Meet Dorothy Weiner

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dorothy Weiner. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dorothy below.

Hi Dorothy, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I have to credit my parents, who were immigrants and came to the U.S. after World War II with basically nothing. They worked hard, like most immigrants, to build a good life and opportunities for their children. Watching this, and also understanding it instinctively, I always wanted to work, even as an early high schooler. I guess my attitude was that I couldn’t afford not to work. So while I spent my professional life as an editor and travel writer for 30 years, when I retired from that, I continued to ‘work’ when I embraced my lifelong passion for art. Immediately after retirement, I sought out painting classes to enhance my college art training, and here I am six year later, widely exhibiting and selling a variety of paintings around the Boulder, Colorado area.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m focused on creating colorful art that brings joy to viewers. People who buy the paintings often describe them to me as bright and happy–all of which makes me happy! My favorite subjects are florals and abstracted aspen forests, since I live in Colorado, which provides plenty of inspiration.

One exciting development that has come out of my art ‘career’ is a charitable initiative I launched through my membership with the Louisville Art Association near Boulder. It’s called Paintings for NonProfits, in which we solicit donated paintings from our members and other artists to distribute to local nonprofits. The artwork is used to beautify their facilities–homeless shelters, food pantries, tutoring programs, etc.–so that the people who spend time there can be surrounded by something other than institutional-looking walls.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The most important quality underlying just about everything I have been successful doing is attitude. It’s a combination of optimism and confidence, If you aim high, you might just get there; but if you don’t even try, for sure you won’t! For example, while creating art is satisfying, relaxing and joyful for me, getting it placed in galleries and cafes takes completely different skills: the confidence to approach those venues and the optimism that they will like my art and want to display it.

Another quality I’d list has to do with dedication to a goal, which goes back to work ethic. When I had time to re-engage my lifelong love for painting, I threw myself into it: classes, reading, experimenting, no effort was too much work. Whatever it took, I pursued it, determined to make my skills match my expectations.
And I have no doubt I will always be pushing the boundaries of my abilities.

And a quality that is helpful no matter what your goals are is a sharing and giving spirit. I try to be a mentor and a helpful colleague to others, whether that means sharing my sources for exhibition, offering encouragement or providing artistic insights. I find when you’re helpful to others they are helpful to you–or someone else down the road will be helpful to you in a loop of kindness karma.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

They sent me to Washington University in St. Louis, the college I asked to go to, even though they didn’t understand the value in it and couldn’t really afford it. They came from a very different time and place, and not only questioned why a female should go to college, but why it should be an expensive private university when the state school was available. So I will be forever grateful that they honored my request. I had a great education there, earning two degrees in English Literature, taking classes in studio art, meeting my husband there, and raising our children in the St. Louis neighborhood that housed that same university..

Contact Info:

• Other: My art email: dweinerart52@gmail.com

Image Credits

Strauss Peyton (opening photo)