Education: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design; University of Alberta, Edmonton
Books Published: Captured a film and video history of the lower east side, Resistance a radical social and political history of the lower east side, Wildstyle a history of a new idea, Front Door Book, soon to be published a 3 volume history of the LES.
Feature Films: CAPTURED Documentary by Dan Levin, Jenner Furst, Ben Solomon.
Accomplishments:
With partner Elsa Rensaa since 1972, created the major LES Clayton Archive composed of hundreds of thousands of photos and a few thousand hours of videos. Organizer for NYC International Tattoo Convention, WIldstyle tattoo and piercing Messe Austria (Jochen Auer).
Feature Documentary, 2008.
Since 1979 Clayton Patterson has dedicated his life to documenting the final era of raw creativity and lawlessness in New York City's Lower East Side, a neighborhood famed for art, music and revolutionary minds. Traversing the outside edge he's recorded a dark and colorful society, from drag to hardcore, heroin, homelessness, political chaos and ultimately gentrification. His odyssey from voyeur to provocateur reveals that it can take losing everything you love to find your own significance.