“I’ve always had an urge for going out on location,” says Brenda Clark. “Outdoors has become my studio.”
With that mentality, Clark and I load up two plastic sleds with two folding chairs, a collapsible easel, paints, brushes, rags, snacks – and extra mittens and hats. We’re ready to brave the late-winter air and venture to the beach, here on the Leelanau Peninsula – the pinkie finger of Michigan’s mitten – to paint en plein air.
The day is very still except for an occasional gull wheeling above. The lake is frozen about 50 feet out from the beach; miniature icebergs peak along the edge.
Clark wears an old denim barn jacket over her winter parka and snow pants. It’s flecked with color. She pushes back her wool hat and scans the horizon, analyzing where to stop. “I prefer to be outside. It’s a totally different mindset,” she says. “I can paint spontaneously and tell a story. Look at those bubble clouds…”
I look about and see shades of white, gray and blue with bits of dune grass poking above the foot-deep snow.
Clark is a petite, 45-year-old triple threat: mother, wife and fine artist. Growing up on a farm near Green City, Mo., Clark was naturally athletic and spent most of her time outdoors either helping in the garden or herding cattle with her brother on his horse. When it was time to consider college, she didn’t have a specific direction, but signed up a month before classes started at the urging of her parents and to be with her two best friends.
“I was taking a drawing class and the teacher said, ‘You should go into painting or graphic design.’ I decided to do both,” she says. Although Clark ended up with a graphic design degree, she was constantly urged to take her painting more seriously.
She accepted a full scholarship for the Master of Fine Arts program at Kent State University. Afterward, she landed design jobs and an academic career; she taught art at Michigan State University for 10 years. “Art is all I’ve ever done,” she says.
Clark and her husband, Johnston, opened the Brenda J. Clark Gallery six years ago in Leland, Mich., and it’s become a social place for tourists, summer locals and artists to drop by. The couple sells her paintings in vintage frames, and his custom framing and creative writing has emerged with her artwork. It shouldn’t be long before their two beautiful little girls, Helene Claire and Flora June, show their creative sides.
Each of Clark’s paintings, whether a small study on wood or a six-foot square canvas, is vivid with fine brushwork, movement and emotion. Clark is an Expressionist: Her paintings represent how she feels.
Today, Clark has propped her canvas on a folding chair. An art board with a piece of paper taped to it goes on the portable easel.
“I see things differently because of the weather,” she says. “If it’s blowing real hard, I have to paint fast with my foot on the easel so it doesn’t blow away.” I settle into the other chair and watch the process unfold.
Clark starts with cadmium yellow, swiftly marking in the landscape on both the canvas and paper. Next, she adds magenta to outline the landmarks – Pyramid Point and Whaleback (a huge hump of land down the shoreline). “It helps me map out the painting,” she explains. “It’s not just for the color. I like how it layers together. I’m building it up, finding my composition.”
I sit quietly, soaking in the surroundings, and marvel at the intuitive quickness of Clark’s strokes. Her work is loose, yet gutsy: She attacks the canvas with bright sweeps of rich color and texture. “When I paint, I don’t want it to be just about what I see,” she says. “I want to convey the moment, the aesthetics of being outdoors.”
“There is a story here. Trees may be red to symbolize something that I’m feeling at that time…I hope that my paintings portray that. I love painting with red; it’s the Fauve side of me. (Fauvism was an early 20th century artist movement that emphasized vivid colors and dynamic brush strokes.) I love using raw color and pulling it off, making it work.”
Cerulean blue comes next, and purple and orange. Even though the paint begins turning to ice crystals on the canvas, Clark laughs it off. While the paper remains unaffected, dribbles are freezing on the canvas. Still, the artist is unfazed: “I couldn’t have asked for a better day. I mean, I thought it would be wicked out here!”
The temperature is now around 22 degrees. Clark squints at the islands out in the water, then back at her work. She mumbles some comments; I’m not sure if they’re directed at me.
She goes back at it: dipping a thick brush in water, dabbing it in red paint on a paper plate, stroking it on the canvas. Her stance is like a windmill – two legs planted sturdily in a V-shape, while bending and turning from the waist to work on first the canvas and then over to the paper piece. She is focused, intent, whirling color in her outdoor studio.
It’s getting late. I feel slighty anxious that
Clark didn’t finish the paintings that day. But the artist creates in layers, and these works must dry. She will gather the threads and complete the landscapes another day, telling another story of emotion, brilliance, and life outdoors.
Brenda J. Clark Gallery, 110 N. Lake St., Leland, Mich.; 231-256-0026; brendajclark.com
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