Beautiful things can be made with simple, sustainable ingredients.
-Chris Cameron, Co-Founder
Cloud Belly combines language, science, and math into a truly unique experience. We see ourselves as a special idea that is happily shared. We are inspired to provide a home for art that embodies practices that support the health of the planet and the people it hosts by illuminating the potential for all materials to be handcrafted, in-house, using natural, biodegradable ingredients such as beeswax, honey, clay pigments, flour, yolk, sap, coconut oil, charcoal, and starch. Each class explores well-loved artists through storybooks and their techniques; simultaneously, the active production of supplies such as pastels, papers, paints, crayons, and clays provides a balance between exploration and discovery.
Meet Teacher Chris and Teacher Melissa
We are eager to empower friends with the possibilities
Chris Cameron
Co-Founder
Teacher Chris was born in Conneticut and moved to Seattle when he was still young to be with his extended family on the west coast and currently resides locally with his wife, Tara and his daughter, Soleil.
Chris was inspired early by many things the Atlantic Ocean was to present to him and some of his very first artistic subjects were fish and whales. Later on, graphic novels and comic books motivated his exploration of drawing while fantasy literature and the study of insects would then emerge in paintings.
When Chris ventured forth into the adult world of work, it wasn't more than a few years before he landed in Early Education. It was there that the dream of experiencing art in as many ways as imaginable took hold. For the next 20 years, Chris would teach preschool with personal incentives to both advance the thresholds of potential in early social-emotional growth and what was possible in creative exploration through art and it's accompaniment with helpful partners like literature, nature, science, the senses, and math.
While spanning the 20 years of Early Education, Chris also made it a goal to advance as an independent artist. To that end, he's explored many different mediums, preferring above all to paint in oils subject matter that is most often surreal.
Chris is dedicated to bringing everything he's experienced forward in ways that are tangible and relatable to everyone he interacts with. At Cloud Belly, he does this with the intention of offering all that he can to friends that are here to create blossoms of art.
Melissa Duncan
Co-Founder
Teacher Melissa was born in Dallas, Texas in 1977. A 3rd generation Texan, she grew up close to an enormous extended family. Melissa’s free spirit led her to Central America as a young adult, where she immersed herself fully in local culture and taught herself to speak Spanish. Her love of the ocean called her to the Pacific Northwest with her young son in her early 20’s. Later, she became the first woman on the freight crew at a big barge line driving forklifts. She also has an extensive background in early childhood education. Though she had been creating all her life, as a teacher, she started honing her painting skills and developing as an artist and showing her art at events and galleries.
Melissa’s art was forged from these unique experiences, among others. She weaves worlds within worlds, incorporating elements like cephalopods and mollusks with the inner workings of machines large and small. Themes of geometry and the connective inner working of things are a hallmark of her subject matter. Melissa’s unique artwork has been shown in establishments such as Inscape Arts Gallery, Urban Light Studio, the Beamis Arts Building and in various art events in Seattle.
Melissa met teacher and artist Chris during her time as an early childhood educator. Their friendship sparked by the resonant creativity and synergy of the classroom. Chris and Melissa came together again amidst the pandemic with an inspired, cooperative dream of mixing up and sharing their experiences in a communal space. Mutual inspiration, play, and an innovative dynamic are the ingredients which, when stirred together, transform into a special new thing that is Cloud Belly Art.