Envy Magazine Article on Veritas Founder Ty Clark

Original http://envymags.com/2009/10/ty-clarks-search-for-truth/Ty Clark’s Search for Truth-by Jessica HarpMore than a fashion brand. That, friends, is the goal that California born, Dallas, Texas based, artist Ty Clark is striving to achieve. And from what we can see, he has a good head start. His fashion label, Veritas, was created to bring creative individuals from across the globe together through the arts to help communities in need. Using art as a method of healing, Ty is making waves in both the fashion industry and the art world.The idea for the business had been with him for years, but it never really came to fruition until he was living in China. It was then that Ty began to plot out the actual map to Veritas. Using his experience from working at Quicksilver for six years, and his extensive network, the pieces for a humanitarian fashion brand started to fall into place.The FashionVeritas is the Latin word for “truth.” It began as a tattoo drawing he came up with eight or nine years ago that encompassed one of the birds from their current logo. “When I started putting together ideas for this brand, I came across it in the book one day and I just thought ‘That’s it, that’s the company,’” says Clark. As for the actual tattoo, he still has yet to ink himself, but leaving it open for a future possibility. His aspirations for Veritas are not only to become a very well known brand in the fashion community, but to also create its own niche.Ty produces all the designs for his upscale fashion tees (oh, and accessories, too!) himself. Made mostly of cotton and polyester blends, Veritas clothing keeps fashion comfortable for men, women and children. And if the bold prints and unique graphics aren’t enough to sell you, they also give 20 percent of each purchase to the Veritas Project. It was Ty’s dream to start a company that encompassed the arts and was more than just a fashion company, but as he says, “[It] was something where I could take creative individuals and surround them around a brand to do humanitarian work.” As of now, they are working slow but very hard to build up their brand before they push their product.The Man Behind The MissionTy Clark began his journey as an artist painting and drawing at the early age of 2. It was then that his mother entered one of his sketches into an art show and hasn’t put down the tools since. Years later, he went on to study Fine Art at Asuza Pacific University and began to pursue his own art in 2002. His talent has been shown in galleries from California to Texas under the name “SAMO4PREZ.” Clark divulges that his greatest inspiration is a world-renowned sculptor from the ’60s and ’70s by the name of Conway “Jiggs” Pierson, who just so happens to also be his uncle.“I’m always trying to be creative as I can in my life, whether I’m painting or making video or working on the book I’m trying to get published pretty soon. I’m always trying to build my creativity and try and network with as many people as I can on a weekly basis, that’s just how I am,” expresses Clark. It’s fitting that he started up a fashion brand.

The Veritas Artist CollectiveTy Clark’s Artist Collective is a unique idea and by far one of the best we’ve heard of in a long while. Ty describes it best “as Andy Warhol’s Factory. In Andy’s factory, you had people from poets to musicians to artists to filmmakers to people that just did photography for fun. They would all hang out in this creative environment and that’s what I want to encompass with our collective. It’s not one style, not one genre but a mix of all kinds of different styles and people of different influences and different creative venues and bringing them all together in one collective.”Ty’s large network of friends in the art realm has helped him to acquire the 21 members that currently make up his Collective. The Artist Collective includes artists Sean Ellis, Katie Kader and Zach Saucedo, music artists Miniature Soap, Sleeperstar and We Are Villains, filmmakers John M. Chu and Tai Duncan, photographer Daniel Davis and many more notables.The MissionThe Veritas Project is a nonprofit organization that was created to support humanitarian efforts across the globe, in short, the whole goal behind Veritas. “The Veritas Project is designed to take the creative individuals that we use in the Veritas Artist Collective and use them to reach out to communities in need,” explains Ty. The main charity that the Veritas Project supports is Falling Whistles based in LA, but also Invisible Children and Naomi’s Village Orphanage in Kenya.He attributes his thought that it is important to be active in one’s social community to living in other cultures his whole life, giving him a broad worldview. “I think our culture has kind of been evaporating from community. We have so much stuff around us that it’s so easy for us to sit indoors every day and never meet anybody new or help our neighbors or do anything,” Ty points out. And he’s right.To get involved, people are free to contact him using the information on the Veritas website with ideas, projects or communities in need, but as far as the Artist Collective goes, Ty handpicks members himself. “It’s not just any artist, any musician, it’s people that fit the vision that we have and we will connect a charity or organization with people that we have connected to us to help out in whatever way we can,” he describes.Ty Clark’s biggest fear is not sharks, heights or death. In fact, he couldn’t even think of anything of the sort that he would be afraid of. After a few minutes of thinking, he revealed, “I don’t know, I’ve done so much with in this life and I’ve been so many places around the world and cried and bled and gotten dirty in so many other cultures that I don’t know if there’s anything that I do fear.” As it turns out, his biggest fear is not being able to accomplish the influence and the servanthood that he has imagined possible with the Veritas Project.Ty closed by saying “This isn’t about me. This is about the greater good with Veritas. I’m about my Collective, I’m about my customers, I’m about the volunteers that serve with us that don’t get paid. This is so much bigger than me and my vision.” He’s been an inspiration to us and hopefully to readers as well. We want to wish Ty the best of luck in all his endeavors and many successes to The Veritas Project.

PLEASE keep all discussions relevant to fashion, textiles, beauty products, or jewelry.

Follow the Fashion Industry Network Rules.

It is always a good time to review fabulous fashion.

 

Hot topics of possible interest:

  Thank you for using the Fashion Industry Network.  Have you helped another member today? Answer questions in the forum. It brings good luck.