We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Haley Clancy Inyart. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Haley below.

Alright, Haley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Growing up I was surrounded by two artists, my mom and my oldest sister, Gabrielle. My mom would dedicate time each day to making work, even if it was for a short time. It was engrained in me at a young age, any free time I had I would be drawing on notepads or sitting at the table next to my mom watching her paint or playing with her beads. It was something that I could never get away from or stop doing. I would sit on my mom’s lap while she would make bracelets and earrings and I would string beads together and play with all the colorful beads. My favorite were the tiny seed beads that you had to pick up by pressing a few to your fingertip and then putting them on the string one by one. I would mark my signature ‘H’ on all my artwork, and I would practice it over and over on notepads around the house. My mom had this large watercolor palette, and I would watch her mix colors on it, it was mesmerizing and meditative.

When I was in middle school, I watched my oldest sister pursue her BFA at Washington University in St. Louis. I would visit her at school and spend time in her studio while she worked. I loved touching her paper and threads and looking at her drawings in sketchbooks. I would poke my head into her classmates’ studios amazed by the work that was being made in their spaces. I loved to see how people worked and what their studio setup was like. My favorite was visiting my sister right before a critique and she would be setting up her work in a space and I would get to help her install it or grab her supplies as she worked. Sometimes we would walk to the Subway on campus and then we would ride the Metrolink back across the river to Belleville, Illinois. I knew I wanted to pursue art and someday have my own studio to make my own work in.

Haley, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a painter, drawer and curator currently pursuing my MFA at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. I received my BFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2020. I am also the Co-Director of The In Art Gallery, an online exhibition space that I started with Joseph Ovalle in 2020 during the pandemic. My dog, Jeffery, is my loyal companion and the very best studio dog.

This work is based on a collection of memories connected to family and the memory loss that I remember all too well. Memories kept in boxes and tubs and containers and associated with certain objects. Memories that are all too distant and in and out of focus in my mind. Some parts are more colorful than others and some are just covered up by darkness.

As memory declines within a person, the connection with an object wanes as well. My memories of my grandmothers’ falter as time passes, I struggle to hear the sound of their voices; maybe it’s been recorded over in my mind. We are all losing our memories, but at different rates than people with dementia. The work drifts in and out of focus, in and out of abstraction, memory tends to linger. We don’t realize the absence of someone until we are physically with it.

When I was five years old, my sisters and my parents piled into our red caravan and drove down to Naples, Florida to visit my uncles. We borrowed my aunt and uncle’s mini-VHS tv and watched movies during the sixteen-hour car ride. I was ecstatic, I couldn’t believe how fast the trip went when I could watch a movie. Upon our arrival and during the trip, my Uncle Dan
recorded moments of us on his video camera. He would capture moments of my sisters and I giggling in the swimming pool and of me eating an apple on top of the kitchen counter (because I was too afraid of their Labradors). I didn’t think much of him recording us, but a few weeks after we returned from the trip, sunburned and with sand in all our suitcases, my uncle sent us a package with a VHS tape in it. He had compiled all the footage of our trip together. This is the only type of home video that I have of my childhood and it is precious to me. I still watch it from time to time on the small tv in my parents basement. I fear one day I will return to my parents’ basement and the VHS tape will be lost or broken and I won’t be able to watch those Florida memories anymore. So I have been relying on my mind to preserve them.

I see my memories being on VHS tapes, there are piles of them in my mind, some of them are recorded over, some the ribbon is pulled out making it unwatchable, others are just collecting dust. Some are so worn out from the frequent use that parts of them have become weak, and some of the worn-out parts have been replaced to keep them working properly. These new parts cause the memories to shift.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Rebecca Solnit is a writer that has been influential in my work. “Some stories are best let go, but the process of writing down and giving stories away fixes a story in its particulars, like the apricots fixed in their sweet syrup, and the tale then no longer belongs to the writer but to the readers. And what is left out is left out forever.” Solnit writes about her mother’s dementia in A Faraway Nearby, the connection with an abundance of apricots that she inherited from her mother’s property and through the book these apricots become a metaphor for her mother’s decomposing mind. A Faraway Nearby, A Field Guide to Getting Lost and Recollections of my Nonexistence are my favorites by her. From A Field Guide to Getting Lost, “Lost really has two disparate meanings. Losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing.”

The Great Women Artists podcast by Katy Hessel has been a wonderful resource for me to learn about many women artists. I am always listening to either an audio book or podcast when I am working in the studio and The Great Women Artists podcast is very inspiring. Also by Katy Hessel is the book, The Story of Art Without Men, a chronological history of the women who have been instrumental in the history of art but have been overshadowed by male artists.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is being able to be in the studio making work. The literal act of creating, making decisions in the moment. It’s just me and the artwork cohabiting the space and working together and trying to understand one another. Being able to go into the studio each day and work on a piece is what gets me out of bed each morning. The daily effort that adds up over time to create something incredibly meaningful. I am trying to share moments and feelings in my works that wouldn’t create the same experience just by writing it out.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.haleyclancyinyart.com
• Instagram: @hales_ci