Artist ~ Claire Eleanor Fergusson

Statements and books

"As an artist, I combine concept, mark-making, photography, and live action in my work. My work uses these forms both singularly and in various combinations. For example I have used the performance situation to both explore the act of making art and to create works of art. The performance in its immediacy helps to reinforce the situation of being 'free from presuppositions' and in this way lends a directnes to the works of art being created... For me each work of art is its own 'reach into the unknown' for truth rather than a development of a style or technique. The pieces I made when I was the most open and free from presuppositions are the pieces I find the most meaningful."

Statement About My Art
Claire Fergusson, Jan 1988

Personal impressions on the work of Claire Fergusson
By Tejuswini Reval

I first met Claire Fergusson in June 2017 at Artists in the Park in Lower Manhattan. This outdoor community event was organized by The Claire and Jan Binney Lang Art Foundation with the mission to nurture, inspire and cultivate community around the world. Artists in the Park gave artists like myself an opportunity to showcase their work in New York City.  Inspired by Claire’s warmth, I started to visit her Atelier studio in Tribeca, NYC and ask myself; “to what do we aspire as artists?” I began to volunteer for her not-for profit organization and to learn about their motto “Saving the World through Art.” Claire founded The Claire and Jan Binney Lang Art Foundation in 2012 to cultivate a socially engaged, creative community encouraging “out of the box” thinking to address the issues of our time. 
Born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1949 Claire was the first of three children. Her mother was from Canada and her father was a New Zealander. At 10 years old, Claire moved to America with her family. As an Undergraduate at The University of Maryland, a Masters of Fine Art at CUNY Lehman and with the encouragement of her mentor Professor Barry Kahn, Claire decided to be an artist. She realized that art is more about the thought process than it is about technique. She started learning to be an artist without structure or dogma.  Claire’s art beginnings in the 1960s-70s era along with her English background then mixed with the American spirit, all had an influence on her art. “Being an artist is a privilege. It is a slow process, something you are always becoming”, she says.
 
Her work encompasses over 44 years in a variety of media and subject matter; – Conceptual Art, Prints, Performance, Paintings, Sculptures and Photographs. “As an artist, I combine concept, mark-making, photography, and live action in my work. My work uses these forms both singularly and in various combinations. For example I have used the performance situation to both explore the act of making art and to create works of art. The performance in its immediacy helps to reinforce the situation of being 'free from presuppositions' and in this way lends a directness to the works of art being created... For me each work of art is its own 'reach into the unknown' for truth rather than a development of a style or technique. The pieces I made when I was the most open and free from presuppositions are the pieces I find the most meaningful" she once said in January 1988, in a Statement about her Art.      
  
What strikes me the most of all of Claire’s work is her book project, a series of beautiful handmade books. These books cross the divide between children and adult using art as the bridge.  Each letter in the books was hand stamped individually.  Some of the books have stories, some are poetry and others illustrated clichés. “Claire” is a brief history of the people that begat her. “A book about books” is a book about books after all. “Illustrated Clichés I and II” are again self-explanatory. “If you can” is a poetry self-help book in the Zen tradition.  
Speaking of books, one of Claire’s original sculpture books from her Loose Leaf notebook series was recently (September 2016) exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) “Back in Time With Time-Based Works: Artists’ Books at Franklin Furnace 1976-1980” as part of Claire’s three book sculptures that are in the permanent collection of MoMA. 
 
Working with Claire has been a soul-stirring experience for me. She has made me realize the need to reflect on my life and work and to see the bigger picture by using creative expression as a tool to save the world through art. “Art is about seeing and making through human eyes. Objects- things as they stand are of all kinds thick solid shapes to wispy veils formed by rain or thickets of trees and it isn’t to imitate but to isolate and regenerate those things and our experience of things so they are subjected to humanness and take on new form as a result and allow for deeper understanding of our humanness and our relation to that around us. Experience normally is so full that it becomes a distraction so only a little is experienced noises usually lost, seeing only superficially, feeling lost also. Art isolates so that you only deal more clearly with one thing at a time. That’s where simplicity has to be accepted” – Claire Fergusson, Year 1974, written while trekking the wild mountain of Mt Ruapehu, New Zealand.

Tejuswini Reval, January 5, 2018

Tejuswini Reval is a great prolific artist from India currently living in the US.

Four books, prototypes
Illustrated Cliches II
A Book About Books
Claire
If I Can?

Statement 1974
composed while climbing Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand

Nuclear Disarmament Performance #1

Nuclear Disarmament Performance #2

Drawings of Women Through History, 2019