Born and raised along the Ohio-West Virginia border, I grew up running around the woods with my imagination and getting into every kind of arts & crafts activity you can imagine. Following 18 years of that, I moved across the state to further my Lego-inspired aspirations by studying architecture at Miami University. This included a stint in Tampere, Finland where I fell in love with Nordic design, spent a lot of time thinking about light (or the absence of it), and even drove a dog sled in the Arctic Circle! Upon graduation, I moved home for a couple of years and dove head first into project management on a construction site in West Virginia before packing up and driving across the country to attend graduate school in Seattle, Washington.
These days, I channel those creative making skills of my childhood into my professional architectural work here on the west coast. You might also catch me riding my bicycle around town, befriending neighborhood cats and dogs, getting experimental with indoor apartment gardening, or out on the trail, looking for mountains and inspiration!
This site is intended to be a curated glimpse into my creative work, from watercolors to furniture to writing. I hope you’ll get in touch with me if you think it might be fun to collaborate on a project or just hang out and paint! I love exchanging skills and ideas, so I can’t wait to illustrate your next short story, paint a cover to match the mood of your next album, or write something fun for your website!
All images on this site are property of Claire Showalter.