Randy Blake Clontz

Randy was born in Hickory, NC in 1956, the eighth of nine children. He showed uncommon artistic ability even as a youth. At the age of 12 he honed his basic art and design skills with a correspondence course through the Famous Artist School for Talented Young People.

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Randy moved to Detroit in 1977, received his BFA degree from the College for Creative Studies, and while there met his future wife, Cynthia. After moving to Chicago in 1982, he and Cindy became adoptive parents of a baby girl from China and pursued various interests, including: teaching art at a community college; provided free-lance graphic design for Morton International, the City Colleges of Chicago, & Riverside Publishing; produced oil landscapes of the North Carolina mountains; and painted several commissioned oil portraits now in private, corporate, and public collections in Chicago, Michigan, California, & North Carolina.

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In 2002, Randy relocated back to Hickory with his wife and daughter. In 2005, Cindy and Randy adopted their second Chinese daughter, where they reside with two cats and one dog.
 

Randy is a member of the Portrait Society of America.