2024 Featured Artist

Spiess has been a practicing architect in the Rhode Island communities for twenty-five years since relocating from Southern California. As the lead architect for the Hope & Main culinary incubator and East Bay Educational Collaborative and working in association with Bristol’s JHLTecture, GMI and HKT Architects, he has played key roles in the creation of the Bristol Art Museum, The Bristol Maritime Center, the Holyoke Community College Campus Center, numerous schools and custom residences.

His resume also includes adjunct teaching assignments at the Roger Williams University School of Architecture and University of Southern California’s schools of Architecture and Urban Planning. His major in urban design and site planning are pertinent and led to the master planning of the University of Baluchistan in Iran. He has practiced architecture on both coasts as well as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Samoa and has a keen interest in international affairs.

He was the architect for the ticket centers and exhibit of the XXIIIrd Olympiad at Los Angeles in 1984 and has collaborated with his wife, Deborah Baronas, on numerous exhibits and projects when art illustrates design, history, and natural forces. 

With an eye trained on understanding details and, often the global context behind them, he loves to photograph whatever helps us understand and enjoy the wonders of light and form.