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About the Artist: Dawn Ackerman

I have dabbled in many different forms of art throughout my life, and continue to explore many different media. My love of paper brought me to collage nearly 20 years ago, but it really came to life in the past three or four years as more and more of the beautiful handmade oriental papers have become readily available. I quickly began seeing, and collecting, the beautiful imported handmade papers which were becoming more and more available in local art supply and craft stores. I loved the movement of the fibers through the papers, the array of textures and colors. Needless to say, I became an avid collector of these papers. Ideas floated through my mind about what to do with them, but I always stopped for fear that I would "ruin" one of my lovely pieces of paper. I had been exposed to collage in college art classes, but it took some time for me to gather my courage to tear up my collection of papers.

Finally, I sat down one afternoon and created an abstract collage from my collection of papers. I loved the process, but found that I couldn’t quite get the color, texture or finishes that I was looking for with only purchased papers and began coloring papers myself. I learned to make my own paper, experimenting with the wet pulp for different effects. I began painting papers. I continued seek inspiration through the work of other artists, books, and websites and found that I was excited by the images of landscapes in art. This felt like a natural extension of the landscape photography that I had loved for many years. I sought out books, videos, and classes that would provide inspiration for me and finally found my niche in landscape and abstract collage. Capturing a stormy sky or a tranquil ocean was thrilling and I found that I was spending untold hours doing collage.

Once I began showing my work to friends, and later in art shows and galleries, I found that there were many people that wanted to learn to do this kind of collage. They, too, had been collecting those wonderful handmade papers and often saw papers in my collages that they themselves had. When I was asked to appear on the Carol Duvall Show, I thought that this would be a wonderful way to share my excitement about collage with others and perhaps inspire them as others have inspired me. I share my experience and knowledge in the hope that it will inspire others to explore the art of collage. I offer here my ideas and concepts, and hope that you will not only to try them yourself, but to also branching out with your own ideas and experiments. I find that my artwork is a continuous learning process and that creativity begets further creativity. Play with the papers that you already have, make some new ones, and start collaging; I think you will be delighted with the results!

You can also read about my collage experience in the March/April 2001 issue of Somerset Studio magazine.

Other artistic interests:

I am not sure why most of the women artists that I know seem to do many different kinds of artwork, rather than remaining exclusively focused on a single medium, but I do find that to be true. I know that, for me, I find that different art forms offer different types of satisfaction and stimulate different types of creativity (at least that is what I tell myself rather than believe that I’m truly unfocused!). While I spend much of my time doing collage, I also love to experience and dabble in other areas, too. Some of my beaded bracelets and beaded temari ornaments can be seen here on my website. Other interests include quilting, sewing, embroidery, needlepoint, painting, and rubber stamping.

Contact Dawn at: ackerman@gallerydawn.com