Dori DeCamillis

My story

I was born in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, one of the snowiest places in the USA. I showed passion for art, writing, and the outdoors at an early age. I captured the highlights of my childhood in a memoir, “My Steamboat,” complete with an eccentric family and lots of snowmen. I moved to Boulder, CO when I was 18 to study fine art at the University of Colorado, and ended up living there for 10 years. I got my degree in painting and art history. I would classify myself at the time as part hippie and part sassy fashion girl, although that might describe almost all college women.

After college I set out with my first husband on a wild, three-year journey around the United States in a vintage (read barely-running) motor home. We were literally homeless (unless you call a Wal-Mart or McDonalds parking lot a home) and lived in Florida in the winter and up north in the summer. We made our living at outdoor art festivals, and met a whole lot of way-too-interesting people on the way. Our motor home broke down in 38 states, some states more than 4 times, but we won over 40 major exhibition awards at the top festivals in the country. I wrote a book about our adventures called, “The Freeway.” The subject matter for our small paintings was the homes of strangers, family, and friends with whom we visited and stayed during our travels. In a way we painted a sociological portrait of America, with our own twist on it. Emphasis on the twist.

I fell in love with Birmingham, Alabama while traveling, and we settled there in 1994. I loved its climate, beauty, and Southern culture, but mostly the friendly, genuine people. From our new home base we traveled to outdoor art festivals, galleries, and museums to exhibit our paintings. For the next 7 years our career blossomed and grew. The highlight of that period was a solo exhibit of our paintings at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

In 2002 Joe DeCamillis and I went our separate ways. Soon after I met my current husband, the ceramic artist and fly fisherman, Scott Bennett. Together we founded Red Dot Gallery, a working studio, teaching space, and art gallery. Since 2004 we’ve been joyfully building a tight knit community of creatives. Our job consists of hanging out with nice people, making art.

When Red Dot first opened, being next to a clay studio afforded me the inspiration and tools to incorporate ceramic tiles in my paintings, and with this mixed media combination I completed two bodies of work over several years. One called “The Grammar of Ornament,” was purely decorative and very satisfying to make. “Exhibit A” evolved from there, a 12 panel paintings-with-ceramics project depicting places in Alabama. I received the Alabama State Council on the Arts Fellowship for the series, and it was hosted by the lovely  Mobile Museum of Art. Click here for images and info on the paintings from this period.

Since 2011 I’ve been creating the Without a Net project. After all of my artistic exploration of different places, I decided to focus even closer to home and use my insides for subject matter. This website will fill you in on the particulars.

The Hunstville Museum of Art hosted a solo exhibit of the Without a Net Paintings from February to June of  2015. From February to November of 2020 I had a solo exhibit of the work at the Mobile Museum of Art.