Friday Five: An Interview with Ty Clark

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Ty Clark is also the CEO and Designer for Veritas Fashion that he founded in 2008 as a fashion line that embraces the Arts and uses creative individuals to support communities in need all over the world.  He has been involved in humanitarian projects in 10 different countries building a network of creative activists from various genres in the international Arts community.  Veritas Fashion is now in 2010 being worn by celebrities, artists, filmmakers, writers, sculptors, musicians and trendsetters around the globe.  As a member of the Veritas Artist Collective and 5D Artists Group, he also supports, promotes and raises awareness for Comfort the Children International, Naomi’s Village Children’s Home, Eldoret IDP Camp, Falling Whistles, Construction for a Cause, Music for the City and Hello Somebody.  Ty is actively providing opportunities for emerging artists around the globe to show work and invest in communities in need.  In 2010 Ty was named to the Catalyst Young Influencers list that highlights individuals inspiring and creating change around the world.

Plywood People: Can you share what you’re doing over at Veritas Fashion?

Ty Clark: Currently we are touring 50+ Cities across America to support one community in Kenya.  Part of our vision statement reads; “The Veritas brand is designed and created to bring community together through a combination of the Arts; one shirt, one painting, one sound, one film, and one word at a time.”  We live out our vision statement 100% in our lives and company.  Last year we toured over 16,000 miles across the west coast bringing art, fashion and music into living rooms, backyards and businesses to support multiple causes.  Over the last two years we have fallen in love with a specific community in Kenya.  We are currently supporting Comfort the Children International, Naomi’s Village children’s home (whom we raised over 18,000$ to purchase 5 acres of land for them to build on in 2009) and an IDP (Internally Displaced Peoples) Camp, all in this specific community,  Maai Mahiu.

When sat down to plan out 2011 we decided to repeat our 2010 journey on a much grander scale, so we are touring 50+ Cities over the next 8 months to support and raise awareness for the community of Maai Mahiu, Kenya.  At the end of our tour we will access the needs in the community and disperse funds accordingly across numerous projects that will invest in and empower different areas within the community.  We will also be taking a group from our Artist Collective to Maai Mahiu to be a part of these projects.

Plywood People:  How is Veritas the culmination of all your passions?

Ty: Veritas is exactly that, a culmination of all of my passions.  Veritas is an Art Fashion Brand, creating its own niche in the fashion market, a brand with its core revolving around the Fine Arts community.  For years I was journaling ideas, trying new things, starting visions and never completing them.  After returning from living in China for 13 months I was able to put together 15+ years of ideas into a business model.  I had worked for Quiksilver for 5 years before moving to China so I had a good grasp on retail and as an artist I knew it would be easy for me to replicate my artwork into fashion t-shirts and tops.  This was a way to make a living but not the goal of the company.  I wanted to create a way to live so that I could spend my time investing in emerging artists, my friends, my peers and humanitarian projects; a way to promote creative individuals, encourage them in their creative abilities, provide opportunities for them to be seen or heard and create opportunities for them to invest in communities in need.

Veritas as a company donates 20% of profits to humanitarian projects and this is where our heart lies.  In 1995 I was able to travel with my father to East Africa and we were invited to work with orphans in post-genocide Rwanda.  This was only a year after the horrific events.  We went in to work with Tutsi Orphans who had just seen some 800,000 of their people murdered.  This was my first interaction with child soldiers, feelings of hopelessness, children who were devoid of childlike candor and emotion.  I was an emotional wreck, heartbroken like never before.  We visited a home where 200 children were locked up in church after their parents were slaughtered before their eyes, it was a week before anyone found the kids and let them out.  We spent two days just loving, playing with, hugging, kissing and weeping with these kids.  My worldview from that day forward was completely changed.  I vowed to myself that someday I would invest in our world, my community wherever there are needs. Veritas means “Truth” in Latin and we hope to reveal the truths of the world through the arts and our brand.  A brand that encompasses all of my passions.

Plywood People: Why do you think it’s important to be an artist and create art in our culture?

Ty: I wrote this quote when creating a video piece for an event we put on in 2008 that I think answers this question perfectly. “Hope is not a dream, it is not a whim. Hope creates life and it is our job as Artists to observe our world and our communities and create a sense of emotion, experience and action through our gifts. We artists can breed HOPE if we act.”

Plywood People: What is a piece of advice you wish you’d been given when you were getting started pursuing your art?

Ty: I have been extremely blessed in my lifetime to be surrounded by amazing leaders, teachers, artists, and thinkers all over the world.  At a young age I was fortunate to learn that you need to surround yourself with people who are wiser and more knowledgeable than you, people who have similar goals and visions, people who will push, encourage and hold you accountable to your gifts and dreams.  I guess the one thing I wish I had known earlier as an artist and that I am learning now would of been to “take more risks, don’t be afraid to take risks in your art, you will never grow in your craft if you don’t go beyond what you already know, take risks”.

Plywood People: How can others be involved in what you’re doing?

Ty: We will be touring a majority of America the remainder of the year and we still need people to host Veritas shows.  We will bring our pop-up boutique, art and music anywhere and to anyone who wants to be a part of what we stand for and what we are doing.  We want to not only share our vision and connect people to the projects and people we support, we also want to encourage people and show them how they can use their talents, skills and gifts to invest and support communities that have needs right where they live.  If anyone is interested in being a part or knows people that would be, emailmandeclark@liveveritas.com That is my wife’s email, she is the other half of Veritas.  It’s just the two of us living out the road that has been placed before us.  In 2009 Mande and I left our full time jobs, put everything in storage in Austin, TX and we have been staying with family, friends and on the road literally and radically on Faith alone.

You can follow our tour at:
http://veritasfashion.wordpress.com
http://veritasroadtour.tumblr.com

Ty Clark aka SAMO4PREZ Art:
http://www.samo4prez.com
http://www.twitter.com/samo4prez

Visit Veritas at:
http://www.liveveritas.com
http://www.facebook.com/veritasfashion
http://www.twitter.com/veritasfashion

By Gisele Nelson

View the original article at http://plywoodpeople.com/5489

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