 He graduated from his adoptive father's alma mater, Miami University, in 1948.Art Clokey also made a few highly experimental and visually inventive short clay animation films for adults, including his first student film "Gumbasia" (produced in 1953 and released in 1955), the visually rich "Mandala" (1977)—described by Clokey as a metaphor for evolving human consciousness—and the equally bizarre "The Clay Peacock" (1959), an elaboration on the animated NBC logo of the time.Consisting of animated clay shapes contorting to a jazz score, "Gumbasia" so intrigued Samuel G. Engel, then president of the Motion Pictures Producers Association, that he financed the pilot film for what became Clokey's "The Gumby Show" (1957).