Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

IQALUIT (Aug 17/98) - Craig Clark was afraid of becoming one of those people who wonders where all the time went. That's why in 1994, he redirected his energy from the regular routine of his life and started creating art semi-professionally.

"I was going to all these meetings and I'd doodle away and people would come by and say (they) used to like art. It scared the bejesus out of me. I don't want to be old and think about what I could have done," said Clark, 29, who has lived in Iqaluit since 1989.

Four years later, his artistic endeavors have blossomed -- he has three huge, new murals on display in Iqaluit, and last week he was on his way to Golden Lake, Ontario for his first taste of participating in the southern art world.

"I'm looking forward to it because I've never had much exposure in the south," he said.

Along with the nine paintings Clark took along to display in two different shows, he hoped to find the time to paint over the next three weeks to see what a new atmosphere would yield.

"It'll be a different environment, so the paintings will turn out different. I'm curious to see how that goes," said Clark, who also planned to hold art workshops for street kids in the area.

Knowing he didn't have time for anything extensive, Clark said he would be satisfied with creating some kind of graffiti mural with the youths while giving them basic art techniques.

And he also wanted to exercise what has definitely become one of his specialties -- the painting of elders. Tremendously skilled in this area, Clark is known in Iqaluit for his ability to capture the essence of wisdom and age when painting the faces of elders.

"I like painting old people because I don't think you have a face until you're 40. I don't think you've done enough in your life," he said. Clark caused quite a stir last month in Iqaluit when he hung the portraits of Jessie Oonark, Father Mary and Abe Oopik on the side of a downtown building.

Two years in the making, the murals look realistic, but Clark said he alters them so they won't look like photographs.

"I leave a lot of parts out and some things change. I'll play with the lighting and take out a lot of wrinkles. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to duplicate something like that."

The single father of three children has also been noted for his surreal paintings and he said that while there might be a story behind some of his more bizarre canvases, it "just kind of spews out of me without any regard for who is going to be looking at it."

Largely a self-taught artist, Clark said he is comfortable in several mediums and counts himself as one of the luckier artists.

"I'm pretty fortunate because I know a lot of artists who have been doing it for much longer that I have and they haven't had nearly the success."

Clark said his future plans include trying to produce art on a full-time basis, leaving his job at the women's shelter behind, and creating enough pieces to be able to hold more extensive shows.

"In order to get enough pieces together for a show, you need to spend months and months working on it. I can't afford to go without the income. I turned down a show in Paris last year because I couldn't get enough paintings together."