Artist Dawn Reily's Profile

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Personal Information

• Name: Dawn Reily
• Gender: Female
• Birthday: 7-Feb-1976 (Age: 37)
• Location: Ventura, California, United States

Entries Written: 8 entries
Comments Written: 7 comments
Signup Date: September 15, 2007
Last Login: April 18, 2013

About Me
Please do not be shy to comment on my work I love being critiqued good or bad.

I now have an ETSY store were some of my jewelry and other crazy creative things that I make are being sold. See my weblinks to go to the shop.

Statement
Art is like a science experiment: What is going to happen if I do this with this material? Or what will it look like if I do this subject in this material? How am I going to convey that idea? I find myself always trying new things even if it means that I have to do a little study and research to figure out how to do it. I can’t really say that I prefer a particular medium or even a particular subject matter. Nor can I say I really have a particular style. I can say I prefer to learn, experiment, and take chances with no limits.

Education
BA Sonoma State University in Studio art
Concentrations: painting, sculpture, drawing

A.A. degrees Cuesta Community College
Gallery management
2-D arts
3-D arts

Biography
I grew up in Ventura, CA. A small beach side city with a very small art scene to go with it, not much potential for art growth there, but while I was in High school I took several art classes at Ventura Community college. My high school just didn’t have the resources to have many art classes. After high school I went to various different community colleges and universities from full to part-time for 10 years. I was always an art major, but my concentration changed, from graphic art, to printmaking, to jewelry design, to sculpture, to drawing. In the Fall of 1994 I attended Cuesta Community College in San Luis Obispo because it had an extensive variety of classes in art. I graduated in 1998 with my AAs with honors and in 1999 moved to Rohnert Park, CA. Then I went to Santa Rosa Junior to finish off a few more units in Jewelry design and life drawing until I attended Sonoma State University in the fall of 2000. I Graduated from SSU in 2004 Cum Laude with a BA and a teaching credential. Throughout my time living in Northern California I showed my work in a couple of galleries and sold my jewelry and other smaller items at farmers markets, and art fairs. I then taught 3-D and glass art at San Marin High School in Novato CA until 2009. After 5 years of teaching I was cut in the education budget cuts to point of not having livable wages. I then moved back to Ventura and I now teach preschool art at Children’s World nursery school in Ventura. Currently I am working on getting myself into the now growing art community in the Ventura area.
My inspiration comes from, Asian art, and nature, in particular the pets and plants I have in my home. I draw from my emotional response to items and events in my life. During my teens and early adulthood I suffered with many health problems, which included a hormone disorder and a battle to keep my fertility. What I consider to be my private work deals with my emotional response to the struggles of dealing with some of the health problems and it is rarely shown in public because of its rawness, which is often difficult for some people to take in. That side of my work has been said to be similar to the emotional rawness of Frida Kahlo’s. I often look to her work and biography for strength on how deal with some of my own issues. I am also very environmentally conscience with my work, reusing materials as much as possible and following very green studio practices to help preserve the natural subjects of my inspiration and the environment around me.
Currently I have been focusing on glass enameling techniques on copper and on fused glass. I taught myself how to enamel through experimentation, books, and research. I have a lot “failures” to go along with it, but I feel that we learn from our mistakes and happy little accidents happen from those mistakes that will lead me to a new technique. I rarely throw my mistakes away, because I usually end up “recycling” them somehow into something else. Working with enamels is like adding my painting skills with the sculptural process of molding a material with heat. The process of taking something solid and cold, to molten and hot, to solid and cold again, but transformed into a new form really excites me.

My Interests: (6)
Glass, painting, animals, Asian art, nature, and enamels.

Weblogs and Artwork Gallery

Suncat's gallery blog	8 entries, 134 comments
Welcome to my gallery! I will try to put up a new piece of artwork at least every other week. Feel free to make comments and email me with suggests or questions!