Meet the Artist....

Meet the Artist...

I have always been interested in functional art such as lamps and clocks, and particularly in art with movement. In the 70's I created stained glass lamps, clocks and window pieces that were sold in upstate New York, as well as structural lamps. I also worked in outdoor advertising, painting the Black Velvet Girl in New York and the Marlboro Man in California. From large-scale sign-painting I went to painting photo- realism on canvas in the 80's, which I also taught briefly as a visiting artist in a high school honors program. It was around this time that I made my first found-object clock for a fundraiser for the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY. I have been inspired to make more of these clocks ever since.

Until recently, I worked as a senior art director for a large work clothing catalog company near Boston, MA. My way of unwinding was to escape to my basement and fiddle with the curious old objects I like to collect and make something functional out of what others see as useless and cast aside. I would literally become "lost in time" and the stress would melt away. After more than a decade of "fiddling", I had clocks ticking on nearly every wall of our house, and had given many away as gifts.

Early in 2005 I felt it was the right time to give up my "day job" in order to devote more energy to my real passion - making one-of-a-kind clocks from my ever growing collection of found objects.

I like creating things that evoke a feeling of peace. When my clocks create the illusion of having withstood the test of time, or appear to be from a place long ago forgotten, then for me, they are successful. The fact that they "still work” despite their apparent age adds to the mystery.

I hope that others may sense the same peacefulness in my time pieces.

Craig R. Grab

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1973

1983

1977

1973