Artist: Clarence Porter
Medium: Soft Pastel on Sanded Paper
Dimensions: 18''x 18''

Bidding on this artwork will take place at the Live Auction event, Friday, April 5. Tickets available at the link at dvsa.ca. Absentee bids can also be placed in advance – request a form at the school office or email bid@dvsa.ca.

About This Piece
We were vacationing with family and friends at a house up in Alliston, Ontario. One afternoon, my daughter’s boyfriend - Martine - went outside and picked some flowers from the garden and put them in a mason jar. The flowers were going to be the light-hearted centrepiece for our afternoon lunch table. I grabbed them up and took them out onto the deck. I knew the relationship of the flowers, mason jar and rustic deck would make an interesting study for a painting, and with the bright sunlight, there would be even more impact. So I took lots of photos. When I returned home, I chose one of the photos to use as a reference for the painting, and “Martine’s Choice” was born.

Biography
Clarence worked in the Toronto advertising world as a graphic designer/art director until leaving to become a freelance commercial illustrator: a career move that spanned 30-plus years of creating illustrations for everything from packaging and logo designs to children’s books and magazine editorials, while working in a wide range of mediums. After relocating to Hamilton, he started working with pastels for his own pleasure, and in 2006 Clarence was juried into the Pastel Artists Canada’s Purely Pastels Exhibition at the Art Gallery of Hamilton where he received an Honorable Mention. That was the impetus needed to continue working with pastels and he hasn’t looked back.

Clarence is represented by Earls Court Gallery in Hamilton and his work has been collected locally and internationally. He received his Master Pastel Artist of Canada (MPAC) signature designation from Pastel Artists Canada in 2014 and was elected a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America (PSA) in 2016. He is also a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and the International Association of Pastel Societies.

Clarence recently retired from teaching at Sheridan College where he enjoyed eight amazing years working with creative young minds. He is now a part-time instructor at Dundas Valley School of Art, as well as an occasional instructor at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Ongoing sources of inspiration for Clarence are the live and Zoom pastel demonstrations and private mentoring sessions he instructs all over Canada and North America. He finds collaboration with other artists using different media rewarding and enriching, too.