Clayton Bailey was born in Antigo, Wisconsin in 1939 and currently resides in Port Costa, California. A former professor of art at Wisconsin State University, he is now Professor Emeritus of Ceramics at California State University, Hayward. Bailey has received a National Endowment for the Arts Craftsmen’s Fellowship and an Honorary Fellowship Award from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts.

In 1976 Bailey founded "The Wonders of the World Museum" in downtown Port Costa, where he lured tourists into the museum wearing a robot costume of his own design. Bailey builds life-sized robot sculptures -- more than 100 in total -- out of found objects. He says, "I like to build beauties and monsters. I want to build robots that entertain and educate."