Clay Huffman (1957–2001) was a multi-medium artist, most well known for his vibrant, multicolored serigraphs of local roadside architecture.
Early life
A native born Washingtonian, having grown up in Wheaton, MD and graduated from Wheaton High School, Clay Huffman experienced early artistic success as a ceramist. By the age of seventeen, and spurred by a desire to expand his creative repertoire, Clay became a student and artist-in-residence at the original Torpedo Factory Art Center (his workspace was where they had once stored documents from the Nuremberg Trials). During this same period, he attended the Montgomery College School of Architecture, an experience which would dramatically affect his future artistic direction and technique. Turning his newly acquired drafting skills towards silkscreen printing, Clay spent the next three years studying the art from nationally recognized masters of the craft, Marcel and Anne Laddon.
Awards
The union of his experience, talent, and unique subject matter provided Clay with a series of national awards and honors beginning throughout the United States including the Athenaeum 13th Annual Juried Show, the North Carolina Sixth Printing and Drawing Exhibition, and the 27th Hunterdon National Print Exhibition. Some highlights of this period came in 1993, when one of his silkscreens was selected for display at the prestigious Coconut Grove Arts Festival. Clay's reputation has since reached international levels with his work now displayed in corporate offices, private collections, and art institutions around the world. Most recently, four of Clay's major works were purchased for the American Embassy in Beijing, China. Clay also sent three major works to the US Embassy in Nairobi. Clay's silkscreen prints have earned unanimous praise from respected art critics and collectors across the country.
Continuing his artistic development in the creative environment of the Torpedo Factory Art Center, Clay drew his serigraph inspirations from a variety of sources ranging from the instantly recognizable icons of fast-food franchises to fast-disappearing islands of small business and local gossip. With a penchant for elevating the seemingly mundane to the monumental, Clay often focused—literally and figuratively—on "those places we pass each day and take little notice of".
Prior to commencement of any silkscreen project, the artist may make several photo trips to a prospective location in an attempt to capture the essence and mood of a place from various perspectives and times of day. A unique personal relationship develops between artist and cityscape, and it is this subjective insight that Clay so successfully translated and conveyed through his work.
Creating Silkscreens
The actual process of creating a silkscreen includes many steps. Since Clay's work was generally of actual places and things (with the occasional exception of some imaginative additions such as a Cinderellaesque figure running to catch the last train in his print titled "Metropolitan Curfew"), his first step was to take photographic images of the subject at different times to catch it with different shadows, lighting and character. Clay then selected one of these photographs and, wanting to influence the final print, created a line drawing of it. From the line drawing, Clay had to decide what color went where and cut out individual stencils for each area and color choice. Each stencil was then applied to a silkscreen and one by one, ink forced through the screen onto the paper, eventually creating the finished piece. This individual silkscreen process was used for every color on every print.
Unlike images created using a printing press (which uses pressure applied to copper plates to create an impression which can deteriorate in quality from the first print to the last), a silkscreen has no deterioration of the screen during printing. This consistency in print quality throughout the edition means that lower numbered prints should not be more desirable than higher numbered prints, except when determined by the artist.