Claire Frances Spaulding is an artist and writer based in Portland, OR.

My creative practice is guided by research and ruminations on anticipatory grief, environmental criticism, and craft. A self-identifying “Kitsch Bitch”, I embrace an empathy for plastic as material futurity and the permanence of polymers towards a tchotchke futurity that will elapse a lifetime. How is craft an escape from the double-bind of ecodread? Where is the joy in grief, the quip for distraught distraction? Is it possible to reconcile concepts of ecology and aesthetics with the literal materiality of kitsch? Is craft my conscience or a consequence?

I utilize embellishment and couture hand techniques to consider kitsch within a contemporary context. Through this reverence for material, my soft sculptures seek to counter a disparaging and oft dismissive history of ticky-tacky plastic that kitsch finds itself cast within. Using language, found objects, meticulous hand-stitching, and declarative forms, my work offers viewers a campified lens to question what it means to occupy space HERE and NOW. Informed by a background in landscape photography, place lingers in the margins of my practice as a source of inspiration and comfort. The glitter and beads of my practice sift like grains of sand through my fingers – like these materials, I gather and cling to the surface of my studio. As light flickers off the sequins’ facets I am drawn by kitsch and aesthetic theory, anticipatory grief and ecology. My studio practice emerges through posing rhetorical questions with answers possible only through physical forms. I hone this curiosity through sculpture, photography, and fiber arts.

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Claire Frances Spaulding is a Portland-based creative that is joyfully distracted by kitsch, aesthetic theory, and ecology. Amused by the potential intersections of these fields, she turns towards fiber arts, sculpture, photography, and creative nonfiction writing. A firm believer in thinking beyond our paved paradise, she utilizes embellishment and ornamentation to consider kitsch within a contemporary context that moves beyond its history of dismissal within plastic or craft art history. Using quips, found objects, and meticulous hand stitching, her work offers viewers a camp-ified lens to question what it means to occupy space HERE and NOW as a tense landscape of ecodread.  A self-identifying “Kitsch Bitch”, Claire embraces an empathy for plastic and the permanence of polymers towards a tchotchke futurity that will outlast us all. 

Currently, Claire Frances Spaulding is pursuing a Masters of Fine Art in Visual Studies and a Masters in Critical Studies at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. In October 2023, Quip n’Craft: Bless this Kitsch was her first solo exhibition held in Portland, Oregon.Her work has been featured in group exhibitions held in Portland, OR; Chicago, IL; and Rome, Italy. She has attended residencies and art retreats in Utah, Vermont, Ireland, Germany, and Iceland. This Fall, she will be presenting research on “Atmospheres of Affect, Glitter and Maximalism” at the 2024 Association for the Study of Arts of the Present (ASAP) in New York City.pretium viverra.