Thirty minutes ago I emerged from the mall where my PO box is. I had just dumped my massive annual springtime greeting card mailing at the post office and was feeling a bit jubilant. Thirty minutes before that, an all-day soaking spring rain (a rarity out here)...
musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
dawn chandler santa fe artist
6 x 3 x 60 = peace
I stepped outside, crouched on the pavement and sat down on my dusty front door stoop. In my nine years living here, I don’t think I’d ever sat on the stoop. Maybe because the view from that angle is mostly pavement, concrete, stuccoed wall and taillights. This...
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...
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...
painting my way back to philmont….
Over lunch, I had commented to my friend that I was shocked we hadn’t suffered any fires yet. The winter and spring had been worrisomely mild, and the winds had howled across April and May. And yet here it was one day from June and New Mexico had hardly...
what do you call a gathering of 1000+ painters?
I don't think I've ever witnessed 1000+ painters gathered together under one roof before. Certainly I've never been one of 1000+ painters gathered together under one roof before! But that's exactly where I recently found myself, when I attended a convention of...
on the margins of life with MAD magazine & me . . . .
I adore treasure hunts. Invite me to an Easter egg hunt and I devolve into a tunnel-visioned child, giddy with anticipation of finding pastel-colored treats hidden in flower beds. I adore advent calendars and lockets and old-school CrackerJacks for the treasures...
a winter roadtrip with my muse, part two
Not all the art I made during my little solo sojourn were in my sketchbook. Another of my goals was to do some plein air painting — something I hadn't done since late December when, the day after my car accident and day of my 53rd birthday, my pup and I went for a...
a winter roadtrip with my muse, part one
I knew I needed a break. I knew I needed to unplug. I knew I wanted to remove myself from the familiar, and just paint, just read, just write. Just think. Just not think. Just be. Without chatter. Without pinging and lights and alerts and the...
of car crashes and thwarted resolutions
I've always loved the turn of the new year. I know some who people eye it with dread or sadness with the reminder of the passage of time. Their sad focus is on aging, and regrets. But for me the turn of the new year is a time of excitement and cheerful anticipation....