Jackson Free Press

Most of the surface space in Clay Hardwick's room is covered with an image, be it his own or another's: shots of friends checker one wall, posters for bands and music events another, with a good deal of knee space donated to canvasses leaning against the wall. Later, when I flip through his portfolio in the den, I think, "Close attention to space and composition. An interest in texture. Appreciation for large planes of color. Like his room."

One of Hardwick's charming aspects is how successfully he's melded his artistic notions with his day-to-day activities. That's seen most clearly in his business, Clay Borne Design, which creates Web sites, posters, and other images for companies and organizations. That business, he explains, largely propels itself.

"I have a poster and a business card," he lists by way of advertising. It's mostly word of mouth, and he prefers it that way. He relates an incident where he agreed to make a Web site for an unknown client he assumed his father knew. After he finished the site, he realized it was run by an entrepreneur reselling weight-loss pills from home.

But beyond the need to discriminate clientele, there's a problem: "I don't really enjoy doing the Web sites," he admits. The work, he explains, is too constrictive, and he prefers patrons that need a print or poster, projects that allow more personal expression in their execution. He concedes that he does a fair number of Web sites simply to have the opportunity to work for a client more in line with his interests.

What Hardwick does like is photography. He explains that he was in D.C. when he and his mother lost his 35mm camera on the subway. It was replaced by a digital piece, which at the time, circa 2000, was considerably more momentous than now. He says some folks were discouraged at the level of post-shot manipulation digital cameras allowed, and that he's always been sensitive to that.

He generally decides beforehand whether the tinkering will be within the confines of traditional technique, or if he'll just color the grass purple and sky orange. His design work leans toward abstraction, and his paintings, often mixed-media works with layered texture, images and text, sometimes head into non-objectivity.

Hardwick has also been involved in the Crossroads Film Festival. This year he won Best Music Video for "The Color of Freedom," and last year he won the Ruma Award for Most Promising Filmmaker. He's an admirer of low-budget innovation in film and particularly interested in the cinematography of filmmaking, though he says he also enjoys convincing, "prosaic dialogue." He likes the visual immediacy of film and how that forces a viewer to meld their own imagination with the filmmaker's.

Hardwick, an 18-year-old recent graduate of Jackson Prep, is soft-spoken, though that doesn't belie his unease with the current state of Jackson's under-21 life. He has an all-too-uncommon interest in his community. A girlfriend in Brandon sends him frequently down Lakeland Drive. He tells me about the areas he passes on these trips: "Every store there is a Wal-Mart, Target, Lowe's or Borders," he notes in quiet exhaustion. "I don't think there's a locally owned business there."

He expresses a certain disdain for those with a similar background to himself—that is, well-off white students in private schools.

"They get stuck in a square," he explains, saying they complain about Jackson though they're not aware "of something that's in their own backyards."

An initial manifestation of this community interest sprung up early in high school in the form of P.A.G.S., an open-ended Web site featuring whatever he felt like posting. It ended up containing friends' poetry, blogs, restaurant reports, local music reviews and other creative writing. The site was a considerable hit, not only getting regular visitors from Prep but also from other high schools. Too much of a hit, he explains. "After a while, I wanted to do something more static."

This less-maintenance, more formal site would be called "Mixed Core," and he hopes to get it running sometime this summer, though he isn't certain if it will come to fruition. The site would be designed specifically for the 15-to-20 crowd, including a restaurant guide, music shows accessible for those under 21, local artist profiles and "just fun stuff" for young people to do in Jackson.

"The existing array of music, food and to-do is greatly left unknown to the under-21 crowd in Jackson," he explains. "The potential is in the marketing of these little, hidden celebrations, not necessarily the development of them."

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78083

Comment

www.mixedCore.com

Author

clay

Date

2006-06-21T11:32:09-06:00