One Tract Mind:

Exhibition Subtitle

Gerald Clarke, Jr.

One Tract Mind is a mixed media exhibition that examines the building of tract housing throughout Southern California and its effect upon native communities.  Water rights, the environment and the preservation of sacred sites continue to be issues that find the State and California’s Indigenous People in  opposition. Conflicting ideas of progress, quality of life and individual rights seem to be at the center of these interactions. The exhibition will feature both video and photographic work, a sculptural installation and other assorted materials.

Gerald Clarke Jr. was born in Hemet, California in 1967. He is a member of the Cahuilla Band of Indians and lives on the Cahuilla Indian Reservation near Palm Springs. Clarke earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in painting and sculpture and graduated with honors from the University of Central Arkansas. In 1991, he entered the graduate program at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas and received his M.A. degree in 1992 and his M.F.A. degree in 1994. Clarke then spent the following ten years teaching art on the community college and university level. In 2003, he left his teaching position at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma to return home to the reservation following his father’s death. Today, he and his wife Stacy own and operate a small storage business, help run his family’s cattle ranch and Clarke teaches art classes at Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild, California. In January 2008, he was elected to the Tribal Council of the Cahuilla Band of Indians. In addition, he has devoted himself to learning the traditional Bird Singing of the Cahuilla people and to further his knowledge of Cahuilla culture. He states, “through art, I can come to an understanding of myself, my community and the world around me”.

• Gerald Clarke, Jr. was an Eiteljorg Fellow in 2006. Click here to read an article about Clarke's work written by Joanna O. Bigfeather for the Eiteljorg catalog "Diversity and Dialogue."