Michele Clamp
Marlborough, MA
Michele paints exclusively in watercolor on cotton paper. Using traditional brushes and pigments she enjoys how the simplicity of tools lets her grapple with challenges of watercolor painting. Her overarching goal is to produce a thing of subtle beauty that reveals over the years. Currently her choice of subject is mainly New England scenes and places she has a personal connection to. When traveling around the region she likes to take in familiar and unfamiliar views and process them through the painter’s eye, taking in the atmosphere and light.
The deceptive simplicity of watercolor has a huge attraction fro Michele. There are no cumbersome canvases, no oils or solvents or drying times or varnishing to worry about. Watercolor is painting stripped down to the basics. Just a person putting color on a surface and trusting the result will resonate with someone. As well as representation of a scene at a moment in time she aims to preserve visibly all stages of the painting process. Watercolor allows her to do this-she lets teh underlying drawing be visible and, as watercolor is very difficult to erase, all brushstrokes are on show – good and bad. This means in practice watercolor is a hard taskmaster. The effort to keep all the balls in the air in a watercolor painting is a constant battle. However, a successful result with all the energy, freshness and luminous color of watercolor is worth all the effort.
She leaves a lot of choice of subject matter to her subconscious. In practice this boils down to painting exactly what she wants to paint. On the surface this might seem easy or even a cop out but the aim is to listen to that part of us that often gets drowned out by egotistical or fashionable objections leaving (hopefully) something more essential.
Contact Info:
Michele Clamp
michele@micheleclamp.com