Dorr Bothwell’s Visual Music
By Cynthia Charters
March 30, 2005

Dorr Bothwell (1902-2000) was a woman pioneer of the technique of serigraph here on the West Coast. Through her art, teaching, and her book, Notan, the most powerful and objective concepts of design (Arthur W. Dow and Rudolph Schaeffer) were offered to generations of students at California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, the Parson’s School of Design, and the Mendocino Art Center. Just some of the well-known artists who studied with Dorr include noted sculptor Robert Hudson, William T. Wiley, and Carlos Villa.

Dorr understood that through carefully placed use of patterned elements—taken from her travels and evidenced in her African Sketchbook—visual music is played with repetition and rhythm. Her artwork is a symphony of Notan. Negative positive figure ground reversals and almost similar yet dissimilar elements organized in an intuitive spacial dance create a joyous, playful repetition and rhythmic accompaniment for the artist’s theme. Dorr’s tonal relationships are like a musical scale, bringing restraint and careful intention to her theme. Consider her serigraph of “Island Catnap,” or “Mendocino Pond Lilly.” They are humble summaries of “place” at a particular time, and yet they are timeless in their reach for the universal.

This artist thanks you, Dorr, for your teaching, your innovation, and your inspiration.

Visit www.CynthiaChartersArt.com for information on exhibits, teaching, lectures and workshops with Artist Cynthia Charters.

Each Dorr Bothwell Serigraph is numbered,
matted and sleeved for easy shipping to you. 

The price is $350
Includes the shipping, handling and tax if applicable.
 
For information, or to order the serigraph
Please email our Gallery Manager,
Judith Goodrich or call (800) 653-3328.

Banner Art is from "Sunrise Summer"