Dorr Bothwell, THE SYMBOLIST

DORR BOTHWELL
Mendocino Heritage Artist 1902-2000
When no preconceived ideas keep us from looking and we take all the time we need to really “feel”what we see – when we are able to do that – that universe opens up and we catch our breath in awe at the incredible complexity of design in the humblest things. It is only when this happens that we regain our sense of wonder. – from Dorr Bothwell: Straws in the Wind: An Artist’s Life as told to Bruce Levene (2013). Sometimes by chance, more often by courageous intuition, where ever Dorr Bothwell found herself, she was at the creative center of her times, and unselfconsciously moving ahead of them. An inpiring teacher, and author, with Marlys Mayfield, of Notan: The Dark-Light Principle of Design (Dover Books), Dorr Bothwell's artwork is in the collections of major museums in the United States and Europe. In addition to her richly symbolic paintings in oils and acrylics, her watercolors and woodblock prints, Bothwell pioneered serigraphy as a fine art medium. In later years she worked with collage, and used laserprint collage elements in her acrylic paintings. In Bothwell's opinion, laserprint, more archivally durable than watercolor or giclees, should be accepted as a fine art reproduction medium, as serigraphy has come to be accepted today.
I follow straws in the wind, and that’s how I came to Mendocino. A friend of mine from art school, whom I hadn’t seen for twenty five years, recommended me to Bill Zacha. I was busy, so I recommended Hilda Pertha to Bill, and she came…later I taught a summer course at the Art Center and fell in love with the place. All the wood, for example, really excited me, the wonderful gray wooden fences. I did a whole series of close-ups of the wood, all the grains and knotholes, and when it was shown in San Francisco, it sold out. The very tempo of living here has influenced my art. I think there is a magic in this place, something very special that people call a kind of ‘power center’, like Mount Shasta, and I think that this was the moving spirit of Bill Zacha, that remarkable catalyst. – Dorr Bothwell, Arts & Entertainment Magazine, Mendocino, California, May 1989 To learn more about Dorr Bothwell and the other Mendocino Heritage Artists, visit: https://www.williamzacha.com