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Clare Spender LSDC

Stitched & Constructed Textiles

About Clare
Clare Spender is a contemporary textile artist whose practice explores the relationship between fabric, memory, conservation and the overlooked traces of everyday life. Based in South Norfolk, Clare has worked as a textile and community artist for 30 years. Her fascination with textiles centres on the ways in which simple processes such as stitching, binding, folding and dyeing can dramatically transform the structure and character of fabric. Clare studied BA (Hons) Embroidery at Manchester Metropolitan University. She later completed an MA in Textiles at the University for the Creative Arts i
Biography Back to top

Clare’s textile practice explores themes of memory, conservation, time, and the hidden histories embedded within cloth. Working across textiles, sculpture, and installation, she investigates how materials carry traces of use, place, and human experience. Her work is informed by an interest in preventative conservation and the ways in which fragile objects are preserved, protected, and reinterpreted over time.

Drawn to aged, stained, and discarded textiles, she transforms them through slow, tactile processes of hand stitching, binding, folding, dyeing, and printing. Her use of repetitive hand stitching is both a physical and philosophical process. The deliberate slowness of making creates a space for contemplation, patience, and close attention, allowing time to become embedded within the work itself. Each stitch becomes an act of care and repair, while the repetition reflects the cycles of preservation, deterioration, remembering, and forgetting.

For Clare, working slowly challenges the increasingly fast pace of contemporary life. The physical act of repeatedly passing thread through cloth creates a meditative dialogue between maker, material, and time. Through this process, damaged and overlooked textiles are not simply repaired, but given renewed attention and meaning. Imperfections, stains, marks, and signs of wear become part of the narrative rather than something to be concealed.

Alongside textile works, Clare creates sculptural forms and immersive installations that encourage viewers to consider the physical and emotional presence of cloth within a space. She incorporates found and often overlooked materials, including dust and remnants gathered through conservation processes, treating them as physical and symbolic evidence of time, care, loss, and human intervention.

Her motivation lies in questioning what we choose to preserve and why. By giving sustained attention to fragile and discarded materials, Clare considers how objects come to hold personal and cultural significance, and how acts of care can become a form of remembering. Her practice reflects on the tension between fragility and permanence, suggesting that preservation is never entirely about stopping change, but about acknowledging, recording, and carrying traces of the past into the future.

Through the combination of slow textile processes, sculpture, and installation, Clare invites audiences to pause and engage with the unseen narratives contained within materials. Her work asks viewers to consider the value of time, the importance of care, and the quiet histories held within the everyday objects that surround us.

Resumé Back to top
  • 2019 - 2021 MA Textiles UCA, Farnham Campus
  • 1994 - 1997 BA (Hons) Embroidery, Manchester Metropolitan University
  • 1992 - 1994 BTEC Art and Design - Lowestoft College
  • Freelance Textile Artist 1997 - present time
  • Textile Studio Assistant, GDST Norwich School For Girls flexible part time role (2024 - present time)
  • Red House Assistant, The Red House, Aldeburgh (June 2023 – October 2024
  • Exhibition and Archive Assistant (August 2021 – May 2023) Lottery funded contract
  • Conservation Assistant National Trust Mompesson House (January 2017 – Sept 2019)
  • NFWI (National Federations of Women’s Craft Adviser (October 2014 – December 2016)
  • Art Teacher Chafyn Grove School, Salisbury (January 2012 – December 2014)
  • Textile/Embroidery Teacher Godolphin School, Salisbury (Sept 2009 - July 2012)
  • IAPS Courses Artist Lead (2002 – 2009)
  • Norman Court School – Residency (2008 – 2009)
  • Salisbury Art Centre (2005 – 2012)
  • PAWS – South & West Wiltshire Participatory Arts Workshop Scheme (2000 – 2003)
  • Art of the Stitch Innovation Award Winner 2003 (under the name of Clare Proctor)
  • Salisbury Specialist Palliative Care Services (2001 – 2010)
  • Community Stitched Panel – Salisbury Specialist Palliative Care (Oct 2002 – April 2003)
  • Clear Vision and Embroiderers Guild (2002 – 2003)
  • South Hill Park Art Centre – Arts Co-ordinator (2001 – 2002 1 year contract)
  • Embroiderers Guild – Membership and Outreach Officer (1999 – 2001)
  • Promoting the Guild and different elements of Embroidery while touring the country.
  • North West Arts Board Setting Up Scheme/Drumcroon Education Art Centre (1998/1999)
  • Science and Industry Museum, Manchester Artist in Residence, Creative Workshop Lead (1997 – 1999)
  • Oily Cart Theatre Company, Smallwood School, Tooting, London
  • Hunky Dory – 1998 Artist/Lead Creative
  • Bubbles – 1997 Artist/Lead Creative
  • Commissioned to create puppets and installations for different productions.
  • Embroiderers’ Guild Scholarship 1997/1998 (under the name of Clare Proctor)

