Check out Pamela Dorris DeJong’s Artwork

Today we’d like to introduce you to Pamela Dorris DeJong.

Pamela, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Art-making combined with healing has brought forth enormous personal energy. Both a career as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and a studio artist were necessary for me to arrive at internal and financial balance. Becoming a second-degree Reiki healer taught me about hands-on healing. After becoming proficient in conventional painting mediums, I became interested in luminosity, layers, and the atmospheric conditions creating the wavering vibrant color the impressionists saw. I was fortunate to travel to regions and plein air paint where many artists have painted before me. I found encaustic and other mediums that help me create luminous layers. After painting land and waterscapes for many years I realized that I could put forth healing energy towards the earth and our oceans. Healing can occur through painting, meditation, education, sharing the message through the image itself and explanation of the intent of the message. My current work is about Cape Cod birds and environmental threats to their habitat.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
Presently I create mixed media paintings and small box sculptures. Sometimes I am responding to the environment and sometimes I am just reacting to life. I am inspired and fascinated by birds and wildlife living along side of us day to day. Observing their habits for enjoyment and creating them in my work, “Cape Bird Waiting” is a series of paintings that include small birds that I see in Falmouth Massachusetts. I am concerned about habitat elimination due to climate change and toxins seeping into the aquafers, estuaries, brackish ponds, rivers, lakes and oceans. It indirectly addresses my deep concern about human health as it pertains to toxins in our environment. I am thinking of the future for my grandchildren, and their grandchildren. As an artist and a healer, I am also an educator and a messenger. My message is that we have work to do. The earth is in crisis and I want my art to help people to think about their environment. My paintings are built in layers. Starting with a researched concept, preparatory drawings are rendered on paper. As I build the work my unconscious process begins to take over. Sometimes I feel like a fireball of spinning feelings. The piece often works from a specific realistic rendering to the abstract as my thought process progresses. My goal is to find beauty and point out what we should endeavor to preserve.

What do you think it takes to be successful as an artist?
Artists always feel validated by the sale of their work. Exhibition attendance is always wonderful too. I know that the average person cannot afford to buy art, but many people look at art, try to understand it and are responsive to its message. The message is the most important thing. If I reach someone, I feel I have made a difference. You can support my work by letting me know if something reaches you and tell me how it made you feel. Even if you are not buying art, I am sending a visual message. It is the best way I communicate. Feel free to communicate back.

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
My website where I periodically announce upcoming local, regional and national exhibits and display new work

New England Wax Association at: newenglandwax.org

Gallery Blink, 1963 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington, MA. galleryblink.com

Contact Info:

• Website: pameladorrisdejong.com
• Email: pamela.dejong5@gmail.com
• Instagram: pameladejong is my handle on Instagram
• Facebook: Pamela Dorris DeJong on Facebook

Image Credit:
Pamela Dorris DeJong

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