McLucas, Clifford.

Person

McLucas, Clifford.

Clifford McLucas was born in 1945 at Wetherby, Yorkshire. He was educated at Pudsey Grammar School and then at Manchester University School of Architecture, where he studied for seven years. Following university, initially he concentrated on architectural projects and moved to Edinburgh to work with a small architectural practice. Alongside this, however, he continued to pursue his wider cultural interests. He also began to carry out his own design and build projects, eventually moving to Dumfries-shire to work with a master carpenter for a year. During this time he began to work to commission making hand-made architectural and furniture installations. In 1974 he moved to Wales, establishing a business in Ceredigion. He continued to carry out self-designed architectural installations and to design and build one-off pieces of furniture to commission. He later became involved in community action in the area. He also began to develop an interest in the 'performative' aspects of the items he was making and to consider his work in terms of installation and fine art. He began to explore collaborations with other artists in the fields of theatre and installation in the Aberystwyth area. A number of early projects stemmed from this, such as the creation and performance of a 12 hour theatre and installation work at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre –CNDRLL; an exhibition of his art work at the Arts Centre, which included the execution of a series of large, floor based drawings of himself undertaken according to the changing daylight; and the live execution of the first of a number of large wall drawings in the Arts Centre. This work led to his employment as an Exhibitions Organiser at the Arts Centre, his main responsibility being the development of the Gallery Visual Arts Programme. In addition to this, he was a key figure in the establishment of the Barn Centre in Aberystwyth town centre, which became the home to many artists, both individual and groups, working in the region and a number of projects were established there. The Centre was also home to a number of community groups. Initially the work of running the Centre was carried out voluntarily, with Clifford McLucas as chairman of the trust for a number of years. Later he was employed to direct its operations. During his time at the Barn Centre, his work with the Aberystwyth Media Group led to him being invited to become a member of the Welsh Arts Council's Film Committee. He was also asked to be a member of the small team of committee members responsible for developing a range of policies regarding film and video workshops in Wales and to draft a discussion document for the Department to seek to develop a 'Cultural Policy' for the support of independent film and video activities in Wales. During this period also, he was commissioned to work as a media artist in residence in a small group of secondary schools in the area. This involved teaching and advising work, but in addition to that he created a number of large photographic and mixed media 'portraits' that were exhibited in the schools. He began creating large performance works with actors, dancers, visual artists, film makers and others based at the Centre. Through these works and his directorship he met and began to work with Brith Gof, an experimental performance company co-founded in 1981 by Mike Pearson and Lis Hughes Jones, based in Aberystwyth at the time. After working with them on a number of projects he was invited to join the artistic team as a permanent member. He eventually became artistic director of the company. He was invited to work with the company specifically to develop large scale site specific performance and they carried out numerous projects. In 1994 the company relocated to Cardiff, as did McLucas. However a large part of Brith Gof's operation returned to mid-Wales, to Lampeter, in 1998 and again McLucas moved with them. He was appointed the honorary post of Research Fellow at the University of Wales Lampeter. During this period McLucas set up a new long-term programme of work for Brith Gof under the name of ProsiectEcs. In 2000/2001 he was awarded a year-long Senior Research Fellowship at Sanford University, California. He developed a proposal for a shared research project to be housed at the Sanford Humanities Center and which was called the Three Landscapes Project. Whilst in America he was also invited, by members of a national alliance against the death penalty, to begin developments on a work to address the issue, under the working title – the San Quentin Codex. McLucas died in 2002 following a short illness.