Claire Baker lives and creates in Lake Albert. A poet, embroiderer, mark maker and book lover, she combines these in her art to comment on contemporary life. Claire graduated in 2012 from CSU with a BA and in 2017 from Deakin University with a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies.
A long-time member of Booranga Writers’ Centre, Claire has served on the Executive Committee and the Prose Selection Panel for the annual fourW New Writing anthology. For the past three years at her local café she has been holding twice monthly workshops to encourage others to write, with participants experimenting in poetry and prose in response to various writing exercises.
I draw on my studies of art history and various creative pursuits (stitching, writing, mark making, collage, and recently abstract painting) to combine items that would usually be overlooked or discarded and make them into thought provoking and yet aesthetically pleasing works.
I’m not adverse to using paper with stitching, fabric stitched to paper, words draped around painted marks, books altered. I find layering a great way of demonstrating the complexity of life’s journey.
My hands have become less nimble as I age, so I’ve had to adapt how I create. The once traditional embroidery stitch has become another entity when applied to paper or sewn with string. Painting with a loosely held brush or pen makes for expressive ethereal marks.
By incorporating ephemera in my work I want to highlight that we are not here forever and that it is vital to take action in how we impact on the natural world and contemplate our legacy for the future.
