© Pamela Clements
Colored pencil artist Pamela Clements grew up in Crawfordsville, a small town in west central Indiana, during a time when youth entertainment consisted of being outside, inventing daily adventures and being forced to return home only when the street lights came on. She always felt at home searching the woods for morels in the spring, fishing, rock skipping along the banks of sugar creek, and camping out in the family owned woods during summer holidays. These experiences contributed to the developing curiosity of the natural world and a further appreciation of nature’s extraordinary shapes, rich luscious earthy colors, and unique seasonal changes that contribute to Pamela’s skillfully rendered natural still life artworks in colored pencil today.
Early on Pamela was labeled an artist and wore it proudly. She practiced drawing often and strongly believed drawing is the fundamental basis to all art. She practiced drawing her environment and learned to see details, to create lines, to render values and to love every step of the drawing process. Early encouragement of these developing art skills lead her to a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, specifically in drawing and graphic design, from IU Bloomington. After working as a designer for a printer, a publisher and an advertising agency, parental responsibilities put a pause on the design career but opened up another.
Leaving behind the sometimes impossible deadlines of advertising, Pamela began teaching elementary art for grades K-8 and art classes for the local art’s association. This change brought everything she had learned as an artist and everything experienced as a designer together to create an age based art curriculum responsible to teaching art skills, knowledge, history, and experience in the visual arts to her students. A career change from anything the customer wants, to everything kids should learn, leads to the curious question of what type of art would Pamela create on her own. She has always been an artist and drawing has always been her medium but it was the subject she was looking for.
The answer comes as Pamela finds her way back to her first loves of drawing and nature, specifically the woods. As she continues to study nature, searching for the extraordinary which she labels a purple leaf, she still believes that drawing is the fundamental basis of all art. Expanding her drawing skill to include colored pencils and clarifying the vision of a purple leaf has given Pamela’s artworks a serenity of nature vision. Miles of woodland paths, continuing education of the colored pencil media, and the creative process, have all contributed to the colored pencil artworks Pamela makes today. The evolution of the media, the evolution of the artist, and the continual quest for a purple leaf will contribute to the artworks she will make tomorrow and the next day.
Exhibitions:
'Nature': Grey Cube Gallery Online Exhibit, 2/2021 (Merit Status)
'All Women Art Exhibit': Light Space Time Art Online Exhibit, (2 artworks)1/2021
(Special Merit Status and Special Recognition Status)
'Forests and Meadows': Grey Cube Gallery Online Exhibit, (2 artworks)12/2020 (Best of Show)
60th Mid-States Art Exhibit, Evansville Art Museum, 10/2020
'2020': Indiana Artists Showcase Online Exhibition, 8/2020
CPSA International 2020, Online
'Primary Colors': Light Space Time Art Online Exhibit, 7/2020 (Honorable Mention)
'Water': Colors of Humanity Online Exhibit, 6/2020 (Second Place)
'Created in Isolation': Light Space Time Online Exhibit, 5/2020 (Special Merit)
'Botanicals': Light Space Time Art Online Exhibit, 5/2020 (Special Recognition)
'Colors': Art Room Gallery Online Exhibit, (2 artworks)4/2020 (2 Honorable Mentions)
'Seasons': Art Room Gallery Online Exhibit, 2/2020 (Honorable Mention)
'Red': Colors of Humanity Online Exhibit, 2/2020 (Noteworthy Status)
CPSA International 2019, Brea, CA (5-year merit status)
Untitled 2019, a juried exhibition at Athens Arts Gallery Crawfordsville, IN
CPSA International 2017, Bethesda, MD
CPSA International 2016, Tacoma, WA (Signature Status)
Midwest Color 2016, Chicago, IL (3 artworks selected)