The Paper Crane » Tiny Paper Crane

Dee Clements — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:10:47 +0000

See more from the Tiny Paper Crane HERE

Art House, The Rise of Chicago’s Apartment Galleries By Dee Clements Written in March 2010 for New Heroes Magazine

Dee Clements — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:44:41 +0000

Some photos from my studio opening…

Dee Clements — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 02:39:16 +0000

Last Sunday afternoon I had a studio opening as part of a building wide art walk. All of the art studios on my building were open to the public. I showed some of my most recent new paintings. Here are a few photos from folks who stopped by my studio to have a look.

Penny meets Reggie.

Artist’s Melanie Parke and Richard Kooyman (on the left)

Stuck. Draw.

Dee Clements — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:04:54 +0000

At the studio and I am stuck on this painting. Sitting here, staring at it, pondering where to go next, I saw threads in the drips. I walked over to my table of thread and began to drape them on the wall, drawing as I would if I were painting…

New Painting

Dee Clements — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:20:17 +0000

Untitled (Spring), 26″ x 39″, encaustic, gouache, graphite on paper, by Dee Clements 2010

(Detail)

New painting

Dee Clements — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:47:30 +0000

New painting: Untitled, Gouache, encaustic, graphite on paper, 2010

works in progress

Dee Clements — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:46:56 +0000

Houses

Dee Clements — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:33:35 +0000

I think about houses a lot. I day dream about them a lot too. I grew up in a really poor family and we always lived in apartments or duplexes or rented places. We never had a house that was ours that we could etch our heights in the wood or carve our names in the closet, paint the walls. We always had to be careful not to scuff up the floor or ruin the carpet. I have always thought that some day I would have a house in my life where those things would become part of the history of life and of the house. I live in a city in an apartment now. And I guess, there are so many ways to have a house. My friend Sara wants to live in a tree house. I don’t blame her, it would really fun to live in one.

My Dream Fort,

I’d love to live here, in this house below that is surrounded by trees and greenery. This is actually a photo of Henry Varnum Poor’s house. It is called Crow House and is located just outside of New York City.

This is the studio of Henry Varnum Poor. He founded Skowhegan and was a crafstman, painter, architect, and designer among many other things.

When I was a little girl there were these houses not far form where we lived that were built on stilts and shaped like mushrooms. My brother and I called them the mushroom houses and I wanted to live in one of them. This is a picture of one of them!

Experiments

Dee Clements — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:18:51 +0000

Reading a little about encaustic painting today, which is heating and mixing bee’s wax and pigment and painting with it. Encaustic painting is a particular style I am really interested in and would like to experiment with. Today I went to the art supply store to buy materials. Quite pricey for material. For now I am using a different encaustic method; I melted crayons with an iron directly on my canvas and used a metal tool to work with it. It dries super fast. Later I go pack in with paint to fill in details around and over the colored, waxy areas.

The Life & Times of Bernard Suarez

Dee Clements — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:04:32 +0000

I made these little drawings years ago as preliminary sketches for a much larger project. Bernardo Soares is a character in a novel called ‘The Book Of Disquietude’ by Fernando Pessoa. While reading this book I got the idea to develop some of the minor characters and make small drawings based on their lives. Soares is the main character and the book is narrated by him as though, you the reader, were sitting inside his read listening to his thoughts like a radio program. It has been speculated that Soares is a fictional character based on Pessoa himself. I am working on some other drawings and story lines loosley based on the book, turning them into tiny embroideries that will be the finished pieces. (Taking a little break from painting.) I am planning to hold a very small, informal showing of these pieces to some family and friends on March 21st, 2010, which is my 30th birthday. What a great deadline!

The story shall begin–
And From the Majestic height of all dreams, an assistant bookkeeper in the city of Lisbon: Bernard Suarez.

The Characters:

This image above is the beginning of the first embroidery.