Dina Gardner
Dina Gardner has always been fascinated and intrigued by the unique process each artist demonstrates as they work through their creative gift of expression. Her process always starts with music, which influences what happens on her canvas. At her easel, there is a lot of singing (slightly off key) and many spontaneous dance parties. While not discriminating on mediums, working with everything from house paint to cold wax to ink and collage, her go-to medium is soft pastels. With the music on, she sketches her composition on her canvas, a slightly gritty piece of paper, sometimes purchased, sometimes hand-made. An avid photographer, she sometimes uses a photo reference for inspiration but, just as often, she paints from imagination. Unlike many pastelists, she doesn't pre-select the colors she uses, preferring to choose whichever ones speak to her in the moment. Although her work leans toward impressionism, there are doses of realism and abstraction thrown in from time to time. Raised in Southern California, Dina now splits her time between Manhattan Beach, California, and Boston, MA, her adoptive city for over 40 years. Before becoming a full-time artist, Dina founded her first recruiting firm when she was 25 and then spent the next 32 years creating and running three more companies. What she loved most about being an entrepreneur was the process of getting each business off the ground. She loved the 'launching' stage, the 'blank canvas' stage, where she created and then executed her vision. Standing at her easel allows her to put these same skills to use every single time she creates a painting. Dina's motto is 'Carpe Diem" and she does her best to make that happen each and every day.
IG @carpe_dina
