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The following is an article written about me and my home and art by Janis Mara of Inman News. You may or may not be able to view the article online so i'm reprinting it here!
Color explodes in artist's unique home
Part 3: Living off the beaten path
Thursday, March 10, 2005
By Janis Mara, Inman News
Violette Clark's Canadian home
Editor's note: In this five-part series, Inman News presents some of the
most unique living spaces and their stories. Every house may have a history,
but the oddly shaped, outrageously designed and off-the-beaten-path homes
truly take the cake. In this series, we'll show you a dome house, a house
built into the side of a hill and an artist's retreat. (See Part 1: At home
in domes and Part 2: The world is her oyster, the lawn is her roof.)
Violette Clark's house is a riot of color, lavender and fuchsia, with a
giant glittering dragonfly sculpture above the pink front door. Elvis
Presley is painted on one door, the Virgin of Guadalupe on another.
Inside, almost every inch of the Surrey, British Columbia, home is replete
with sculpture and paintings in vivid hues, and the living floor is awash in
glitter.
Clark's house is living testimony to the "explosion of creativity" she says
burst forth when she left her husband nine years ago.
"I was married for 20 years to a wonderful man, but he was a lot more
conservative than I," said Clark. "I've always been artistic, but had to
keep my creativity in check because I was living in this upscale
neighborhood with my husband and two children.
"It's giving myself permission to be who I truly am," Clark says of the
house, which has scored frequent media mentions, including the Discovery
Channel's "Weird Homes" show, and has made her a local celebrity.
When she bought the home for $205,000 in 1996, it was white on the outside
and beige on the inside, "very conservative looking." Clark's innovations
apparently haven't damaged the property's value; it was recently appraised
at $305,000.
The self-taught artist's first move was to paint the living room.
"My girlfriend and I rolled on mauve paint and then rolled deep purple paint
thinned down with a glaze on top. Then we took the paint off with rags in a
circular motion." After creating the faux finish, which used daring colors
but was still fairly conventional, Clark really began to let go.
First she built and installed an island in the kitchen, painted it blue and
black and covered it with glitter. Then she created a huge mosaic on the
kitchen wall – the first time she had ever made a mosaic. She learned how to
do it from a book.
Though her ideas are "outside the box," as she puts it, Clark's creations,
such as the island in the kitchen and the mosaic, are professionally and
competently executed. She painted the kitchen counters nine years ago and
only recently was a touch-up necessary.
"If you use Varathane, which is more durable, you don't have to keep
touching up," said Clark, who also worked for two years as a professional
house painter. (Varathane is a finish, not a paint.)
"My husband was good at making money but he wasn't handy around the house,
so I learned to do home improvement projects," Clark explained.
Though Clark makes her living as an artist and illustrator, she still has to
watch her budget with her house projects. Almost everything she has created
was done with strict attention to the cost. She uses found objects, combing
the neighborhood for discarded items on recycling days.
Clark says she doesn't find the bright colors and glitter overstimulating,
though people often ask about it.
"Kids ask me, ‘Don't the colors make you crazy when you're trying to
sleep?'" she said. "I'm sure some people would find it pretty frenetic. But
for me, it's like being embraced by something you love."
"Some of the kids ended up making artwork of their own inspired by the
house," said Shelly Shaffer, who took her art students from Earl Marriott
High School in White Rock, British Columbia, on a tour of Clark's house.
"Other students ended up working on a community art project for the town
with Violette."
Shaffer, who has a teaching degree in art from the University of British
Columbia, said she feels it's good for students to see people doing art.
Shaffer now has her own studio and is concentrating on her own art, she
said, and is no longer teaching at the high school.
Though Shaffer's art students and local Brownie troops have toured the
house, not everyone in the neighborhood appreciates Clark's creation.
"This is a fairly conservative community," she said. "They see people
arriving for my theme parties in costume and they ask me what the heck."
Much of her work is done in tandem with her boyfriend and a large crew of
supportive friends she calls her Bohemian tribe.
"It's a way of putting your imprint on your house. Your home is your
sanctuary. The more I put my stamp on it, the happier I am to be there,"
said Clark. She likes looking at the work when it's finished and also
relishes the process of creating art in her home. "The journey is the
destination, really. That's why nothing is ever totally complete."
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