Art & Life with Rylie Clarkson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rylie Clarkson.

Rylie, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I grew up in a family where I was the only child, allowed to be creative and passionate about whatever I wanted. My mom was a single mother, but like they say it takes a village, and my grandparents played a huge role in raising me. My grandmother has always been extremely strong, beautiful, and smart, but arts were not her passion and she always wanted me to major in something practical like business so that I could become whomever I wanted to be when I was older. My mom is much like my grandma, smart, strong, and beautiful, and she was always inspiring me to do whatever I wanted to do and pursue my creative passions. When the time came for college, she wanted me to become a journalism major and write stories around the world. My grandpa was the one who really gave me the creative gene, always playing make-believe together and reading me new stories as I grew up. He helped me to be fearless in a very scary world through his passion for life. My family helped me become the person I am today; a strong woman with feminist ideas and goals.

When I went to ASU, I decided to become a creative writing major, partially to make my mom happy and also because I didn’t know what else to do. However, I found myself becoming uninspired and saddened by my schoolwork, so I changed my major to photography. Photography has always been something I wanted to pursue, and by doing so I’ve challenged myself to become a stronger artist and person. Little did I know the journey I would take when changing my major; applying to one of the top photography programs in the US. This was daunting, but I made it into the program due to many sleepless nights, hard work, and a lot of love from my family and friends.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
For me, art is about working through different moments in your life. I’ve been working through different stages of my life in different bodies of work; from black and white landscape photos of power lines to close-up shots of textures on skin, to now hand-embroidering over digital prints of my family. My artwork is all about me and is extremely personal whether it looks like it or not, it’s my way of working through my life.

I’ve just begun to dabble in multi-media artworks, and this terrifies and excites me all at the same time. As for my current body of work, I’m focused on taking old family photographs and digitally manipulating the pixels to make certain family members look blurred. After this, I print the images out and embroider over top each individual pixel, an”X.” This is a laborious and time-consuming process, but it speaks to a deeper story about my family and my personal life and has helped me work through some personal struggles.

What responsibility, if any, do you think artists have to use their art to help alleviate problems faced by others? Has your art been affected by issues you’ve concerned about?
I believe that art is extremely important to the world today. Artists have a powerful role of impacting people through their work, whether negatively or positively, especially through social media which is an important tool today. My artwork is a personal look at the way I view the world, and while I tackle issues of feminism and mother-daughter relationships, it is on a deeply personal level rather than a widespread one. The world is always affecting my art, especially because I am a feminist and a woman living in a world that still unfortunately values women as less than men.

Artists have a very important role today, and I urge all artists, including myself, that are mad about what is happening right now to speak up and speak out about these issues. If we remain silent, nothing will change. So, we have to get loud and get mad in order to be heard.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
Anyone can see my work online at ryliefallonphoto.com, or on my photography Instagram ryliefallonphoto. My website is always undergoing new changes as I update my work as often as I create it. My inbox is always open to messages from anyone on my website and my Instagram.

Contact Info:

• Website: ryliefallonphoto.com
• Email: ryliefallon@gmail.com
• Instagram: ryliefallonphoto

Image Credit:
Rylie Clarkson / ryliefallonphoto.com

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