Hadley Clark

 Hadley Clark gives presence to absence; gives new purpose to old discards; gives form to thought. With an education in Painting (BFA, University of Kansas 2001) as well as in Garment Design and Construction (BFA Fashion Design with Honors, The New School | Parsons Paris 2010), Clark’s work exists in the middle distance between art and fashion. Eschewing some of the commercial strictures of the fashion industry–seasonal collections, exported labor, textile waste–Clark’s methods more closely resemble those of an artist. Working patiently, often alone, Clark designs and constructs her garments according to deadlines set by the work itself. Part painter, part designer, and part sculptor. In 2014, Clark began to rely on textile waste and deadstock fabric as her primary construction materials. The resulting pieces–cut from bolts of donated, repurposed, and meticulously collaged scraps–are documents of dual states; neither new nor used, both art object and wearable garment, dead-come-alive. This material awareness, and a resulting interest in empowering individuals to fix and tailor garments as opposed to discarding them, led Clark to found her own sewing school in 2017, which she operated out of her studio. In the intervening five years, Clark has logged thousands of hours teaching hundreds of students, eventually expanding the footprint of her classroom to include the textile department at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and The Kansas City Art Institute where she is now faculty.