More often than not, Kelly Clare's work tries to re-angle the lens, shift the light a bit. How does a restructuring of what we have at hand become an act of possible restoration? Clare often finds herself turning to the well-known thing caught differently—toward the reimagining of public texts, the sudden rearrangement of furniture, vegetable, sawhorse. In an era of new and newer, the infinite sprawl of an online world held in the glowing palm, how are we to make physical, tangible, the news we must process, the spaces we must reinvent for ourselves and each other. With or without words, often Clare’s installations try to inhabit what she’s come to call serious play, and draw from the sense of the possible she’s often found in contemporary poetry. Or: if the poem’s stanza can be a room in which anything can happen, any room itself just might hold that same potential. 

A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, Clare earned a BA in Creative Writing and Studio Art from Knox College and pursued a Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship in letterpress upon graduation. Maintaining a simultaneous writing practice throughout her education, in 2014 she attended the Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets. She is currently pursuing an MA/MFA in Sculpture.