Clark W Fobes has been an active professional free-lance clarinetist in San
Francisco since 1981 having moved from Fresno, Ca to pursue a Master's Degree
at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Mr. Fobes has had a love affair with the
visual arts from a very young age and always had a desire to draw or paint,
particularly from the figure. But with a busy career performing with every major
orchestra in the Bay Area, running a music related business and raising a son as a
single parent, creating art was not possible. In 2004 at the age of 51 Mr. Fobes was
finally able to enrol in Life Drawing classes at San Francisco City College instructed
by Sharon Pearson. Since then, he has been active in several drawing groups in
order to develop his figurative drawing skills in charcoal and pastel
With the advent of the pandemic of 2020 all orchestras shut down and there was no
musical work so Mr. Fobes had time to explore painting for the first time. With no
instruction and little knowledge of the painting process he set out working with block
print ink in mostly abstract pieces but also experimented with figuration. His twin
brother, David Fobes, a professional artist in San Diego encouraged him to switch to
acrylic paint in order to develop a more refined approach to his work. His first acrylic
pieces were four paintings in his Big Hat series started in November of 2023. In
November of 2024 he transitioned again to oil paint and continues to explore and
expand his love of painting in both figurative and abstract work.
