Biography
Clare’s love for art began at a tender age using crayons, and it was clear she had more than an average love for art. She spent most of her adolescence working with pencil, graduated to charcoal sketches, pen and ink and enjoyed watercolor. Once she started Middle School she discovered sculpture and was awarded a Summer Scholarship to Cal State Northridge University, during her Middle School Graduation for her outstanding work in the class. In addition to drawing, Clare also enjoys the art of writing and has a large collection of poetry from her formative years, cataloging that time in her life. Poetry led to writing song lyrics and ultimately to novel writing. She is in the process of writing 2 novels, 1 romantic drama and 1 pre-teen adventure story for this generation. Clare was born and raised in the Southern California area in the USA. She worked for Vanguard Studios, in Ventura, California, as a reproduction artist during her 18th year. She acknowledged that her passion for art was being replaced with a mechanical-cold feeling and decided she could not continue working there. She is not the “Clare” that is signed on the paintings sold by VGS however, she has painted some of the paintings signed with “Clare” including but not limited to a painting sold by the studio of a pride of lions. She also painted paintings signed “Lee Reynolds” and other names she can’t recall. She worked in VGS with her brother Charles Rowley, who passed away at the young age of 30. They painted together and shared a deep undeniable passion for all artistic styles and mediums. Clare has completed one of Charles unfinished works and titled it “Everlasting Memory” she did this at the request of their mother and plans to complete others as time allows. After leaving Vanguard Studios, she found it difficult to paint and didn’t successfully complete a painting until after she divorced her first husband in 1991. However at the same time she was just starting a company built on her inventions “Creative Feet” that continue to sell in stores and through her website www.creativefeet.com which didn’t allow for much time to paint. She worked with acrylic on canvas while building her company and raising her 2 children and gave away most of her paintings as gifts until friends and family began urging her to take her art more serious. In 1999, she decided it was time to embrace oils after years of exclusively using acrylic. Her first oil was also her first portrait “JR & MR T” of her brother and his horse and though she initially fought the differences between the mediums, she hasn’t completed an acrylic painting since that day. She is working on a compilation of abstracts that speak to the viewer and cover attitudes that people possess, some positive some negative. She plans to complete 12 in the series that you are sure to enjoy. Clare has passed on her love of art to young children throughout her life by teaching what she has learned.