of drawing by the wood stove. Strange images emerge as I explore the un-nameable disturbances beneath the surface. A dream triggered body-memories of a near death experience at my birth, declaring that it was time to integrate the intensity of that. Managing anything other than rest while experiencing bone-deep fatigue and weakness in my body when first home from the hospital was an enormous undertaking. Most of the time I felt vast and spacious, not anchored within my body form, probably a consequence of traveling perilously close to the otherworld for the second time in my life.
The drawings begin with the face, by following my pen, allowing an image to materialize. Once I know the direction the drawing is going, I develop details, layering line over line. Many of the drawings are about the vast space that has opened in me — all of them a way to anchor myself to the corporal by making visible the mysterious and mostly fierce currents flowing through me at this time.
Artist Biography
Valerie Claff is an artist living in a hemlock forest who seeks the solace of wild places. Growing up in a house full of Chinese and Japanese artwork, her aesthetic is highly influenced by the infinite spaces and mists in brush painting, and the use of minimal detail to evoke the spirit of place. Forests, hills, and open spaces are inspiration for her landscapes, painted from memory, in a non-traditional watercolor style. Utilizing a wet-on-wet technique, she manipulates the bleeding paint to suggest fog, mist, reflections, light, and atmosphere. Trees are important features in her work — forests with mysterious light and mists, stands of trees lining the edges of ponds, and solitary trees in open spaces, the linear branches creating contrasts to distant ridges and atmosphere. Her paintings seek to convey her relationship to the wild as a place of sanctuary and mystery and to capture the essence of natural places in different light situations and seasons. The rural foothills of the Berkshires and the forest surrounding her home are the main inspirations for her work.