Clare Rickman

Clare greeted us at her studio in Granite Bay, CA with fresh local peaches and a big smile—a pleasantly warm welcome from someone who admits that her work “can get a little haunted.”

As an only child, Clare’s built a body of work around imagined histories, creating stories around the snapshots of her parents’ antebellum family home in Mississippi just before it was torn down or memorializing “Hitchcock’s blondes” as a commentary on Hollywood’s portrayal of women.

Although she studied fine art photography at CCA, Clare’s been interested in other people’s lens on the world ever since she discovered a secret stash of family photos at age 12. Lately, she’s been recapturing, reframing and repurposing images on everything from large-scale plotter print outs to textiles. “It ends up becoming a collaboration with someone at FedEx Office or the guy at the photo counter in Walmart—people who don’t typically talk about art.”

That lack of control over how piece of work will turn out—and the opportunity for other people to have a hand in the product—excites her; it feels like another way of dipping into the collective unconscious, which drives so much of her work.

“It’s hard to describe exactly what I’m saying in any piece, but when it’s coming from a place of instinct, it has weight and magic and power.”