Me
Born in 1986, I grew up in Anaheim, California until I was 5 with my parents, Cam and Cece Clitheroe, and my younger sister Katelynn, born in 1988. My younger brother was born in 1990 right before we moved to Hillsboro, OR. Moving from rental house to a more permanent 4 bedroom house, I went to St. Matthews k-12 Catholic school. While attending St Matthews I dressed very similarly to Doug Funny from the Nickelodeon TV show, and was very shy. Regardless, I developed some lasting friendships and maintained my standing as one of the top 5 students in my class. In 1995 we moved to a home behind Hillsboro High school, and in September of 2001 everyone in my class went on to private high schools, except for myself and a few others. I attended Hilhi, pursued as many accelerated classes as I could get my hands on, including International High school, and the International Baccalaureate program. Though I didn’t pursue the entire diploma, I maintained high marks while turning my focus more towards art as I went through high school. In that first year I met Sandy Johnson, now one of my best friends, and she introduced me to the Society for Creative Anachronism. At first my parents misheard me and thought I had said “anarchy”, which didn’t go over well, but once medieval recreation was clarified, it became a very big part of my life. In 2003 I took a one week intensive class at the Oregon College of Art and Craft for metalsmithing and Jewelry, and from then on I was hooked. I took another Jewelry class from Ed and Cindy at Manny Bee’s Studio in Newberg, OR. I learned most of my basic Jewelry from them. I shortly after looked for a blacksmithing master and found Ralph Douglass through my parents’ church. I spent nearly 8 months working with him until the end of my senior year, when he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and spent many months battling the infection in his right arm-pit, which of course is the arm he uses for hammering. Ralph died shortly after I graduated. His wife, Dawn Douglass, graciously gave me some of his forging equipment and I plan to set it up as my primary forge once I get a more long term location.
I was accepted into the U of O and quickly began taking metalsmithing and jewelry classes through the department under Anya Kivarkis as the visiting professor. I also had the privilege of learning from Beth Greene and Kerry. I took both intro classes as quickly as I could after realizing that I knew all of the basics from my previous classes through PCC and OCAC. After that I began taking metalsmithing and jewelry every term. The terms were divided into subjects and we covered a very large array in the 9 classes I took, including forming, enameling, casting, chasing, etching, and a lot more. Throughout my time at the U of O I began to really develop my subject matter and found that while I was at times interested in exploring formal artistic topics, I was more fascinated by medieval aesthetics, historical reproduction, and creative expansion of artifacts. To the frustration of my professor I began pressing for “non conceptual art” because I felt that I was being directed to spend far too much time worrying about the validity of my concept and far too little perfecting the techniques. Regardless of this conflict, I found that a lot of what I was learning in my art history classes was very interesting, and though I developed a hatred for essays I loved to see the slides of art done thousands of years ago.
I finished my BA in Fine Arts at the University of Oregon in December of 2008 with a focus in metalsmithing and jewelry. After graduation I soon met Alan Flashing and after some discussion he agreed to allow me to do a fluid apprenticeship under him as long as I wanted, and I will be here until the end of May 2009. I work with him on his projects, learning to do the techniques he is using, and in return I get to use the shop for my own projects, and ask questions about process and technique when he isn’t busy.
From here my girlfriend of a year, Katie Stearns, and I will be moving to Bend, OR where she will complete a horse trainer internship with Clint Surplus. While she is doing that I will be maintaining some sort of menial job and studying techniques. I hope to set up my gas forge and coal forge and continue perfecting my blacksmithing skills, while also developing a small jewelry studio so that I can continue making the work that I learned to create in college. Eventually we hope to move to Washington where we will follow any of a number of contingency plans, the primary of which is the Ramaloke Project that has been started by Crew Moss, Mike, and myself. To find out more information about my current endeavors, return to the home page and watch for updates on all sorts of things!
