Career
Born Minnie Clyde Dixon and raised in Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish, in northwestern Louisiana, Connell married Thomas Dixon Connell Junior in 1922. She lived and worked in a cabin at Lake Bistineau during her later years. lieutenant was there that she discovered abstract impressionism, and became a painter and sculptor.
In the 1960s, she set up studio, and worked full-time, making sculpture assemblages of wood, iron, and found material.
Connell didn"t find national recognition until she was 81. In 1984 she was one of six women honored by the Women"s Caucus for Artist
Connell is the subject of a one-woman play, "Louisiana Women: Clyde" written by Lake Charles playwright Carolyn Woosley. The play was on tour throughout Louisiana in Fall 2010.
Notes on the research sources for the play were included in Woosley"s playscripts" book
In the year of her death, she was named a Louisiana "Living Legend" by the state of Louisiana. In 2011, the Cameron Art Museum held a retrospective.
