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At the end of 2011 and early 2012, Clay­ton Bai­ley was hon­ored by the Crocker Art Museum in Sacra­mento, Calif., with a ret­ro­spec­tive show that cov­ered 50 years of his dis­tin­guished career as one of the country’s most inven­tive and humor­ous artists.  With tongue firmly in cheek, Bai­ley has tweaked the funny bone and social con­science of view­ers with his wildly imag­i­na­tive inven­tions.  Espe­cially known for his life-size robots, Bai­ley has built more than 100, most con­structed from found parts, includ­ing a robot cos­tume he used to wear to entice vis­i­tors to his “The Won­ders of the World Museum” in Port Costa, Calif.  The museum now fills his large home studio.

Bai­ley grew up in Wis­con­sin, where he earned under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate degrees in art and art edu­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin.  He spent 32 years as a uni­ver­sity art pro­fes­sor, retir­ing from Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, East Bay, where he’s now a Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of Ceramics.

His work is rep­re­sented in such col­lec­tions as the Los Ange­les County Museum of Art and the Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion, and has been shown through­out the U.S., at the Pom­pi­dou Cen­ter in Paris, in Bel­gium, Brazil and Greece.  Bai­ley is the recip­i­ent of numer­ous fel­low­ships and grants—two from the National Endow­ment for the Arts—and his own U.S. patent for a “nov­elty squirt­ing cup.”

Another Bai­ley distinction—his mous­tache, untouched by a razor for 34 years, stretches two feet from tip to tip when fully waxed.

To see more, visit Bailey’s web­site.

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