Ann Clarke, originally from Rochester, NY, is a fiber artist who received an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. She holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and printmaking from the University of Michigan. Clarke has spent the majority of her professional career in academia as a higher education administrator and faculty member at Syracuse University. In 1998, she joined SU as a faculty member in Fiber Arts/Material Studies. In 2008, she was named the Dean of Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, and returned to faculty in 2016.

Showing extensively across the US, with work in over 20 exhibitions in the last two years, as well as a residency with the Peaked Hill Trust Arts and Sciences Program with Cape Cod’s National Seashore.

Clarke's knitted rug series is influenced by the intersection of past and present, informed by the experiences of her mother's life and her changing relationship with time. I refer to the series as History Lessons. All are connected by the use text, readable and not — a found letter, old study notes and archived images of papers from historic figures long gone — juxtaposed with figurative images from past and present.