Exhibitions

  • Arundells, Salisbury Close, Solo Show June - November 2027
  • Clay and Thread II – The Lookout Gallery, Aldeburgh October 2026 (Exhibition & Short Residency)
  • Inspired by Standen - The Future of Arts and Crafts (partnership between National Trust & Sussex Contemporary) June - October 2026
  • Summer Contemporary - Britten Pears Arts - Snape Maltings July - August 2026
  • On Balance – Anglia Textile Works – Wells Maltings June/July 2026
  • Open Studio – South Yare Art Trail 2026
  • Small Business Pop Up Far - Southwold Flower Company July 2026
  • Contemporary Textile Fair – Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington, March 2026
  • Material Power – National Trust Hardwick Hall May – October 202 - exhibition celebrating women and textile, linking the newly conserved and re-display of the Gideon Tapestries.
  • Clay and Thread – The Lookout , Aldeburgh Beach, October 2025 Joint exhibition/short residency with Ceramic artist Hayley Rowlands, showing both embroidered textile landscapes and historic house installation pieces.
  • Britten Pears Arts Summer Contemporary Exhibition – Summer 2025
  • Continuum – Anglia Textile Works, Salthouse Church, Salthouse June 2025
  • Britten Pears Arts Summer Contemporary Exhibition Summer 2024
  • Black Swan Arts - Open Exhibition 2024
  • Consuo Textile Art Group – Bermondsey Project Space – January 2023
  • Artful Collective – Hampshire Open Art Studios – August 2022
  • Heathlands Art Trail – Surrey Hill Arts and RSPB Farnham June – October 2021
  • MA Textile Exhibition – UCA Farnham September 2021
  • Stitched St Swithun’s School Gallery 2019
  • Swindon Museum & Art Gallery Winter Exhibition 2018
  • Salisbury Contemporary Craft Fair – 2014
  • Designs for a Future – Salisbury Art Centre November – December 2012
  • Solo show – St Swithun’s School, Winchester 2011
  • The Art House at Westbourne, Summer Open July 2008
  • 22 Degrees – Edinburgh – opening night 15 May 2008
  • Manipulate – Platform Gallery, Contemporary Crafts in Lancashire 14 March – 10 May 2008
  • Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery – Crafts at Christmas 2007
  • Origin –London Craft Fair, October 2007
  • Art of the Stitch and Scholar - Embroiderers’ Guild 2006
  • Art of the Stitch - Embroiderers’ Guild 2003
  • Sensory Perception – Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool - September/October 2002
  • Generation and Art of the Stitch Embroiderers’ Guild 2001
  • A Puppet Odyssey Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool May/June 2001
  • Drumcroon Educational Art Centre - Puppet exhibition January/March 2001
  • Greenfingers Leicester City Art Gallery July/August 1999
  • Art of the Stitch Embroiderers’ Guild 1998
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