Meet Dawn Bassett

We were lucky to catch up with Dawn Bassett recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Dawn, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

At about age 8, I was an observant, quiet kid. People would call me mouse or shy. I started an apprenticeship with a local artist about half an hour from the wilderness I grew up in. Once a week for two hours I would go to her garage and work alongside her at some sort of medium. Watercolor, mosaic, stained glass…she would talk to me like I was her age and if I got hungry she would make popcorn. She took me seriously, lent me books I still love to this day, books by Tom Robbins …Barbara Kingsolver. I felt she was herself with me and expected me to do the same. Being able to form my sense of self in this way gave me not just confidence but integrity. I could hold beliefs and defend them. It was very empowering for me, the tiniest girl in her class.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Largely self-taught, I have dedicated nearly two decades to mastering the forms of architectural plaster, all the while experimenting and planting seeds for a body of artwork that stands in stark relief against a backdrop of plaster as a static finish. With pilgrimages and residencies around the world, I obtained as much knowledge as I could gather about fine plasters. With techniques I developed through innovation and experimentation, a more than 2,000 year old formula for a Moroccan building material, tadelakt, is exploded into a new artistic medium. In this new genre, you see the transformation of a prosaic time-worn architectural finish into a new language backed by a voice dedicated to unlocking its secrets while preserving the material’s mystique.
Currently I am working and living in the Rogue River Valley of southern Oregon. Represented by Billis Williams gallery in LA and SAS in Seattle. I have multiple proposals in the works for large scale installations and will be showing for the second year in a row in July at Seattle Art fair. I’m a solo parent(via donor) of a wonderful daughter who is always down for sushi or NY style pizza.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I think if I had to sum up what it takes to live and work as a contemporary artist, it would be first-give it up or give it everything. You will have to sacrifice things in life to stay on a path this narrow but if you want the path more than anything else, it’s doable.

Find joy where you can as often as you can.

Make sure you have a couple really good friends to really talk to. Someone who can mirror reality back to you in the hard times and share in the successes.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

Time. Time is the greatest threat and maker of my life. It propels and compels me. It wrestles me from the depths of despair but it also keeps me from being able to be content. No time will ever be enough. And the big walls and spaces and projects I dream of can’t come fast enough. When you love someone or something the time escapes you, when you’re in the trenches it slows to a crawl. The only reprieve I have found is when my hands are busy. When I’m in the work and time loses meaning for being present.

Also I do qigong everyday which helps. 🙂

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @onlythemonster

Image Credits

Myself