Claudia Cave papers, 1974-2016

Claudia Cave was born in 1951 in Salem, Oregon. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art Education from Western Oregon University in 1975 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Idaho in 1980. Cave participated in the mail art movement between 1974 and 2003. The mail art movement (also known as postal art or correspondence art) began in the late 1950s to early 1960s as artists corresponded with each other by sending artwork through the postal service. Cave's mail art network included regional, national, and international artists such as Kent Sumner, Julien Howe, L. C. Foster, Kathleen Salt, Chris Hannegan, Bonnie Hull, D. E. May, Guy Bleus, Carlo Pittore, Robin Crozier, Ryosuke Cohen, and Jürgen Kierspel. Cave's earlier works, including her mail art, are in black and white graphite while her paintings are in gouache and watercolor on paper. Cave's work is described as vivid and dream-like. She often uses animal imagery, especially dogs, in her works to emphasize the animal-like nature of humans and the human-like nature of animals. Cave's art has been shown in many exhibits and is included in public and private collections including the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon; the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon; the University of Oregon science complex in Eugene, Oregon; the Alternative Museum in New York City; the Seattle Art Museum in Seattle, Washington; the Cheney Cowles Museum in Spokane, Washington; and the Hockaday Center for the Arts in Kalispell, Montana. She also has work in the Visual Chronicle of Portland Collection and the Seattle Portable Works Collections. Corporations including Microsoft, Mentor Graphics, and Intel also collect her work. In 2006 she was included in a show at Kaye Academic College of Education in Israel.

According to Cave, her recent work has been primarily experimental. She has not shown her work in exhibits in several years. Cave currently lives with her spouse, artist Kent Sumner, in Corvallis, Oregon where she also maintains her studio.