Dee Clements is a process-based designer who has a deep love of and interest in
materials and craft. She holds an MFA in 3D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art and BFA
in Fiber and Materials Studies and Sculpture from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Dee Clements
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“I’m fascinated by the fundamental connections between needs, craft, and culture. This
social lens reveals rich connections between people, materials and objects that drives my
practice. Many cultures live in harmony with the land and have histories of building agrarian
economies and communities around materials harvested from the environment. Now more
than ever with the onset of climate change is the gap between high tech and lo-tech design
widening an indelible and irrevocable gap. Techniques of crafting materials into useful goods
for everyday use, adornment and decoration in a manner that is sustainable and regenerative
while nodding toward mythologies and traditions is what has most inspires my work. The
evolution of designed objects from prehistory to today shows a lineage of ingenuity through
material languages. It also shows where crafts became divided by gender and child rearing.
The roots of craft and design come from ancient cultures that designed tools and objects to
solve everyday problems and decorate the quotidian. Touching on certain ethnographic
lineages, the pieces created in the studio, from vessels and cloth to furniture look to
anthropology and cultural histories to find new language – in essence, looking backward to
find an informed way forward.”
social lens reveals rich connections between people, materials and objects that drives my
practice. Many cultures live in harmony with the land and have histories of building agrarian
economies and communities around materials harvested from the environment. Now more
than ever with the onset of climate change is the gap between high tech and lo-tech design
widening an indelible and irrevocable gap. Techniques of crafting materials into useful goods
for everyday use, adornment and decoration in a manner that is sustainable and regenerative
while nodding toward mythologies and traditions is what has most inspires my work. The
evolution of designed objects from prehistory to today shows a lineage of ingenuity through
material languages. It also shows where crafts became divided by gender and child rearing.
The roots of craft and design come from ancient cultures that designed tools and objects to
solve everyday problems and decorate the quotidian. Touching on certain ethnographic
lineages, the pieces created in the studio, from vessels and cloth to furniture look to
anthropology and cultural histories to find new language – in essence, looking backward to
find an informed way forward.”