About
Clair Hamaker
Wife to My Beloved Dude (he calls me His Queen of Flowers ←#fact he even wrote a song about it) and mother to My People (six crazies whom I love more than jammy toast… that’s A LOT of love.) If I am not in the studio I am definitely hanging out with My People or in the garden or on a hot date with My Beloved Dude.
Washington-born artist with a BA in Visual Arts from Brigham Young University. Currently living in the drop-dead gorgeous Pacific Northwest.
My art tends to deal with family, word play, iconography, flowers, storytelling, and the “in between” that connects thoughts, people, and such. I love bookbinding, mixed media, fiber arts, and painting, but my true-love medium is pottery.
Five facts about me:
- My favorite number is five.
- I met my husband in a lindy hop class at a dance camp when we were 16.
- My middle name is Annette (can you see why that is silly?? My last name was Reed when I was born too….#facepalm)
- I hashtag like Bertie Wooster except when I am on my studio Instagram.
- I got kicked out of the English department, but a very smart art professor saw my true self and brought me over to the VA program. Thank you Rolland!!!
Why Ohmygator??
What began as some serious teenager rebuffing from my friends, became the perfect description for my exuberance for life.
When I was a teenager my friends would tease me about saying things like, “oh my stars!” One time we were in my sister’s car and they were teasing me saying, “Clair! Oh my car! Oh my fork!” Just really adding “oh my” to whatever they could think of or see from the car. My sister had “Congratulations Gators!” written on the back window (we were the Decatur Gators at high school), and in a moment of pure inspiration, “ohmygator” was born! And it just stuck with me for now what’s been decades as just the perfect word to describe and express SO MANY THINGS, but mostly just the pure and sincere excitement I feel for so many things.
When I was beginning to think about naming my art studio, Ohmygator Studios was the ready answer. I have so much joy for color and light and word play, so much passion for iconography and interesting connections between things and thoughts and people. Creativity and problem solving, observation and design, all these things fill me to the brim with Ohmygator!