Todd Claydon
"someone's trying to tell him something"...
"someone's trying to tell him something"...
True artists such as Todd Claydon, they view the world through different eyes and are so much more sensitive to their surroundings. Think of it this way… compare this to a cold winter’s day. You may stand beside your friend and although you feel the cold, it’s just cold but you’re ok with that. Your friend stands beside you, they are hyper sensitive to that cold… they shake & their teeth chatter uncontrollably. They are absolutely miserable standing in the same spot as you, yet you are comfortable.
It’s a story that has repeated itself through time, with creativity vs self destruction being a common and sad theme. To understand what an artist feels is to understand how this can happen. Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison… people who gave us a generation of creative overdrive, yet fell victim to their own inner demons. Certainly driven by their own sensitivity to the world around them. Todd Claydon is a survivor, someone who managed to gain control of his own creative personality and direct it in a way everlasting.
“Ultimately, our lives are defined by how we’ve used the gifts we’ve received…”
Thomas C Collins, Archbishop of Toronto
Born in Toronto, Canada in June 1963 Todd Claydon has a lifetime of experience as an illustrator, designer and portrait artist. A talent recognized at an early age and influenced by a generation of explosive creativity in the 60′s, Todd Claydon attended Toronto’s Wexford School Of The Arts as his high school during the 1970′s. After high school he worked a series of labour intensive jobs including factory line work, rebuilding custom motorcycles, brick laying, roofing and then driving a night shift taxi. During that period he also made a second living on the side doing airbrushing, engraving, tattoo designs and pretty much anything else he could apply his talent towards.
Eventually in the late 80′s he sold what was becoming a fairly extensive collection of classic motorcycles and used that to finance himself through art college at Toronto’s George Brown College. This led to an extensive career in desktop publishing, first working on major ad accounts and then eventually leading to Todd Claydon publishing Canadian Rider Magazine in the 1990′s.
Having gained worldwide recognition for that piece, Todd Claydon found himself contacted by the personal manager of Vince Neil (singer for Motley Crue). He was asked to do of portrait of Vince’s daughter Skylar, who had died at an early age 10 years before. He was qouted as saying this was one of the hardest pieces he had ever done simply because of the story behind this little girl. It was presented to Vince Neil at The Skylar Neil Celebrity Classic. A charity drive fundraiser Vince Neil had been involved in since his daughter’s death with the money going towards The Skylar Neil Foundation.
“This led Todd Claydon into a series of work, pieces and charity fundraising with Motley Crue…”
Vince Neil with "Skylar" at The Skylar Neil Memorial Golf Tournament in 2006
In the winter of 2009 / 2010, ready to do the final installment of Motley, it was discovered Todd Claydon had slowly been being poisoned over time from a wrongly done root canal 5 years previous. The poison had been building gradually in his system and was starting to take its toll on his health, he had been slowly dying. Also during this time his shoulder had frozen for 4 months and then, just as it was starting to heal, he fell down a rockface in Toronto’s Rouge Valley and cracked the same arm.
“The poison had been building gradually in his system and was starting to take its toll on his health”
As he was going through this, in the March of 2010 he had made a trip to Montreal. He was to meet up with Vince Neil from Motley Crue there and also to visit the Trudeau Foundation.
It was the same weekend in Montreal while there with his girlfriend Dianne Thordarson that the extent of the blood poisoning was discovered as well.
Upon returning to Toronto, the schedule was to start work on Mick Mars and complete the set of Motley Crue, which at this point had become years of work. Life was to take another turn. Instead of commencing on Mick Mars, he dropped the work on finishing the series of Motley Crue for the time being and instead chose to do something with a more lasting meaning while dealing with a year of rehabiliation and corrective surgeries.
He began his work on Pope John Paul II in the spring of 2010. A portrait that was to take him a year to complete and to date one of the best pieces of artwork Todd Claydon has ever produced.
Todd Claydon 2011
Todd Claydon currently resides in Hawkestone, listening to his old school rock’n roll while working on his next project… Led Zeppelin.
“The artist, therefore, is responsible not only for the aesthetic dimension of the world and of life, but also for its moral dimension. If creativity is not guided by good, or worse still it is directed towards evil, it is not worthy of the title of “artist”.
Pope John Paul II / 2004
