Clint Fulkerson
The Uncommon Nature of a Self-Contained World Builder
Tell me a little bit about your story. What brought you to this moment in your artistic development?
I grew up in Maine, in the US, and I have been an artist since I can remember. A child of the 1980s/90s, I drew lots of Ninja Turtles and Magic the Gathering art for my friends. I drew and painted a lot in high school, still lives and portraits mostly, and I went to art college and majored in metalsmithing and jewelry to try something new. After graduating, I worked for a flute maker, made custom rings sold online, taught jewelry classes, joined a co-op studio, and occasionally made and exhibited small sculptures.
Sometime around 2010 I decided to focus entirely on monochromatic drawing on paper, feeling overwhelmed with possibilities in metals and restricted by the expectations in the medium at the same time. I simplified my tools and started thinking in abstract binary and plane geometric terms. Black and white, abstraction, structure and space. The hand. The pen. The paper. If I built a foundation of minimalism and emergence, my art could grow in many directions. I started exhibiting in group shows at local galleries and museums.
I drew gridded tessellations, triangle by triangle, according to rules based on the relative areas of adjacent triangles. I was making generative art by hand without realizing it. These rules could be applied on a large scale for wall drawings, and I didn’t have to plan the entire composition, just follow the rules of growth to fill a space.
I wasn’t interested in learning to code to make these meshes, I was addicted to the process of making marks incrementally by hand. I felt in control making something by hand that felt magical.
Once I started working large, I applied for open calls for public art and started getting commissions. I painted a mural for Facebook in NYC, and I made 500+ ft of non-repeating wall coverings for Google that were a combination of hand drawing, digital coloring, and printing.
At the end of 2020 I was asked to join an NFT project (that never came to be), and I educated myself about web3 and started minting on OpenSea and Hic et Nunc. Until then, I worked digitally for proposal drawings but never considered this output art. I shared and proposed work through digital images for ten years or more, and selling digitally native work without having to store, print or ship art was very attractive to me.
I experiment quite a bit, but my core artwork is abstract algorithmic drawing, which I return to often. From this core I have branched into digital painting, animation, generative art, and artificial intelligence. The work is abstract but often symbolic of natural systems and the role of humans and technology embedded in nature.
Why do you make the type of art that you make? What does it do for you? Why do you think you are attracted to this style (or styles)?
I’m curious about natural systems and how they evolve and where they could go in the future. I’m interested in how complex systems emerge from a multitude of simple interactions. By creating self contained worlds where I can play god and tweak the parameters, then share the results with others, I feel I strengthen my connection with nature and humanity.
As an artist of any medium, we often have at least one piece that we feel really captures the essence of what we’re trying to express in our work. It often happens early in our career and paves the way for the rest our work, but it can also happen later as a culmination of our efforts. Which piece is this for you? Explain.
My first wall drawing, ‘Dissipate’, was temporary but I always think back to it as fundamental to my current trajectory. It was precise but organic, black and white yet a smooth gradient, pattern based but dynamic, abstract but diagrammatic and scientific.
Do you ever deal with self-doubt or other intrusive thoughts that get in the way of your ability to create? If so, how do you navigate this?
Making art has been my sanctuary from low confidence and anxiety. Ideally, I draw every day. If I don’t sit down and draw every few days I will get really depressed and irritable. Sometimes I will doubt myself or feel pressure from clients or a perceived audience and not know what to make. At these times I spend time in the woods near my home, or work just for fun without expectations.
Can you share an instance where a project didn’t go as planned? Did you learn anything from this experience?
I have had solo drawing shows that either had few people attend the opening or had nothing sell after working for a year or more, and although I was happy with the work because it led to new opportunities, they felt like a waste of time. I’ve also had gallery representation and made good sales only to have the gallery close.
I’ve been super excited with NFT projects that have had zero sales or feedback. I never give up, I try new things, tweak old methods, and eventually find myself out of stagnant corners.
Do you listen to music while you work on art? If so, what and why?
I’m always listening to something, but I oscillate between music and YouTube videos.
I used to listen to more music, typically popular genres like rock, reggae, punk, and metal but recently some pop (influenced by my 12 year old daughter here!). Lately, I usually listen to YouTube videos that are mostly talking, anything from lectures about ancient humans to police interrogations.
When do you work on your art?
I work on my art whenever I am free from obligations, or not working another job, but I consistently work early evenings until bedtime around 2am.
How do you typically begin a project? Do you use a physical sketchbook?
I have enough projects completed that I look back and see if there are conceptual holes to fill, or places that need expansion. I experiment to stake out new territory and leave a record of the ideas, then I go back and reinforce or reiterate the idea to hopefully strengthen overall concepts.
Color is an unavoidable component in the visual arts. How do you think about color? What source do you use when building color palettes?
I used to think in terms of figure and ground only and thought color was an unnecessary facade. I thought of black as physical, white as spatial, nothing more needed. I soon realized there are many compositional and emotional effects made available using color that I now embrace.
I looked to Josef Albers and Edward Tufte initially to guide my use of color. Now it’s intuitive, I pick a starting color and see what works with it. Sometimes I pick random colors. I often use the RGB colors of screens and CMYK from print to self-reference digital art.
I often take photographs and pick colors directly from the photo in a layer underneath my drawing. My ‘Convergence’ series uses this method with other artists’ work.
What are the essential tools used in your craft?
I recently put my physical studio along with my drawings and paintings in storage, but paper, ink and gouache are my favorite physical media.
My main digital tools are Procreate and Adobe Illustrator, and I feed drawings into Emprops OpenStudio for generating AI images.
