Clayton James

Clayton James travelled to the Pacific Northwest involuntarily when he was 26 years old, and then stayed by choice. As a conscientious objector to World War II, he was shipped to a camp on the then-remote Oregon coast, where he first saw conifer forests and great blue herons. After the war he eventually settled in the Skagit Valley, a flat, fertile area of coastal Washington State known for its fields of cultivated tulips and for artists gripped by nature and scornful of wealth, whose simple lifestyles seemed as much a moral imperative as a financial necessity. There, in La Conner, James created sculptures and vessels of cement, wood, and clay, and completed the plein air paintings of recent years. This volume includes color reproductions of works from throughout his career. Vicki Halper is a noted curator and writer specializing in modern art of the Pacific Northwest and crafts of the United States. She is the author of Findings: The Jewelry of Ramona Solberg; Gaylen Hansen; and James Lavadour.