14 June 12–18, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Dallas, According to Austin From highway overpasses to Club Clearview, Clay Austin has literally left his mark on the city’s scrapbook of art. BY PRESTON BARTA C lay Austin doesn’t just create art — he excavates it, pulling it from the neglected corners of Dal- las with discarded fragments of billboards and the weathered walls of forgotten spaces. For decades, Austin made the city itself his muse and canvas, crafting pieces that pulse with the energy of reinvention, defiance and boundless creative spirit. His story is one of transformation, not only with materials, but also spaces, communities and lives. From spray cans to limestone chisels, Austin’s work flour- ishes with a tactile intimacy and a deep-seated love for en- gaging others in creation. Across his timeline, there’s a common thread: no matter the medium, he finds beauty in the discarded, reshaping remnants of Dallas into reflections of the city’s better self. From Mud to Masterpieces Growing up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Austin remem- bers an early connection to the act of making art. “Even as a young boy, my mother would get on to me be- cause I would get a Marks-A-Lot or crayons and just start drawing on the walls or furniture,” he recalls. His childhood was woven by afternoons spent digging through the mud near the woods, sculpting odd little trea- sures or concocting floral perfumes in kitchen sinks. Cre- ativity, for the young Austin, was instinctive. “I just thought it was natural, [I] thought everybody was that way,” he says. But Austin’s artistry found its first true home in his teens when he discovered the potential of spray paint. Whether under secluded trestle bridges or along the city’s highways, the smooth hiss of paint clung to the air as his creations be- gan to emerge. “I wasn’t writing my name or tagging,” he explains. “I was just trying to beautify the mundane drive for people — give them something to look at.” This pursuit of transforming unremarkable spaces into unexpected moments of beauty became Austin’s hallmark. It didn’t take long, though, for authorities to notice. His work caught up with him one day on Central Expressway, where a newly completed piece led to an arrest. The Texas Highway Department decreed Austin’s restitution owed to be in the form of a mural for Parkland Hospital, re-directing him from covert graffiti artist to community-sanctioned muralist. Residency of Rawness It was the mid-1980s when Clay Austin stumbled into Deep Ellum, a place that seemed to breathe the raw, rebellious en- ergy that coursed through him. “That neighborhood was brand new and inspiring,” he says. At its heart sat Club Clearview, a haven for music, art and chaotic creativity. It wasn’t long before Austin became a fix- ture in the venue’s ecosystem, trading his clandestine street art for a role as the official artist-in-residence. “I began sneaking in spray paint and cautiously painting in back areas that I could get away with,” Austin recalls with a laugh. Instead of reporting him, though, the club’s owner, Jeff Swaney, recognized Austin’s talent. When Swaney offered Austin the opportunity to become Clearview’s artist in resi- dence, he seized the chance, leading to some of the most prolific years of his career. The walls of the nightclub became Austin’s domain. There, he reconfigured spaces with found objects and even trans- formed an entire room into a glowing black-light world with surreal textures and energy. Each Friday, he painted intricate, ephemeral flourishes on the floor, only to see them danced upon and replaced the next weekend. His mission was clear: create immersive environments that elevated the club from a space for music to an all-encompassing experience. “I didn’t just want decoration,” he explains. “I wanted them to feel something inside those rooms. That environ- ment needed to tell its own story.” Deep Ellum’s gravitational pull wasn’t limited to art. For Austin, the neighborhood pulled in people, too. He cemented friendships that remain to this day and recruited collabora- tors from every walk of life, including the unhoused individu- als drawn to the neighborhood’s unique magnetism. Clearview also brought Austin face-to-face with musical legends. Between painting dancers in vibrant UV-reactive hues and feeding bands like the Neville Brothers on shoe- string budgets, Austin bore witness to a cultural movement. He smiles at the memory of bringing Skinny Puppy to a house party where they were kicked out for walking on fur- niture. Yet perhaps his favorite night was meeting Pink Floyd, who rented the club for an after-tour celebration. “I mean, that still amazes me,” he says. When Club Clearview shut its doors in 2007, a chapter closed for Austin, too. One Billboard at a Time True to his ethos of reimagining the overlooked, Austin’s years in Clearview included an ingenious series of billboard collages. “Back in those days, billboards were paper, not vinyl,” he says. “When storms would tear off chunks, I’d climb up and grab pieces about to fall and make these huge collages.” By layering the remnants of Dallas’ adscape, Austin re- constructed the voices of consumption into sprawling works of abstraction. “It was so exciting for me to lay those pieces out on the floor, see the colors side by side, and find a new rhythm in them,” he says. These collages became mirrors of the city itself, reassem- bling its neglected surfaces into something enriched, pur- poseful and alive. This motif of “using Dallas to reflect Dallas” has carried through many of Austin’s eras of cre- ation. It’s a form of civic therapy, gently persuading the city and its inhabitants to look a little closer at the potential of what surrounds them. Carving New Pathways Today, Austin’s creative compass points in unexpected di- rections. He has traded spray cans for chisels, turning his fo- cus to carving limestone sculptures and continuing his hallmark participatory live painting events. These two out- lets meet at the intersection of solitary labor and communal engagement. “People are lucky if they can discover their purpose in life,” Austin reflects. “I think mine is encouraging creativity in others.” His live group painting sessions invite strangers to pick up brushes and make their own marks, often under the glow of black lights reminiscent of his Deep Ellum installations. “Some people are hesitant,” he says. “But those are the ones who don’t want to leave when they find how much fun it is.” While the sculptures satisfy his need for individual ex- pression, Austin says the painting sessions are his favorite. “I have to be creating constantly,” he says. Now firmly rooted in the present while carrying the vi- brant ghost of Deep Ellum’s heyday, Austin remains an em- blem of Dallas’ artistic identity. Sometimes, it’s scrawled alongside names in a club restroom or spat out in bursts of color on an overpass. Whether it’s painting a step-and-repeat or collecting sticks and rocks for a new project, Austin continues to look at the world and see opportunities for connection and rein- vention. Dallas’ streets may have changed since the ’80s, but its spirit still pulses in Austin’s work, quietly insisting that art belongs everywhere and to everyone. Preston Barta Clay Austin brings his signature artistry to life, painting a dancer at the Club Clearview Reunion at It’ll Do Club. ▼ Culture
