Projects
2017. One Woman’s Watch. One Day at a Time.
I began this personal/political diary project following the 2016 election. Each day I try to identify the most important things that have happened in my day, either politically or personally, and to make one small calendar square for the day about it. Assembled in order, they mark a trail of events that have happened as I make my way through this time.
SLIDESHOW of selected images. 2017. One Woman's Watch. One Day at a Time. Click on image above to see more.
Assembling the pieces in my studio.
You can see the whole series of 2017. One Woman's Watch. One Day at a Time. on my instagram page.
My Instagram page link:
https://www.instagram.com/dawnleslien/?hl=en
The Bag Family
Working with my college friend, Karen Zander, we are picking up on a project we started 30 years ago; creating a children's book called "The Bag Family". It is about the family of bags that a human family uses. We are now starting the process of looking into how to get it published.
x-ray photo
365 Sweet Nothings
I created 365 Sweet Nothings to mark each day of the first year if my retirement from teaching. Each small canvas reflects an impulse, emotion, or response to my new freedom. The project is an installation piece. The configuration changes in response to each new installation. Being in this project, I experience a sense of being able to breathe in very pure air.
365 Sweet Nothings at The Eclipse Mill Gallery
365 Sweet Nothings at DownStreet Art
Window of the ExPress Gallery, North Adams. DownStreet Art.
Marking Memories
Using objects that reference specific memories from my childhood, I reassemble them and respond with marks, paint, and light. The core of this assemblage can change and grow in response to each new setting it finds itself in. Stories from my past reverberate in this project.
Beginning the project in my studio. Marking Memories.
Window display. Marking Memories. Old furniture store. Adams, MA.
In the studio.
Second floor hallway exhibition area. The Eclipse Mill.
The Schoen Travel Fellowship
In 2013 I was chosen for a special “Travelship”. Through the lens “Cultures in Contrast”, I experienced the old of Venice in contrast with the new of the Biennale, the impact of east and west in contrast in Istanbul, and in Berlin I saw the effects of a city divided by political ideology. Through the trip, I created this set of 16 small, abstract, watercolor paintings in response to what I was seeing.
16 small watercolor paintings done while traveling. Dawn Nelson. The Schoen Family Weston Teacher Travelship.
The Schoen Family Weston Teacher Travelship.
Dawn Nelson. 2013. Cultures in Contrast.
Weston Public Library Presentation/Movie.
The Mill Children
The building where my studio is was a cotton mill in the early 1900’s, and the workers were primarily children who were about the same age as the middle school students that I taught. This connection compelled me to become in involved with a multidisciplinary project in which we worked to retell the story of these child workers through the lens of photographer Lewis Hine, who came and photographed the children who worked here in 1911.
A Brill Gallery Production
http://www.brillgallery109.com/exhibits/millchildren/welcome.php
The Mill Children Poster. Digitally assembled by Dawn Nelson. 2011.
Videos about my work and images in The Mill Children:
(All Mill Children project videos by Steven Born.)
The Mill Children Project. Dawn Nelson, Painter.
Video Link. The Mill Children Project. Dawn Nelson, Painter:
All Heart
Video link. All Heart:
Grungy Vibrating Cathedral
Video link. Grungy Vibrating Cathedral:
The Overseer
Video link. The Overseer:
Saturday Evening Fiddling
Video link. Saturday Evening Fiddling:
Morning Wafting in
Video link. Morning Wafting In:
Mill Music
Video link. Mill Music:
Cotton and Smoke
Video link. Cotton and Smoke:
Young Mill Spirit