Melanie Dorson

I am a printmaker and a fiber artist and I am oriented in my artwork toward the surprising, the transformative, and the accidental. At the heart of my process is my daily mandala practice. Starting in July of 2011, I began creating a black-and-white drawing within a circle with pen-and-ink every day as a calming, meditative activity. I begin most of these mandalas with a scribble and search for an image within the scribble that I develop into a completed drawing. The scribble usually remains in the background of the finished mandala as a palimpsest. Many of these images are influenced by my love of illustrated children’s literature and often work in combination to form dreamlike, narrative sequences. My most recent prints are aquatints based on these daily pen-and-ink mandala drawings.

Carleton College, B.A. in studio art (1998)

University of Michigan, M.F.A. in printmaking and fibers (2002)

Notre Dame de Namur University, M.A. in marriage and family therapy with a specialization in art therapy (2009)