Bob Clark Beyond: Inspiration

latest inspiration posts

December’s Architect of the Month: Santiago Calatrava

Santiago Calatrava is a Catalan architect, engineer, and artist known for his beautiful, neo-futuristic buildings and bridges and his amazing ability to create visual statements. I admire his career and his ingenuity and I always look forward to what he will achieve next. Some striking examples of his work are the apartment tower in Malmö, Sweden, its shape suggesting a twisting spinal column. For the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin, he created a feature that looks like the wings of a bird as it opens and closes. The gravity-defying Alamillo Bridge in Seville is a straight steel-shell tower, filled with reinforced concrete. It leans backwards, counterbalancing a 200-meter span with thirteen pairs of cables.

Two Great History Books to Read Together: Sapiens and A Short History of Humanity

Two great history books that I’ve read and that I recommend reading together are Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and A Short History of Humanity: A New History of Old Europe. Sapiens, written by the historian Yuval Noah Harari, does an excellent job of tracing the great story of the rise of our own species and documents humanity’s creation and evolution throughout the ages. Looking into the intersections of biology and history, Dr. Harari takes his narrative all the way back to 70,000 years ago, when the first beginnings of modern cognition began to take place in homo sapiens. He then goes on to trace the start of the agricultural revolution, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the information revolution, and all the way up to where we were in 2014: the biotechnological revolution.

November's Artist of the Month: Vaughn Spann

Vaughn Spann is one of the most talented artists working today, and he already is off to a great start in his artistic career despite being so young. His current work centers around paintings that seek to explore abstraction, figuration, and formalism in new ways and from different perspectives, and he’s currently been focusing on portraiture and mixed-material abstractions that have enchanted and inspired viewers. Vaughn was born in Florida in 1992 and grew up in Orange, New Jersey. He now lives and works in nearby Newark, and he received his Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from Rutgers University in 2014 and an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2018.

October’s Featured Artist: McArthur Binion

So many people have become captivated by the minimalist abstract paintings of McArthur Binion, but he is also an inspiration for me and countless others with the ways he’s dedicated to serving as an educator and mentor and seeks to lift up the next generation of Black artists. Though he found success later on in his career, he’s proven that all artists have the incredible ability to use their voices and platforms to give others a chance to be recognized as well, and he’s a great example of an individual who believes in opening up opportunities for others to rise. Binion has been working as an artist since the early 1970’s. After moving from Macon, Mississippi with his family at age 4, he grew up in Detroit, Michigan with his 10 brothers and sisters. He later enrolled at Wayne State University to study creative writing and poetry, but eventually dropped out to move to New York City. While he was there, Binion paid a visit to the Museum of Modern Art as part of his job at a publication. He was moved by the work of abstract expressionist artists and re-enrolled in school to study drawing. He went on to become one of the first Black artists to graduate from Cranbrook Academy of Art’s distinguished MFA program.

August’s Architect of the Month: Adrian Smith

Adrian Smith is another architect with ties to Chicago that I admire, and he is the mind behind some of the most recognizable and enormous buildings in the world. He’s also the amazing architect who designed the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest structure in the United Arab Emirates. Smith’s towering skyscrapers have fundamentally changed skylines in cities across the globe, and all of them are real triumphs of design. Born in Chicago in 1944, Adrian Smith had an early interest in drawing that led his mother to suggest that he go on to study architecture. He started his schooling at Texas A&M University and finished his Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Chicago in 1969 while working at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

July’s Architect of the Month: Carlos Martinez

When I think of an architect who has made an impact on my life in a personal way, I’d say that Carols Martinez definitely holds that title. He’s a genuine and talented person who is deeply dedicated to his craft, and his passion for innovation is evident in the projects he has designed throughout his career as an architect. Carlos Martinez attended The Ohio State University, where he earned his Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1982. He then went on to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he graduated with a Master’s of Architecture in 1984. His professional career took off at Holabird & Root, and today, he’s been with the renowned architectural firm Gensler for over twenty years. Among his many accomplishments, he’s been inducted into the International Interior Design Association’s College of Fellows and he’s also a recipient of Gensler’s prestigious Don Brinkmann Award for design excellence.

Inspiration

I have always had an insatiable curiosity

What causes me to get out of bed every morning is driven by inspiration. Ever since I was a little boy, I was inspired by my insatiable curiosity, which caused me to be a reader, a thinker, and a dreamer.

I can remember being inspired by seeing Bobby Kennedy on TV and watching videotapes of Martin Luther King Jr., and being deeply saddened by their assassination even though I was only 10 years old when I experienced all of this.

As a little boy, rocket flight was a big thing. I remember being fascinated by the moon and the stars and the astronauts exploring them.As humans we are achieving remarkable things that only a handful of years before were just in the imagination.