DALE CLARK — there's a brave heart that beats in the desert

Dale Clark, in Five Magazine

CRAWFORD, TX - AUGUST 22:
(L-R) Kris Kennedy Williams from Bisbee, Arizona,
Dale Clark from Tombstone, Arizona
and Jean Colton from Tucson, Arizona
relax in a 'Food Not Bombs' bus at the anti-war protest
near US President George W Bush's ranch
August 22, 2005 in Crawford, Texas.
The anti-war gathering
began when Cindy Sheehan,
who lost her military son Casey in Iraq,
setup a vigil asking to speak with President Bush.
(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Dale Clark website

"With the Children's Memorial, and with my life, I want to say, 'Love and respect all humanity because that's what we are.' We are not exclusively right or exclusively wrong.
____________
"We are, all of us, going through this process of realization. Where we are now is our highest truth, but it is possible to move to a higher truth, without negating where we stand now.

"Individuals, nations, and even the cosmos, are always changing.
____________
"With this Memorial I hope to
inspire respectful conversations from many perspectives."

Dale Clark and Rick Burnley at Camp Casey III

Dale Clark, First breath: May 31, 1923, Osborn, Kansas ... Idaho graduate, high school ... boy scouts ... violin ... winking ...model airplane ... industrial design ... photography ... girls ... student instructor ... industrial design ... married student: Malvina ... graduated Cooper Union Art School, 1948 ... hitchhike and walk to California ... Los Angeles ... freelance designer ... first child: Serena ... instructor: Chournard Art Institute ... second child: Gregory ... started Architectural Art Studio ... gliding ... third child: Daniel ... lived aboard 36 foot sail boat - four years ... closed $100,000 business ... sailed Mexico - two years ... reopened business ... 200 murals and sculptures 2, 3, 4 stories high ... built and lived on 60 foot steel sail boat and floating barge studio ... hypnosis ... yoga ... meditation ... fourth child: Lore ... divorced, raised three children alone ... Santa Barbara ... built studio home ... film art director ... workaholic ... met Vijali - artist - former Hindu nun ... married ten days later ... want a more simple life ... learned to say no to architectural art commissions ... meditation ... Italy - carved marble ... developed metal painting technique: gold and silver plate on copper, oxidized and etched ... attended art festivals ... meditation ... India ... art shows: New York City, Japan, Europe ... national art gallery representation ... painful. friendly divorce ... EST ... floating barge studio home ... new art tools and processes ... giggling ... dance away ... al-anon ... winter studio home - Mexico ... women ... workaholic ...grandchildren: Billy, Sita, Sierra ... great-grandchild: Forest ... horizons ... Great Peace March ... set up house made from 16,000 sticks of dynamite on White House mall ... new film and art studio run on solar power, Bisbee - Tombstone, AZ ... continued exploration of inner and outer worlds ... film producing: 35mm, 16mm, video ... last breath? ... Next possibility???

http://stupidwise.com/index.html




THE
New American Dream Interview



DALE CLARK, 85, lives 10 miles north of Bisbee, Arizona, in what could be described as an art compound, filled with his studios, projects, and out in the front yard is a boat, a thirty-six foot sailboat that Dale lived on for four years — when it was in the water.

There is a stop light outside his home on a "road" of rocks and more rocks, with only the desert in sight.

He was born in Osborn, Kansas and graduated from Cooper Union Art School in 1848, then walked to California.

He made a coffin and brought it to Camp Casey. He made a memorial to the children killed in Iraq. He makes portable housing for the homeless.



NAD: Dale, hello, welcome.

You have been married a few times. You have a few children.

So you were able to somehow mold family life into a lifestyle that has been like one of your art projects, a giant middle finger pointed toward Ozzie & Harriet's front door.

Or, perhaps you don't see it that way?

DALE CLARK:

I don't.




NAD: Cooper Union sounds to me like a very good, very elite, very expensive school — right?

How did the whole process of deciding to go there and being able to go there, go?

DALE CLARK:

I won a scholarship to four years of night school at Cooper Union.




NAD: And then you walked to California. Out of necessity?

Weren't you married at the time? How does that work?

Do you recommend it?

DALE CLARK:

Walked and hitch hiked with my pregnant first Malvina.

It wasn't out of necessity, it was for the adventure.




NAD: You probably have made quite a bit of money with your art, and could be making more?

Are you living a voluntarily simple lifestyle?

Is there a religious basis for that?

Or what?

DALE CLARK:

I've made a bit of money selling art and have been lucky with real estate in California.

But, yes, I live a voluntarily simple life style.

And, yes, I have a strong spiritual background honoring all saints and sages of all religions.




NAD: What is your passion today?

When you woke up this morning, what did you feel you had to get done before supper time?

DALE CLARK:

I am building box houses for the homeless and making a small village of box houses to be a gesture toward living way below the USA level. (check out my website)




NAD: What type of art do you do? What is your favorite?

You also make movies.

Why do you do art, make movies?

DALE CLARK:

I am blessed and cursed with a drive to produce art for economic greed and now for awareness that we live in super challenging times with ten thousand nukes when I've been told that 200 nukes could return us to the age of dinosaurs.




NAD: Talk about a couple of your many, creative projects, in five lines or less.

DALE CLARK:

The portable box house shelters for emergency (man made or natural disaster) and tooling up so they could be made and sold or given away to the homeless and/or groups suppling temporary emergency shelter.

The box houses measure approx. 3' x 3' x 6.5'.

Several of the box houses are tricked out so that they will float in protected waters, fit abandoned railroad tracks, and also equipped with skis and ice skates, and can be pulled along by a large kite, on land or on the abandonded railroad tracks.

I'm going to be shooting a video of the box house village and the interaction with seven people living in box houses with a little communal kitchen and social area with emphasis on minimizing the use of gasoline, depending on renewable energies such as wind and photovoltaics charging batteries that power a small electric tractor that powers 95 percent of our hauling, (gathering firewood, hauling food,etc.).




NAD: What else would you like to add? What else should I have asked?


DALE CLARK:

Ain't that enough?



NAD: Please insert a link here to something you would like linked to, with a brief tag re: where that link goes:

DALE CLARK:

Check out my website: www.stupidwise.com

There you go Mike

PS: Am interested in getting groups that would like to build box houses using the tooling and lessons learned in a little over a year of discovery.



[First published April 9, 2009]