Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1934, Mike Clarke showed his love of art at an early age. His father worked in a print shop and brought home reams of paper from spoiled jobs. Young Mike practiced drawing comic book characters for hours on end. The only time he was ever kept after school was for drawing rocket ships behind his propped-up history textbook.

Mike attended Western Washington College of Education, graduating in 1958. He minored there in art and developed an appreciation for the impressionists and neo-impressionists. But, with a wife (Helene) and daughter (Terri) to support, Mike didn’t have a lot of time for art. Instead, he concentrated on his teaching and coaching career at Port Townsend Junior High. In 1960, another daughter (Patti) was born. Mike moved his teaching and coaching career to the nearby Chimacum School District, his alma mater. In 1964, a son (Michael) was born.

For the next 28 years, Mike's life was pretty much taken up with the raising of his family, teaching and coaching basketball. Even summers were taken up with a variety of odd jobs to help supplement his teaching wages. During those years, his creative urges were relegated mostly to thinking up a variety of basketball offenses and defenses that would allow Chimacum to compete successfully, often with teams from larger schools. During his tenure at Chimacum, Mike's squads were always to be reckoned with, including his five state tournament teams.

After retiring in 1988, Mike continued teaching as a substitute and made a comeback into coaching at the middle school level. There, he coached both boys and girls for a number of years. Along the way, Mike found time to write three novels, King, Larson's Law, and The Migration of Willie Mackerels. He also wrote two cartoon books, 88 Bagel Cartoons, and Thanks-A-Latte. Looking at these books, one readily sees that Mike does not lack for a sense of humor.

Getting back into painting, Mike found traditional landscapes to be rather mundane for his liking. Looking through an art reference book one day, he saw a few successful paintings that were quite cartoonish in nature. There, he felt, was his niche. He began with anthropomorphous paintings of cats and bears. Through his older sister, Patricia Thomas, his work came to the attention of a rather large group of wirehaired terrier enthusiasts. "Does he do wires?" they asked of sister Pat. Seeing a possible venue, Mike turned his attention to the painting of "wires" and has been very successful marketing his signed, limited-edition giclée prints of those animals. His Aces Wired, Wire Tapping (left), and Renoir's Piano Wires have been big hits. He has just completed a fourth wire, and by request, has turned his attention to border collies. Whimsical, is the adjective used by most people looking at his art. "No drab landscapes for me," says Mike. "I want people to be uplifted and happy when they look at my work."