I am a non-traditional conceptual artist working in textile forms that embody individual style and creativity, such as knitting and quilting, but also a communal component, such as knitting circles or quilting bees. My work builds on these typically feminine folk art traditions by juxtaposing them with theories and principles of data and classification from my formal education and professional work in information science to humanize clinical data and provoke viewers into seeing both textile arts and data in new ways.
After working as a graphic artist and laser engraver for an awards and promotional products company and a professional librarian at a fashion design school, I began seriously pursuing textile arts in 2010 at the Brewery Arts Complex, the world’s largest artist-in-residence community. I explored traditional information visualization methods such as pie charts and line graphs by transforming them into functional textile products. Shortly thereafter, I had the opportunity to pursue a doctorate and faculty position in information science, where I focused on the intersection of design & librarianship. Now I find myself returning to textile arts as a means of pushing boundaries around contemporary conceptualizations of data and technology as solely quantitative digital products.
My current work reflects specific datasets, such as gender and race in the US Senate, COVID-19 death rates, and personal health data like weight and blood pressure. These pieces use stylistic and technical elements from quilting, such as patchwork (seaming fabric together into a larger design), trapunto (producing a raised surface on a quilt), and bargello (sewing fabric strips together in an offset mathematical pattern) to literally juxtapose ideas and viscerally and texturally surface marginalized perspectives that have been reduced or erased. I also leverage the well-established history and cultural norms of quilting, such as the reuse of scrap materials to surface the role of qualitative data, and the tradition of collaboration to create participatory, data-driven designs with community members. These approaches result in unique pieces that bridge the slow, small, community-based aspects of folk arts with data reflective of our contemporary information society, offering a critique of rapid technological changes, mass communication, and manufacturing.
My work has won local, national, and international awards and has hung in world-famous quilt shows and museums. For a full list, please see my curriculum vitae.
Current opportunities to see me or my work are listed in the events calendar.
To see available work or information about custom commissions, please visit the works for sale page.
I am experienced in and available for lectures, keynotes, and instructional workshops. For more information or to schedule, please contact me.
All content on this website copyright Rachel Ivy Clarke, 1979-present. No generative AI is used in any of my work, and I expressly prohibit any entity from using my work for purposes of training AI and/or other technologies or generating text, images, or other products. I reserve all rights to license use of my work, including use for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.