Dawn Chandler was raised in the midst of a small but beautiful expanse of woodlands nestled in the heart of central New Jersey. Classical music and lively discussions of books, the arts, current events and autopsies* were the soundtrack of her upbringing. A love of the outdoors was nurtured at a young age via family camping and backpacking trips throughout New England and the eastern seaboard. But it was when backpacking at Philmont Scout Ranch as a teen participant in the early 1980s that she first fell in love with New Mexico.
A graduate of Miami University of Ohio, Dawn earned her BFA in painting in 1988. In 1992 she attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture where she enjoyed one-on-one critiques with artists Elizabeth Murphy, May Stevens and Sidney Tillim In the early 1990s she continued painting at the University of Pennsylvania, studying under Robert Slutzsky, Susana Viola Jacobson and Nigel Rolfe; she earned her MFA from Penn in 1993.
Dawn moved to Taos, New Mexico in 1994, where she was a resident for fifteen years before moving to Santa Fe in 2009. In addition to pursuing her art career in Taos, Dawn also worked for many years as the executive director of the Philmont Staff Association, an alumni organization of current and former staff based out of Cimarron, New Mexico.
Among Dawn's many creative interests beyond painting is making her Taos Dawn line of hand-crafted soaps. Outside of the studio, Dawn loves to fill her time exploring the beautiful landscape of New Mexico, ideally by foot, and in the company of friends and her good mutt, Wilson...
*The artist's father was a pathologist.
