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Clifton O. Barber in his own words

Meet the artist behind "Reef Madness"

Clifton O. Barber recently created this "Reef Madness" art exhibit to celebrate the revival of surf music in the South. His artwork follows the Austin, Texas surf punk band Squid Vicious around the planet, but he also paints people that interest him such as Whoopie and Coolio. Besides that, Clifton leads a very quiet and normal existence as he describes in his own words below.

"The tale thus far: I spent most of my life in a place I like to refer to as The Twilight Zone or T-Town. The rest of the world find it by Tallulah, La. I drew as all children draw in the beginning, on and in things they're not supposed to.

"I began creating my own characters (mostly clones of my favorite Marvel & DC characters) and doing comics of them in about 5th or 6th grade. I started drawing on a daily basis in 7th grade ...

"There were no art classes at the public schools I attended. I continued my self-instruction and began to get paid a couple of bucks here and there for things. This continued through high school, but contains no data worth retelling.

"Eventually, I stumbled my way to Louisiana Tech University. There I received my first actual instruction. I started off trying to major in computer science, and that combined with the cyclone of self-discovery I was undergoing made for my bachelor's a long time coming.

"When my grace period for my student loans ran out, I made what is titled in my journals as THE GREAT MISTAKE. I joined the Navy. I had no idea what I was doing. Still, I like to think that some of the better things of my character were tempered in the fires of those four years. Tempered almost literally, as I worked in the "fireroom" of a guided missile cruiser.

"My enlistment ended in January '94 ... . I came to Forth Worth because I had a sister there at the time, and I was definitely going to need some help in at last joining the 'regular world.' For the last three years I've worked for Tandy Corp.'s loss prevention department. Through it all, I have continued to paint and draw for my own sake. ...

"I do a lot of portraits, because our faces tell so much of our stories. I'd wanted to be a writer at one point and have actually managed to do a bit of it here and there. I draw much better than I write, however, so comic books and cartoons became my chosen medium.

"Since my college days, the cares and woes of the world have kept me a bit distracted from pursuing my art, but I have never stopped completely. 'Reef Madness' marks what I hope will be my final return from artistic exile."

"Since my college days, the cares and woes of the world have kept me a bit distracted from pursuing my art. 'Reef Madness' marks what I hope will be my final return from artistic exile," Clifton O. Barber says.

Reef Madness

Barber's comics

Squid Vicious' Website

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