Debra Joyce Dawson
Pataskala, OH
debrajoycedawson@earthlink.net
www.debrajoycedawson.com
Education
2006 Capital University
1996 Denison University
1996 Columbus College of Art & Design
1984 Anne Arundel Community College
Solo Exhibitions
2016 Sharon Weiss Gallery (8th solo exhibition)
2013 Markay Cultural Arts Center
2012 West Liberty University
2009 Zanesville Museum of Art
Group Exhibitions
2015 Trailside Galleries (Scotsdale, AZ)
Eckert & Ross Fine Art (Indiana)
2014 Springfield Museum of Art (Springfield, OH)
2012 Wexford, Ireland
2011 Riffe Gallery (Columbus, OH)
2010 Richland Fine Art (Nashville, TN)
Richmond Art Museum (Richmond, IN)
2009 Sage Creek Gallery (Santa Fe, NM)
Selected Collections
Don Grote (Donato's Pizza)
Hon. Arnold Schwarzenegger
La Grande Vigne, Brittany, France
Richmond Art Museum (Richmond, IN)
Columbus Museum of Art
Ohio Arts Council
Ohio Supreme Court
Hiawatha National Forest
University Hospital (Baltimore, MD)
Artist Statement
After contemplating many ideas for my egg, I finally decided to paint dresses. Painting dresses is fun, but not all dresses are created equal. Only the world of haute couture with its imaginative designers like Dior, Gabbiano, and James, could live up to the opulence displayed in the Imperial Russian Easter eggs produced by Peter Carl Fabergé. This encouraged me to add a little bling to my egg. I love bling! Since I couldn’t use the diamonds and gold of Fabergé, or even crystals, glitter had to do. I imagined my egg sparkling in the lighting of a museum, in the way Fabergé’s eggs do. But there was fear - if I put glitter onto the egg and it didn’t work, I would ruin all the hours of painting that took place beforehand. Then what? The words of fashion guru, Tim Gunn, came to mind, “Make it work.”
In a way this project, painting dresses on an ostrich egg, was an extension of my “27 Dresses Series”, which was born after the Royal Wedding of Kate & Wills, and, of course, took its title from the movie of the same name. Only this work was different in every way. I wasn’t standing on the street outside a dress shop, nor was I using oil paints on a flat surface.
My original intention was to use my preferred medium, oil paints, so I first covered the eggshell with two coats of clear gesso. At times I was sorry that I hadn’t left the shell in its natural state, but in the end, it wound up being covered with glue and glitter anyway. The materials that I wound up using were the dreaded acrylics that I learned to loath so many years ago in color class. I hadn’t used them for 30 years because they always dry a slightly different color than the one that you mix. But, I wanted something that would dry quickly, and something that would be compatible with the iridescent acrylic inks that I’d just discovered. They worked perfectly together - I could place either one on top of the other, or mix them together and get a totally different kind of look than either had separately. I wasn’t sure how that glitter would work, I just knew that my egg needed it.