 |
| James Clay - Who is Autos as Art? |
|
After years of doing non art related work to pay the bills, I finally got started on a photography based business project in late 2004. The plan was simple: print some of my favourite images onto canvas, learn how to stretch and wrap, and see if anybody would be interested in having my images hanging on their wall! I spent many years at art colleges, and some time doing commercial product design, but along the way I had become distracted by having more fun driving cars and meeting people than sitting at a drawing board. I was still taking photographs and drawing cars for my own pleasure.
During my formative years my family had moved around Europe, and I had been to US Army schools during the late 60s, early 70s. Can vividly remember walking through the PX car park in Mannheim, Germany, in the summer of 1969, seeing what were brand new muscle cars in garish colours freshly delivered to US service personnel. My Dad dismissed them as “gas guzzlers and Yanktanks”, but the seed had been sown…All the cars back in England looked like little cottages on wheels, too restrained and underpowered, with a few exceptions. My Dinky/Corgi cars were always my favourite toys, and it wasn’t long before I was filling the margins of my schoolbooks with car sketches. Some of them are truly awful, and most highly unrealistic, but the roads of the late 70s and early 80s would have been a more exciting place to be if I’d had my way! This taste of American lifestyle had a lasting effect on me, and that includes my photography and choice of cars today. I have owned a few of the cars that influenced me including 1970 Dodge Challenger, T’bird, pickup trucks and currently a 1968 Mustang gt390 fastback. Trips to the USA are annual events, with car shows, and photographic detours all part of the fun.
Autos as Art had its first public show at The Goodwood Festival of Speed in June 2005. I booked a stand, and with some trepidation printed enough images to hang. On the Friday morning, I opened the canvas front of the stand to find out if anyone was interested! It was a bit like having practiced playing a guitar in your bedroom, and then walking on stage at Woodstock! Luckily the crowd didn’t boo me off stage, and by lunchtime Autos as Art had some money in its bank account!
Many visitors to the stand asked if I had a website, and so after a busy couple of months this site was born. Since then I have refined techniques, changed almost exclusively to digital photography and spent many enjoyable hours photographing cars for their owners. Commissioned works have overtaken my “stock images” in the sales charts, although certain pictures have proved to be favourites on the website.
Plans for the future include doing more shows; I really enjoy meeting people and hearing their comments. The images look so much better in reality than they do on screen, and most of my web sales come from people who have seen the pictures hanging, and decide to buy at a later date. Other plans include having a gallery space where I can keep some larger images hanging, so those who may be considering commissions can come for a look and chat about requirements. This is in the planning stage, and will hopefully become a reality at the end of 2006- watch this space!
For those of you that are still reading this…I’m amazed! Here is a quick synopsis of the route that resulted in Autos as Art:
1980-1 Salisbury College of Art- Foundation Art Course
1982-5 South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education, Cardiff
Industrial (Product) Design Degree Course. BAHons
1985-6 Royal College of Art, London
Automotive Design, Masters Design Course
1986-8 Sebastian Conran Design Consultants- Product design, lots of projects for POS and babygoods, including prams (well at least they had wheels!)
1988- 9 Autographic Art –a venture into the world of commissioned car illustration and prints, plus race car graphics, product design, anything that kept the money coming in!
Contact me with any comments! james@autosasart.com
|
|
|
 |
|
