Hailey Malaika Olympia Clarke

    Hailey Malaika Olympia Clarke (HMOC) is a multimedia visual and performance artist. She grew up in rural Trabuco Canyon, California. In 2008 she received a BA in Fine Arts with a Focus in Painting from UCSC. She lives in San Francisco where she creates paintings, directs independent films, makes sculptures with upcycled materials & writes comedy.

    Her connection to nature was forged at a young age. When a Live Oak forest was threatened by development in their hometown, her family wrote and performed a protest song to preserve the trees. Various creative efforts combined with concerted pressure from the community helped protect the forest which remains standing to this day. This early success was a catalyst which continues to inspire her work on and off the canvas. 

    In her young adulthood, HMOC took a life-altering trip to Thailand. Amid a tour of painting murals and studying temple art, she was in a car wreck. Ejected from the vehicle, her body was caught on the edge of a precipice by a tree, her right humerus shattered. A titanium plate and six screws later, she finished her time there completing murals with her left hand while her trained hand was in a sling. She started tapping into the healing potential of creativity and visualization as it pertained to the body.

    Upon returning to California, she furthered her self-discovery of healing through the arts. Thankful to have both arms, she embarked on the journey of learning to play guitar. One more surgery to have the hardware in her shoulder removed, and HMOC's arm was back in a sling-but this time she could still pluck guitar strings with her right hand. She could feel the vibrations of the music run up and down her arm and bring it back to life. When she sang and vocalized freely, she felt her heart and spirit mend. 

      HMOC began working in the zero waste industry shortly after moving to San Francisco in 2008. Her eyes were opened to the mountains of waste that end up in landfills. She longed to inspire change concerning what she calls society’s ‘trash shadow'. In 2011 while diving for litter in the Feather River, she envisaged Dirty Trashy Mamas, a conceptual arts troupe which crafted impromptu sculptures and performance art pieces out of found festival garbage. The response was tremendous. The experience reaffirmed that comedy, dance and visual art were successful modes of communication, especially for subjects that were difficult to discuss. It was possible to encourage sustainable actions within herself and her audience through creativity.

    HMOC dreamed of being a filmmaker from a young age. As a child, she and her sister collected and recycled cans saving up for their first video camera. By the time she was a teenager she was writing, directing, filming, acting in and editing short comedic films. A lifelong theater and visual art nerd, filmmaking encompassed all of her passions into one medium. More recently HMOC studied cinema and screenwriting at CCSF. Her short films have premiered at Bernal Heights Film Festival, Festival of the Moving Image and City Shorts Film Festival.  She has worked as a production assistant on the film Last Black Man in San Francisco and for Shameless Photography where she also worked as a make-up artist. HMOC continues pursuits in screenwriting and lives her dreams independently filming music videos. 

    HMOC has volunteered and worked as an arts educator for several non-profits including Micah's Way, Common Vision and Gallery Route One’s 'Artists in Schools' program. 

     Thanks for dropping into the creative portfolio of HMOC.