In deepest Wisconsin winter, on a bitterly cold day in the middle of February, on the seventh floor of a massive concrete building in the middle of a busy city block, I walked through a wispy, ethereal forest. 700 trees planted neatly in seven rows. Or rather 700...
musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
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another cup of tea
I get to….fix myself hot teahold a steaming mug in my handspull a wool shawl around my shouldersshift my weight in my cozy chairsip and gaze out my windowunbroken by bullets I get tostep into the showerturn on the wateradjust the temperaturelet hot water lavish my...
enchanted color and a small bit of wondrous truth
To view this post with its intended layout flow, view it on the website via your browser. This is the fourth installment of a four-part series on my creation of my Enchanted Color Art Experience for Bishop's Lodge Resort in Santa Fe. Now the challenge was to create my...
tiny little pieces
To view this post with its intended layout flow, view it on the website via your browser. What amuses me about my little travel art kit quandary mentioned previously is that it was nearly identical to the quandary that kept me awake for nights on end a year ago....
have art, will travel
Wrapped in a wool blanket, I take a sip of warming tea. I look out the window and take a deep, satisfied breath as I study a tangle of black branches etched against a frosty golden sky. The falling snow is so fine I can barely make out the individual flakes sifting...
how to teach your passion?
What are you passionate about? How would you teach your passion? How would you share it with others? Light a spark in someone else, so that they might get a glimmer of excitement about it? This is exactly the challenge that came my way a year ago, and changed...

walking away from social media ~ one year later
What was getting to me was the sense that I was being manipulated, that someone else was controlling my attention. I’d login with seeming innocent intentions — to see what friends were up to, or if anyone appreciated what I’d shared — and plan to spend just a couple...
spring & the hardest color to paint
As a young art student I often heard that one color is especially hard to paint . Care to guess which one? For the untrained eye it can be intimidating to look out to a verdant landscape and figure out now how to differentiate and mix green. Maybe that’s why a comment...
new mexico sky musings ~ a new release
There was a time a long time ago when I considered signing my name on my paintings with my initials, because a landscape painter named “Dawn” seemed a little too sweet, maybe even cliche´. I’m glad I got over that. According to my mother, it was my father who...
autumn across america
Late afternoon fence line, Brush Creek Ranch, Wyoming. Photo by Dawn Chandler When I was a teenager there were two places at home where I liked to do my homework. If I really needed to concentrate — say when writing a paper — I would work at my little desk in my tiny...