Rechanneling Creative Energy

William Clancy Thompson — Casting New Players

by Karol Crosbie

Casting people into creative roles has been William Clancy Thompson’s forte for most of his professional life. As a producer and director of dramas for TV and stage, he searched for precisely the right person for the part. As a playwright, he visualized actors giving life to his ideas. As a veteran administrator of the performing arts, he specialized in helping staff members do their best in the roles they had chosen for themselves.

Today, at age 67, Thompson ’62 is a casting director in a new way. A few years ago, as he was recovering from cancer surgery and looking for ways to slow down, he began using his meditative walks along the North Carolina coast where he lives to search for shells and other ocean treasures. He began visualizing them in different roles.What if this bit of broken shell was cast with that bit of rock? What if this miniature creation by Mother Nature was staged 25 times larger than life?

Moving from the performing to the visual arts was a natural scene change for Thompson. He describes his artistic role in both forms as “ midwifery.” “You get what’s inside, outside. By helping to give birth to an idea or image, you take it to some other stage of its life.”

Using only his beach collections and some sturdy glue, Thompson began building tiny sculptures.When his wife, Susan Nichol Thompson ’66, photographed them, the miniatures were given new dimensions. “Scale is critically important in art,” says Thompson. “ The ability to zoom in suddenly allowed us to find wonderful and intricate natural elements that are a joy. Most photographers take what is big and make it little; we do just the opposite.”

The blended art form of sculpture and photography has been given a boost by new technology that allows digital photography to be ink-printed on museum quality surfaces, such as canvas, says Thompson. “It is breathing new life into the form.” The Thompsons’ art has been sold to a number of private individuals, and the couple is optimistic that it will catch on in the marketplace.

As important as they have become, Thompson’s still-life subjects have not replaced his flesh-and-blood ones. Past displays of his art at galleries and aquariums have incorporated activities for children. Thompson says he hopes to continue his work with children through more exhibits and hands-on artistic involvement.

His current job as executive director of the Child Advocacy Commission of Lower Cape Fear allows him to use a variety of art forms to connect with at-risk children. “A lot of kids are overwhelmed by their own being. They have feelings inside them that need to get outside. Art helps them do that. It’s that midwife concept again.”

Thompson’s lifelong interest in illusion, mystery, and suspense, combined with a love of kids, has resulted in his creation of Jocko Yucky, the antihero in a series of children’s books.Written to appeal to boys learning to read, the stories are replete with sharks, underground kingdoms, and dinosaurs. “They’re high testosterone and absolutely uncontrolled fantasy,” he says.

The work he has done on his “Shaped by the Sea” sculptures has also shaped him personally, says Thompson. “I’ve learned a new kind of patience. It changes your time frame. As I’m walking, a certain kind of viewing comes into play. My eyes are scanning for an element to bring into the ensemble. Part of the artistry is finding the pieces that collectively and aesthetically will mean more than the sum of their parts.

“This has been a wonderful growing experience.”

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