Bio: WWU alumna Alice Clark anchors downtown cinema

Veterinary assistant. Model. Art student. Pie baker. Executive director of Pickford Film Center.

Alice Clark has a personal history as intriguing as any film plot.

Born to a veterinarian father and homemaker in St. Louis, her first job was helping her dad with the animals. Discovered by a modeling agent at 18, she arrived in New York City in time for the disco era and Studio 54.

"That business is so crazy and I was trying to be conscious about the world while everyone else was talking about shoes," Clark says, shaking her head. "Then I just started travelling and lived in Paris and Germany doing modeling. I really learned how much I loved the world, how brave I could be. I learned who I was and who I was not."

At 23, a Vancouver, B.C., makeup artist tells Clark she's "getting old," so, married and raising two children, Clark goes back to her first love, art and design. She graduated from Western Washington University in 1997 with a bachelor's degree in graphic design and illustration, and stayed to teach part-time.