I’m Spence. I draw, I design, I drum, I write. Each practice informs and improves the others, fueling my creative whole.
As a designer, I have 20 years of experience with projects large and small, from branding to books, business cards to billboards. A select client list includes The Baltimore Museum of Art, Johns Hopkins University Press, the Maryland Film Festival, Open Works, and University of Maryland. My work has been published in the books DIY: Design it Yourself and Graphic Design: The New Basics, and in Print magazine. Since 2021 I’ve been a part of Stevenson University’s annual design student portfolio reviews, and I teach workshops at Open Works.
As an artist, my drawings use plants, text, and symbols as a way to explore physical and internal space, past and present. Flowers stand as memories and change agents - the images informed but not defined by years of traumas - and as maps of the past to get to the future.
Can I make my experience universal, and can I make it beautiful?
I was interviewed about my residency work for the Vassar Quarterly’s Summer 2026 issue. In February 2026, I was part of In the Mix: A Small Works Show, in Baltimore. In fall 2025, I was in residence at Catwalk in the Hudson Valley, New York, working on Wish I were there, wish I were here, a dialogue of drawings with myself. I’ll be returning in September 2026 to finish a series around the Hudson River.
I also had two pieces published in the August 2025 edition of The Light Ekphrastic.
I recently completed the first draft of a memoir, and am looking for readers and publishing possibilities.
I’ve played drums for decades, at venues including Artscape (Baltimore), Knitting Factory (NYC), Ottobar (Baltimore), and the Bloodshed (Baltimore), as well as too many garages and basements to count. I’m currently a member of the highly acclaimed band Father of the Year.
Contact me for design and art inquiries, or to sign up for my drawing newsletter, Drawn out, and Instagram has more!