Statement and Biography—Painting and Textiles
Lake Almanor California-based artist, Lydia Dehn, has been honing her painting skills since 2002. Currently she is ideally surrounded by the beauty of the Lake and Mt. Lassen National Park and Forest. She captures nature and light with all its color and vibrations using both oil painting and textile constructions. All materials are useful: currently, linen and paint, iPad drawings, and wire mesh for sculptures.
“When I see a beautiful thing in nature in perfect light, it is fleeting. I try to capture what it means to me, to pass it on.” Lydia says. “What I capture is only how I see it, but I’m trying to make what I see, clear to others. There is a truth and emotion to it. As Bayles and Orland say in “Art & Fear,” ‘There is pretty good evidence that the meaning of the world is made not found.’ Beauty is there for all of us to make.”
Lydia has taken art classes at Harvard Extension, Cambridge Arts, West Valley College, Santa Rosa Junior College, and Berkeley Extension. She has also benefitted from classes by artists Phyllis Shafer, Philip Buller, Lisa Kokin, Nancy Crow, Ron Artaud, Madelyn van der Hoogt and Randall Sexton.
Lydia’s evolution into painting is influenced by her career in Information Science/building search engines and databases, and also by her creation of textiles. She continues to weave on an eight harness loom, drape textiles for new constructions and create new handwork. The surface, design, and color possibilities of textiles are endless and help her find new techniques in art.
Lydia has shown her work at the galleries of Los Gatos Art Association, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Quincy’s Main Street Artists Gallery, and Stover Landing Gallery.
Member- Surface Design Association , Handweavers Guild of America, Textile Arts Council, California Art Club and Main Street Artists Gallery, Quincy CA