C A T H E E A
F I N E A R T
CLAUSEN
815.252.1197
About Cat's Art
It’s simple and pure and primitive.
It’s the life of artist Cathee ‘Cat’ Clausen. It’s her artwork’s unspoken word.
Imagining and creating with a thought, a brush, paint and a canvas, each work begins with the simplest element – a memory or a feeling - and builds from there.
From her childhood recollections of camping in Sedona or the Grand Canyon, of sleeping under an Indian blanket each night or forming mud animals to bake in the hot desert sun to the current sleepy central Illinois town she calls home, Clausen’s life and artwork have danced around each other for years.
Born in Brawley, Calif., Clausen spent the majority of her childhood with her parents and siblings in Arizona, where her mom taught elementary school to Native American Apaches and her father worked as a arid plant geneticist.
She spent her days as a budding artist, making her own jewelry and pottery and clothing, taking camping and nature trips throughout the desert and soaking in southwestern life.
She could imagine herself as an Indian.
“I like a somewhat solitary life and I could envision the time it would take to make a basket or to paint a teepee or make a headdress, and I had the patience to sit and do things like that,” she said.
Little baby moccasins. A tiny woven basket. The colors of a fiery desert sunset. These images painted her youth.
It would be years before those memories would become front and center in both her mind and work.
In 1982, Clausen earned her bachelor’s degree in visual communications from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
Following graduation, Cat worked in marketing, public relations and art direction for 10 years including a position with WVPT Public Television in Harrisonburg, Va.
Cat left her career in the fall of 1993 to become a stay-at-home mom and moved to Illinois with her husband and three-year-old son.
Craving a creative outlet, Cat began to teach herself to paint in oils, an art medium she had not studied in college. She sold her first oils to members of her small community.
A second collection, “Ribbons of Color,” began as a soul searching mission and a way to purge difficult experiences of her past. From it, she developed a permanent style and brushstroke for her work. Known as pure power, Clausen’s colorist ‘ribbons of color’ cascaded down canvases and transformed her new found creative outlet into a full blown career.
As Clausen found resolution in her own personal story, she began to seek out the story of others. The “Personalities” collection followed with portraits of political and educational leaders and musicians, as well as her beloved Abraham Lincoln.
Treasured by many in his home state of Illinois, Clausen’s Lincoln has gone on to grace the covers of magazines and more, as well as and banners throughout the city of Chicago.
Even as her work brought her more acclaimed recognition with appearances on WGN news and a trip to Italy in honor of her Lincoln – a new vision came to her.
She awoke one day with the images of two Indian chiefs in her mind. She knew they were leading her to her future.
And so the “Visions” and collection was conceived. Months of researching, including trips to Chicago’s Newberry Library and a two-week journey to the stomping grounds of her youth, led her back to the simplest of places.
With a thought, a brush, some paint and a canvas, Clausen began “Visions," a new collection.
It’s simple and pure and primitive.
From a window-filled front porch, on a quiet street, in an unassuming town, Cat’s newest works are coming to life with a bold statement.
“Other paintings felt like such hard work,” she said. “I can’t remember just simply enjoying painting. This new collection has to do with simplicity and maybe that’s why they’re rapidly coming out of me.”
Inspired by Native American Artist E.A. Burbank, Clausen’s newest "Visions" works borrow the warm whites and grays from the artist who once traveled by horseback to paint his subjects live.
The “Visions” collection renews the feelings of her roots, of her childhood in Arizona, of her inner being.
“It brings me a great deal of peace to paint Native Americans she said. “It’s the feeling of being grounded. It just feels like home.”
“Visions” have taken her beyond anything she could have conjured.
“I like creating even more,” she said. “It’s simple and pure and primitive.”
By
Sara Peters, Jan. 2011
Cat Clausen in her studio.
