Kicking Sawdust is a series of photos taken from 1988-1992 while on the road with the circus, carnival, and various sideshows. It is a personal documentation of friends and people that photographer Clayton Anderson encountered in his daily life during that time.

Clayton Anderson is a photographer and advertising art director who lives and works in New York City. In 1988 Clayton went out on the road to work in the circus, carnival and fair circuit with the family’s traveling cinnamon roll food concession. He brought along a camera and photographed his experiences there. This year his circus work was shown at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts (FMoPA) in Tampa, FL. and the SE Center for Photography in Greenville, SC. Some of his newer work will be shown at Praxis Gallery in Minneapolis, MN. Clayton worked for and was mentored by some noted photographers that include Jack Pierson, David Seidner, Josef Astor and Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Kicking Sawdust, published by Daylight Books, is his first monograph.

Jack Pierson is an internationally exhibiting artist who has had recent solo exhibitions at the CAC Malaga, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin and the Aspen Art Museum.


Katharine Kavanagh has been writing about circus since 2013 when she launched The Circus Diaries—a multi-platform hub for critical discourse centered on the circus arts.