Today we’d like to introduce you to Jesse Clark.
Hi Jesse, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My name is Jesse Clark, and I am a multi-disciplinary artist and makeup artist. Raised in the suburbs of San Diego, I’ve been located in Los Angeles for 7 years now.
Creating art has been a lifelong practice. I really don’t know what I would do without it. The mediums and context I work in are constantly changing throughout the years. However, the way that creating art connects me to a greater community and functions as a tool for processing my own emotions remains a constant. In recent years, my focus has been primarily as a makeup artist in the editorial world and also as a competitor in the ballroom scene.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Nothing worth doing is ever a smooth road! Since we have spoken a few times in the past it was interesting to see my response to this question in previous interviews. Now that I am in my 30s, I see so many of my peers I went to art school with begin to diverge away from being practicing artists. There’s no shame in that and I’m happy for anyone pursuing whatever brings them stability and happiness. But it really highlights the difficulty of sustaining yourself as a creative.
My biggest struggle with being an artist these days is just having the time to even make work when life is so busy and demanding! I also think that we are living in a very dark time politically and economically and it can feel like art is the last thing we need to be focusing on. It can easily drain your motivation. I question the value of what I’m doing all the time.
And finally, the life of an artist is a life of constant rejection. You really have to build a tough exterior and not compare yourself to the people around you. It requires a type of devotion to trust yourself enough to keep going. Obviously the quality of your work is important too, but if you create from sincere place and keep sharing what you do, your efforts will eventually be celebrated.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m an artist and my work is not dedicated to any one medium. I typically work in the realm of portraiture, makeup, installation, video, animation, and performance. No matter where I am exhibiting, creating or performing I find that I am always a bit of an outsider. But that’s what I’ve come to embrace!
As a makeup artist experimentation is at the heart of my practice. In order to keep myself inspired I have to keep an aspect of improvisation in what I do and set aside time to explore ideas in solitude and see what grows from there. Sometimes the ideas are terrible in practice but I have to give myself the freedom to ‘fail’ as well. From that exploration I can refine and translate those ideas onto clients and work in a collaborative way with others. That’s what fuels me to stay excited about what I do.
I’ve been competing consistently in the ballroom scene here on the West Coast for three years now. The ballroom scene is an underground LGBTQ+ community centered around competitions called balls. It’s basically gay sports but there’s a big community aspect to it as well. I am a part of the Iconic House of Ninja and the Iconic Kiki House of Juicy Couture. I compete in categories like Bizarre, Face and Nail Affair. I stand out because I try and carve my own path and bring ideas that nobody has seen before to the runway. Before myself and my sibling Klaude Juicy Couture Ninja began competing in the Bizarre category consistently it was basically extinct on the West Coast. We had to beg promoters to even include it at the balls. But now it’s becoming a standard category at major competitions and I’m proud of us for bringing it back into people’s attention.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
The only thing I use is YouTube. That’s a bit embarrassing!
Contact Info:
- Website: http://jesseclark.us/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jesse.mobile/
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/jesseclarkmakeup/
Image Credits
Image Credits: Miwah Lee, Kii Matias and Tristan Kallas
