We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Claire Huang a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Claire, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
While all of my projects encompass many important aspects of myself, “Celebrating Crossroads” holds dearest to me. Through the lens of an Asian-American artist, the collection commemorates the yin and yang of balancing two or more different cultures. In Chinese culture, the “yin and yang” is the phenomenon that balances two contrasting forces in unison and is represented through the “Dragon” and “Phoenix”. Using those as my driving motifs, I handcrafted bespoke jewelry pieces, masks, and a ‘red envelope’ clutch to convey my story.
While I accumulated new skill sets such as wax carving, stone setting, and metal polishing, to add to my repertoire, I learned how important meaningful storytelling is to my craft. Like many children of immigrants growing up, I found myself at a crossroads many times, trying to gauge whether I should assimilate into American culture or embrace my Chinese heritage. I turned to art as a creative outlet to explore parts of my identity, culture, and everything in between. At my graduating Open Studio night, I had the opportunity to visually and orally describe my collection to hundreds of people. I was overwhelmed to hear so many people of similar upbringings verbally tell me how much they not only love the jewelry but how much they resonate with my story. To believe that my work can move and inspire others is an incredible feeling and responsibility I will continue to do for many years to come.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hello! My name is Claire and I identify myself as a multimedia artist, illustrator, and designer. My work celebrates and examines my self-identity and cultural heritage as a first-generation Chinese-American. I grew up within the AAPI community in the San Gabriel Valley, one of the many diverse enclaves just outside of Los Angeles. In 2017, I moved to New York to attend Parsons School of Design, earning a B.F.A. in Fashion Design with a focus on Fashion Products.
While I have explored various sectors of fashion such as womenswear, contemporary, bridal, sustainability, jewelry, shoes, and leather goods; accessories are by far my favorite field of fashion. I enjoy learning the niche and specialty skill sets that the realm of accessories calls for such as wax carving, shoe construction, and silversmithing. Because of my Fine Arts background, I love incorporating illustrative components into my designs and final products. My goal as a creative individual is to make art that goes beyond aesthetics. Whether it be sustainably sourced or an ode to representation, I want my work to cement the earth with a greater purpose.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson I had to unlearn or reexamine is what is considered “good art”. Because I spent my entire childhood and adolescent years attending Art classes, my definition of what the epitome of art included perfect proportions, realistic rendering, and microscopic details: essentially the perfect study. In every class, I would hone my technical skills to inch toward the mastery of capturing every detail. Every art piece I would see, I would only look at it from a technical perspective and feel the need to give unsolicited criticism while riding on a high horse.
During my first National Portfolio Day event, I went straight to my dream college’s booth, Parsons, and was completely shot down when I spoke to the representative. While she flipped through my portfolio, the representative told me that despite my pieces are beautiful, they felt like studies that lacked any individuality or character. If I were to submit my portfolio as is, I would not have a chance of being accepted to my dream college. While I have had my fair share of harsh critiques, those words felt like daggers and I immediately could not hold back my tears from flowing. The representative immediately felt bad and tried to assure me that I had a solid foundation in terms of technical skills, but would like to see more of “Claire” in my pieces. If I were to use those technical skills more effectively to make more meaningful pieces, I would definitely be able to get into Parsons. With a newfound determination, I went on a journey to create art that storytells and moves heartstrings with my experiences. I even told my art teachers that I would like to focus more on conceptual-based prompts and they happily complied.
As I evolved my mindset, I began to view other artists’ work from a different light and began to appreciate rather than critique. Defining “Good art” is subjective to everyone and I realized that if it has the power to move people, it does not matter how technically accurate it is. Each stroke, line, and splash I did became more intentional, emotional, and meaningful. Finally, I started to create art for art’s sake once in my life. And my ticket to Parsons, was, sure enough, secured.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
While there are so many amazing resources to learn either online or in in-person classes, I believe the best resources are your peers. Learning the way they tackle the same prompt or medium and the different approaches they use, widens your spectrum tenfold. I always enjoyed going around asking my peers about different materials, programs, and media they used or you can learn a lot about them by just casually speaking with them about their interests. Similarly, whenever a peer would like any assistance or is just curious about my process, I will happily explain it to them in hopes they could understand the assignment or learn about me. This also applies to professors, museum guards, and street artists! You’ll be surprised at how open artists are and many of them will happily talk to you as long as you are curious! 
Contact Info:
- Website: https://clairehuangofficial.myportfolio.com
- Instagram: @clairehuangofficial
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-huang088/
Image Credits
Photographers: Kelly Liu and Claire Huang Models: Alice Wu and Darice Lee