Tell me what else I should have done?Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me what it is you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life? These words of Mary Oliver's have been swimming around in my mind and on my tongue of late. So much so that they've...
musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
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what bloomed for me in the shadow of sadness
The lilac are blooming. And they're taking me back again to a May morning some thirteen years ago when a light went out in my life and the long shadow of sorrow moved in. It was the Thursday before Mother’s Day, 2007. As the first of the sun's rays broke over the...
the importance of a daily creative practice
A few weeks ago, before most of us were aware that our world was going to shift on its axis, I began a new occasional series of "warm up" paintings. I intended these paintings for my eyes only, with no plan of sharing them. In the past few days I've changed my mind...
one tiny enormous comment
From the Goya Foods, Inc. Collection National Museum of American History, Archives Center I just returned from the grocery store, to buy a jar of tomato sauce and some rice. The grocery store was out of rice. And toilet paper. And countless other items. I've never...
what do you do after standing in front of that altar….
{ part 2 ~ why my new year began the last monday of january } So what do you do after standing in a Museum before the altar of a magnificent Monet and you are just bursting with desire to be outside, be in the land, be bathed in color, be one with paintbrush and...
why my new year started the last monday of january
The first three weeks of the New Year I had been up to my eyeballs in office work — the soul-sucking mind-numbing numbers-crunching paper-cut-inducing head-banging end-of-year secretarial & administrative chores required of being a self-employed sole-proprietor...
santa fe september
Summer has been protracted this year. ~ sigh ~ I’m ready for the days to cool and the colors to heat up into hues of fire. Maybe sharing this painting of an earlier Santa Fe September view will entice Mother Nature to pull out her autumn colors…. (Please?) I began...
the moreno valley & me – part two
[This the second of a two-part series. Read the moreno valley & me, part one here.] When my friend Carol asked me to paint their view of Baldy from the Moreno Valley, it was not the seemingly obvious view from the meadow near the main cabin that I and others had...
the moreno valley & me, part one
The first time I entered and crossed the Moreno Valley was in July, 1982. I had just completed a Rayado Trek at Philmont. My brothers were both working as Rangers at Philmont that summer along with some other Scouting friends from back home. My parents and another...
letting go of home
Wednesday, June 19, 2019 would have been my parents' 65th wedding anniversary. It's also the day that I learned my childhood home has been destroyed. My home of 42 years. My tiny bedroom with the astonishing bookshelves wrapping around two walls and concealing a...