Best Curiosity Collection: Clayton Bailey's World of Wonders

A blob-like creature emerges from a vat of water, lets out a bubbling burp, and sinks back down. An eyeball spins lazily in the socket of a giant skull. On a doctor’s table, a skeleton suddenly jumps to life. These curiosities are all artworks: the creations of Clayton Bailey, a late ceramicist and artist.

“Clayton Bailey was a funk artist,” says Richard Rogers, the founding executive director of Curated Storefront. “He ... fell in love with ceramics and had a wicked sense of humor and started wiring that sense of humor into his works of art.”

Rogers knew Bailey, visiting him a few times. After Bailey died in 2020, Rogers approached his daughter to acquire a representative portion of his work. Now, the public can view that collection by visiting Clayton Bailey’s World of Wonders in downtown Akron from May through October.

Born in Wisconsin in 1939, Bailey was prolific. Starting around the 1970s, he began creating works that combined mad science, imagination and archaeology — eventually crafting his own branch of invented science, known as “kaolism” — a pseudo scientific study. Many of Bailey’s artworks, including a giant, lifelike bigfoot skeleton, were presented as kaolithic discoveries.

“The bigfoot skeleton, from a conceptual, performative perspective, I think is brilliant,” Rogers says. “He would take it and bury it in other places. He’d show up in his lab coat with other students in their lab coats, and they’d call the press up and announce that they’d found the bigfoot monster. And he wanted to see how many of them would actually report on it.”

From curious inventions to ceramic archaeological discoveries, see a wide range of Bailey’s works at the eclectic World of Wonders, created and managed by Curated Store front. It captures the spirit of Bailey’s original museum, built on his property in California.

Bailey also worked with metal, creating several life-size robots —including motion-activated, kinetic and wearable pieces — from discarded parts.

“There’s a provocative piece to the work that he does,” Rogers says. “He liked to challenge preconceived notions about how things worked. And he would do it in a playful way.”

His work captures the spirit of roadside attractions, the humor of Mad magazine and the influence of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Surrounded by Bailey’s art at World of Wonders, guests are immersed in his playful, humorous and boundary-pushing world. “He’s a hidden national treasure,” says Rogers.

225 S. Main St., Akron. 330-800- 0342, curatedstorefront.org