What is a technique you’ve developed or discovered in your process that you think would help other artists?
For me it is always helpful to simplify and remove friction as much as possible inside the art and my living situation. I want to be prolific and have almost simultaneous ideation and execution.
If I limit my tools to pen on paper, for example, a medium I’ve been using for many years, I can pick up drawing quickly and can always fit drawing into my day. Going digitally native and not offering physicals for two years (apart from mural commissions) has removed a lot of friction. I don’t have to photograph and ship artwork around the world. I can draw with a look and resolution equivalent to my physical drawings but don’t have to store them in flat files. If I’m just drawing, the setup is very simple and I feel the medium should be quick and smooth to capture my ideas and motivations more immediately than, say, writing code, which seems more like sculpting with logic and is not where my mind is when I’m creating.
Procreate has replaced drawing on paper for the most part, and I use Adobe Illustrator for vectors. I have only used Stable Diffusion models for AI, primarily altering my drawings with natural textures.
I think there is a pressure to use cutting-edge technology in the crypto art space, but for me I’d rather have a core set of processes my ideas have to fit within. Of course I do branch out and experiment with tools but I always go back to simplifying.
What educational resources or other materials have been helpful in developing your craft?
I was fortunate to attend art school and also establish myself in the Maine art community which is fairly strong for a rural state. Developing my craft mostly involves making and experimenting on my own, then getting feedback and adjusting. If I see another artist trying something interesting, I might incorporate their methods somewhat into my process.
You’ve minted art on several blockchains. What is your reason for doing this? What are the key differences you’ve noticed on each one? Do you have a preference?
Each blockchain seems to have different users, so I figured I would get more eyes on the work by expanding. Ethereum was always perceived as the biggest and best chain with the highest chance of sticking around but I always saw it as the “Vegas” chain, where Tezos was the “Berlin” chain, and I felt comfortable there, especially with experimental work or things I wanted recorded on the blockchain more for myself. Also, the gas fees on Eth have limited my participation. I saw a lot of my favorite digital painters using Solana, so I started minting paintings there, and found a few passionate art collectors.
There are a lot of great platforms to mint artwork on nowadays. How do you navigate this? Is there a strategy? Do you have a favorite?
Usually I wait for someone I respect to start using a new platform, and then give it a try. I see how my work might fit in that context. I like open art-focused platforms vs gatekept ones.
I wanted to try typed.art for text based, 8bidou for pixel art, and was lured to Solana and exchange.art by digital painters like ADHD, Mical Noelson, and Luciana Guerra. For generative art, fxhash. For the most part, I kept out of ETH platforms due to gas costs, but set up a Manifold contract and started listing on Foundation.
Of course, Emergent Properties OpenStudio tools, and OpenMarket Beta- this has opened up my mind when trying to coerce Stable Diffusion to do what I want, but yielding to the strengths of the model, trying to keep it very abstract and adjusting my prompting language accordingly. It really is a puzzle and a game, but a serious art ultimately.
What is your approach to pricing?
I think of the time spent and a reasonable price minimum I need for the work I did, considering overhead. If I sell everything I make, I should be able to cover my living expenses. I price experiments and AI work less than a handmade drawing because they take less time. I have experimented a lot with pricing, probably turning off collectors in the process, but realizing it’s best to be consistent and logical in pricing.
A bear market can be discouraging for artists in web3. One of the reasons you’re here with me today is because you’re one of the people who have persevered and continued releasing art. What are your thoughts and approach to this?
Thankfully this year I had summer employment and art commissions IRL that enabled me to continue minting work without having to sell it to survive. I’m hooked on making digital art and sharing it with this community. The bear market has me feeling fairly pessimistic that I can make a living solely making digital art, so I will continue applying for public art calls, which have been my primary source of income since 2015.
Can you give us any hints or insight into what you’re working on right now? Is there anything you’re particularly interested in at the moment?
I’m really immersed in the long form AI projects I’ve been releasing on Emprops. I make new drawings specifically to apply textural prompts. It really feels like sculpting, but with words. AI is new exciting territory that is evolving quickly, so I want to see how it can augment my strengths.
Who are two or three artists you’d like more people to discover?
There are so many great artists I’ve discovered in the past 2 years, and I’ve collected a lot on Tezos. I recommend looking through my collection on Objkt.
My one and only fxhash project, ‘f(x)ields’, collaborator, Orr Kislev, is an amazing code-based artist with a great sense of humor. I’m proud to be a top collector of both Santiago and Yuri. The talent oozing out of these two is infectious. I would love to have more Luciana Guerra, especially on Sol and Eth.
Clint Fulkerson’s links
Personal Website: clintfulkerson.com
Social: Twitter/X
NFT Art: Objkt, fx(hash), Foundation, exchange.art, Emprops, zeroone
For more on Clint’s work, check out Abstract Art Analysis 3 where I break down one of his pieces that had a big impact on my perception of beauty👇
Abstract Art Analysis 3
Welcome to week 3 of AAA! I hope you enjoy these works as much as I do and that you’re able to take away some valuable insights into looking deeper at abstract art. Content: This week’s pieces: ‘who needs dirt’ by Clint Fulkerson ‘Artist leaving the space, no one went Guernica about it’ by Evelyn O.
I recall seeing a couple of Clint’s works in your Gm post. In particular I remember Avoidance 2 and his generated tile piece. The glossy, 3D quality of that piece struck me. It’s almost as if I could touch the textures.
I’m blown away by Clint's ability to create meticulously detailed work by hand. It really gives off a computational quality. If I hadn’t known better and stumbled upon his work, I would have thought it was algorithmically generated. He’s the literal definition of a human machine!