The Clearing

Scottish artist Samantha Clark's 2020 book, The Clearing: A Memoir of Art, Family and Mental Health was in a bundle of books lent to me by my good friend composer Chris McCombe. It's a slender but dense volume, an intensely personal story which I initially found quite tough going. At first I thought the 'clearing' of the title referred to an open space in the woods -- even if it was a metaphorical space -- but no. The book begins with Clark and her two brothers clearing out their family home in Glasgow, a process which eventually ends up taking them three years (!!)

It's immediately obvious that this was not a happy home -- not because Clark's parents weren't loving, but because her mother's severe mental illness made demands on her father and on the siblings which crushed all the joy from their lives. As the memoir unfolds, Clark reflects on her difficulties in connecting with either of her parents, her struggle to find freedom away from home and her feelings of guilt and shame, love and hurt, anger and grief. Though Clark is a visual artist, she expresses these feelings beautifully in words and metaphors -- the concept of ether, which both holds and separates; the light perceptible even within the deepest darkness, the darkness that enables us to discern the light; the dutiful acts of personal care (grocery shopping, nail cutting) performed unwillingly but conscientiously.

I must admit that about a third of the way through The Clearing I was thinking, this is the grimmest book I've ever read! and wondering why Chris had lent it to me. But as the house is gradually cleared, Clark finds her own emotions settling and also becoming clearer, and by the end of the book, she is finding peace and creativity in her artistic practice, moving away from her demanding academic job and swapping the chaos of the city for the wild weather of Orkney. I was thrilled to see that she recently won a major art prize, too. The Clearing is not an easy read, but it is a beautiful and rewarding one.