SELECTED EXHIBITIONS (bold=solo shows)
2022 Better Angels: The Firefighters of 9/11, Museum of Friends, Walsenberg CO (upcoming)
2021 Better Angels: The Firefighters of 9/11, Corazon de Trinidad Creative District, Trinidad CO
2018 Wild at Heart, A.P.E. Ltd, Northampton MA
2018 Portraits: Wild at Heart, Mercury Gallery, Boulder CO
2017 Private Exhibitions, Santa Barbara CA & Houston TX
January-November/2016 Better Angels: The Firefighters of 9/11, Wood Museum of Springfield History, Springfield MA
2015 Endangered, Western New England University, Springfield MA
2015 dECAde, Easthampton City Arts, Easthampton MA
2015 Pioneer Women, MAP Gallery, Easthampton MA
2014 Animalia: The Endangered, Hampden Gallery, UMASS, Amherst MA
2014 Unbound, Vol. IV, Artistree Gallery, Woodstock VT
2013 New England Collective IV, Galatea Fine Art, Boston MA
2013 Unbound, Vol. III, Artistree Gallery, Woodstock VT
2012 Serial Art, Easthampton City Arts, Easthampton MA
2012 Unbound, Vol. II, Artistree Art Center, Woodstock VT
2012 Amherst Biennial, 4 venues, Amherst MA
2012 Anniversary Invitational, Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder CO
2012 Better Angels, Colorado Springs Fire Museum, Colorado Springs CO
2012 Better Angels, World Financial Center, New York NY
2012 Better Angels, San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, San Angelo TX
2012 Better Angels, CPSE Excellence Conference, Las Vegas NV
2012 Better Angels, Firehouse World, San Diego Convention Center, San Diego CA
2011 Better Angels, VCOS Conference, Clearwater FL
2011 Group Show, Submissions Gallery, Easthampton MA
2011 Better Angels, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC
2011 Better Angels, World Burn Conference, Cincinnati Convention Center, Cincinnati OH
2011 Better Angels, Fire Rescue Int’l, Atlanta Convention Center, Atlanta GA
2011 Better Angels, Firehouse Expo, Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore MD
2011 Better Angels, Maryland State Firemen’s Assn, Ocean City MD
2010 Members Show, Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, Kleinart/James Art Center, Woodstock, NY
2009 Extinction, Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver CO
2009 The Ditch Project, Boulder Public Library, Boulder CO
2009 Everyone Loves a Train Wreck, Art Students League, Denver CO
2008 Whimsy Wonderland, Blink Gallery, Boulder CO
2007 Under the Circumstances, Blink Gallery, Boulder CO
2007 Colorado Masters, Sandy Carson Gallery, Denver CO
2007 The Weight of History, Old Firehouse Art Center, Longmont CO
2006 15th National Art Exhibition, No. Colorado Artist Assn, Loveland CO
2005 Biased Biographies, Regis University, Denver CO
2005 Group Show, Soke Annex, Denver CO
2004 Family Stories, Children’s Hospital, Denver CO
2004 Dawn Howkinson Siebel/Mixed Media Paintings, Soke Fine Art, Minturn CO
2004 Fringed, Old Firehouse Art Center, Longmont CO
2003 Painted Stories, Dairy Center for the Arts, Denver CO
2003 Art Alive, Soke Fine Art, Minturn CO
2003 Emerging Artists 2003 Invitational, Edge Gallery, Denver CO
2001 Art Triumphs, Boulder Public Library, Boulder CO
2000 Eye of the Beholder, Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder CO
2000 Heart Throb, Women’s Art Center, Denver CO
1998 This is Not Ed, Mercury Gallery, Boulder CO
1998 Sign Language, Nat’l Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder CO
HONORS, AWARDS & GRANTS
2022 US Department of State Art in Embassies program selectee for US Embassy in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo
2013 “Unbound, Vol. III,” Third Place, Artistree Gallery, Woodstock VT 2013
2011-12 Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Public Safety Officers’ Benefits program grant for 10-city national tour of Better Angels: The Firefighters of 9/11
2006 BCAA/Milash Representational Artist Award, Boulder CO, May 2006
2006 Northern Colorado Artist Association, 15th National Show, April 2006. “Fine Print” Award, Ft. Collins, CO, Juror: Dean Sobel, Director, Clyfford Still Museum
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
Kirkland & Ellis, Chicago IL
Children’s Hospital of Denver, Denver CO
Mark & Polly Addison, Boulder CO
Charles Townsend, Condé Nast, NYC
BIOGRAPHY
Dawn Howkinson Siebel was born during a snowstorm in Lake County, Indiana, in November 1950. Trained in the theatre at Carnegie-Mellon, she moved to New York City in 1972 to be an actress, quickly earned a Broadway credit, and almost as quickly lost interest in the theater as a career. A class at the New School introduced her to batik and she fell in love immediately with its complexity and how it freed her to draw. This led to 12 years as a dyer, beginning with batik t-shirts she sold in craft fairs and ending with intricately dyed silk clothing using processes of her own design. She has a t-shirt in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution from the early days and in 1985 she sold her collection of one-of-a-kind silk kimonos to Bergdorf Goodman before embarking on a trip around the world.
She put a set of watercolors in her backpack to have something to do and learn on that trip. Over the next 18 months, she fell in love with the medium, painting as she traveled. Watercolor was a perfect segue from dye. Both mediums are fluid, translucent and have white only as a negative space. Returning to New York, she painted at night with a day job in publishing for the next seven years.
In 1994, she abandoned New York for Boulder, Colorado, and there, in a community of working artists, she finally found the nerve and inspiration to devote herself fully to art. Oil became her medium of choice in 1998 and over the next decade she developed a body of narrative work called Story Paintings, incorporating old family photographs. Concurrently, for almost 15 years, her base income came from painting faux finishes and murals.
In 2010 she partnered with the National Fallen Firefighter’s Foundation and moved back to the east coast to realize her project, Better Angels: The Firefighters of 9/11, 343 oil portraits on burned blocks of wood. She completed the paintings while working with the NFFF on all other aspects of what became an 11-city two-year national tour. It continues to be exhibited.
She settled in Easthampton MA in 2012 and by 2013 was painting portraits of endangered species. The subject matter was a conscious choice. Compelled now to address environmental issues in her work, these portraits are an argument for the sentience and rights of her subjects. In 2015 she decided to meet all the animals and use only her own reference images. It was a practical decision that deepened her work in ways she had not imagined. She and her subjects have regarded one another. They have posed for their portraits.
As a visual artist she is self-taught and always learning.
In early 2022, Dawn moved to Santa Fe NM.