Featured Artist: Dianne Vottero Dockery

During the six weeks of 'Black White Red' we'll focus on individual artists here on our blog. Every week, several artists will be featured. Today, we're pleased to introduce to you: Dianne Vottero Dockery

Hide and Seek
Silk, cotton, screen-printed,
collaged, machine stiched
12" x 12"

Hide and Seek

As this collage’s design unfolded, it took on its own personality.  It makes no difference if we are playing a childhood game or experiencing our everyday life:  the world is full of hiding places.  You can seek and find a hiding place in these fields of red, white, and black.

London Bridge
Silk, cotton, screen-printed,
collaged, machine stitched
12" x 12" 

London Bridge

Watch out below!  The bridge is falling!  London Bridge is falling down!  This collage is the third in a series of red, white, and black compositions depicting some of my favorite games and pastimes from childhood.  London Bridge is falling down… falling down… my fair lady!

Pocket Full Of Posies
Silk, cotton, screen-printed,
collaged, machine stiched
12" x 12"

Pocket Full of Posies

This piece began as a non-subjective composition in red, white, and black, but as it came together, it began to express itself.  I soon found myself singing a familiar song from the playgrounds of my childhood:  “Ring around the roses… pocket full of posies….”  This collage takes us back to a time when life was as simple and as delightful as a “pocket full of posies”.

Gallery: from left to right,
Doerte Weber, WSJ: Sweet & Sticky
Marlene Gruetter, Wounded
Dianne Vottero Dockery, Hide and Seek, Pocket Full of Posies, London Bridge

Artist’s Statement

     My life as an artist began early.  My tools: a box of contè crayons inherited from my artist uncle and recycled butcher’s paper from my grandmother’s kitchen.  At age three, I rose early and claimed the vacant kitchen table where I drew to my heart’s content. 

     Decades later, fibers have replaced the crayons.  Using fibers as a medium challenges me to step away from the photo-realism I find myself striving for with paint or pastels.  My goal with fibers:  portray reality with graphic interpretation.  I often approach the medium much like a painter who chooses and arranges colors on a palette, preparing for the marriage of color, form, and texture to surface. 

     I am fortunate to have acute sensitivity to the beauty in shapes, textures, and colors that can often go unnoticed by others.    If the art I make stirs the viewer to a higher awareness and appreciation of the world around them, then I humbly consider myself a successful artist.