Clare Rojas: “I Hope My Work Can Create a Sense of Community”

Clare Rojas is a painter, sculptor, installation artist and musician whose cross-disciplinary practice bridges abstraction, folk imagery, feminism, ecology, spirituality and storytelling. Born and raised in Columbus, she spent much of her career in Northern California before recently returning to Ohio — and to the flat horizon lines, migratory birds and Midwestern landscapes that first shaped her imagination. We spoke with Clare about homecoming, the symbolism of nature and the lyrical quality that runs through everything she makes. Her two new Haystack editions, Journey of Souls and Just Take It All, are available now.

Your new editions — Journey of Souls and Just Take It All — are being released alongside your first major hometown exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art. What does it mean to be returning to Columbus not just as a person, but as an artist whose work is now being seen through the lens of the place where it all began?

It’s been quite a transition. The landscape I had lived in prior to moving back here was a small coastal town called Bolinas, north of San Francisco. It was a wonderful experience to live there and be so enmeshed with such intense land and sea. Being back here in Ohio, I love the thunderstorms and feeling that power and electricity again — the cloud formations, the big sky, lightning bugs, cardinals and squirrels, and a body of water where I can see the other side. I am excited to explore the beauty I see here now. My life in Ohio and California will always be deeply connected.

Birds, moons, tides, flowers and landscapes appear and reappear throughout your practice. Do these symbols carry the same meaning each time, or does their significance shift as your work evolves?

Nature and its characters are so important to how I tell my stories. Depending on what I am trying to narrate, the characters shift. For example, a full moon carries the specific mythology of a full moon during a certain season. A waning moon has different symbolism from a waxing one. I like searching for meaning in nature — searching for guidance from that source of intelligence.

Journey of Souls and Just Take It All — both titles carry a sense of movement, of letting go and taking in. What was the starting point for each of these works, and how did they develop into the editions we see now?

I think nature and its power are fantastic sources of analogy — they help narratives feel identifiable in the most straightforward and inclusive way. No matter your age or situation, I think everyone can appreciate a breeze, a scent, a color, a reflection, and identify with how those trigger feelings and emotions.

Can you share what these works mean to you personally — and how you hope viewers will experience them?

I hope my work can authentically express how I experience and process the world around me, and perhaps create a sense of community.

You are both a visual artist and a musician — performing as Peggy Honeywell and bringing a deeply lyrical quality to your storytelling. How do these two practices speak to each other? Does one inform the other, or do they exist as entirely separate worlds?

I think they are mediums I have always needed to access simultaneously. More often than not, through the process of organizing my lyrics into a refined, rhyming story form, I come to understand why I am painting what I am painting. Lyrics, rhythm and melody help me articulate and organize the nuance of my emotions in a way that painting does not.

Interested in adding a Clare Rojas edition to your collection? Journey of Souls and Just Take It All are available now, exclusively on Haystack. Click here to learn more about Clare Rojas.