VITAE

Education:

  • AA, Young Harris College

  • BA, English and Music, Newberry College

  • BFA, Painting and Drawing, University of Georgia

  • MFA, Painting, Goddard College

Professional Teaching Experience:

  • High School Teacher, Visual Arts and English (Ten Years)

  • Teacher and Art Department Head, Georgia's Governor's Honors Program (Six Summers)

  • Department Head and Associate Professor of Art, Piedmont College (Ten Years)

  • Co-founder and Instructor, Dianne Mize Studio, later to become The Art Studio at Sautee Nacoochee Center (a total of 24 years)

  • On-line instructor through weekly newsletters, YouTube Quick Tips, full length video tutorials and live online workshops. (Current)

Professional Experience as Artist:

  • Since the mid-70’s, I have intentionally avoided painting competitions because I believe that, in the long run, human beings are at their best when they respond from within rather than compete with others. Competition, from my perspective, is best left for games.

  • Published two books, Finding Freedom to Create and In Praise of Mountain Waters.

  • Participated in numerous private and group shows

  • Conducted many workshops and seminars

  • Written and published numerous tutorials and analytical articles.

  • Has created 170 video tutorials available in download or on DVD and evolving online courses

  • Currently teaching virtual classes on line and continuing her studio work

 

I am an artist, a teacher of art, and a native of rural Georgia. My home since the mid-70s is the northeast Georgia mountains where I live in a small cabin with my two cats, Lizzy and Charley.  The most significant and fulfilling part of my life was the nearly thirty years with my life partner and soul mate, Dr. Howard Hanson, whose death in early 2010  put me on a journey towards a new normal, a process on-going.

I don't remember not loving immersing myself in art whether drawing, painting, sculpting or printmaking. Neither do I remember not loving music: playing guitar, mandolin, my beloved hammered dulcimer or listening to others play.  I suppose my favorite composer is Chopin, although I do love Mozart, especially when he's being naughty, and Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, Debussy and Saint-Saëns.  And I still enjoy listening to the Mamas and Papas, The Bee Gees, early Joan Baez, James Taylor, Carol King and Peter Paul and Mary.  

Artists I admire most are Richard Schmid, Nita Engle, Charles Reid, Michael Parkes, Robert Genn and oh yes, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Claude Monet and Andrew Wyeth. I don't care for trendy stuff or for most of what the modern culture raves about. Rather I prefer artists who ignore the current trends and follow their own inner directions, regardless of genre or time period.

I have no patience with those who neglect honing their skills and craftsmanship, who fail to question the mainstream's direction, or whose motive is fitting-in or chasing a profit rather than expressing their own inner voice.  I'm a rebel by nature, always have been.

If I have an artist's statement (a tag our mainstream culture has deemed crucial to being professional), it is that we are each born unique and that uniqueness is what gives us individuality, that if we exchange that uniqueness for a mask of any kind, we will not fully realize our purpose on this earth, we will never become whole.

In February, 2015, I partnered with SauteeLive to produce instructional videos unlike any being offered today.  Each lesson focuses on how to use a composing principle as a tool rather than following it as a rule.  Later, we expanded this idea to holding monthly live online workshops, then offering these as self-pacing courses. My passion is to spread the word to emerging artists that their creativity is limited only by the limits they, themselves, place on it.  Learning to use composing principles as tools can open up infinite creative potential.

As to my work, I love to paint, I love drawing and I love teaching.  That's it. I'm quite happy painting things in nature, most especially the abundance of life I find in these north Georgia mountains where my soul finds itself at home.