Dawna Bemis Celebrates her Upbringing

Dawna Bemis knows she was blessed with a unique childhood.

Four generations of her family thrived in one teeming house- hold, and at any given time when she was growing up, she was surrounded by extended family — cousins, great-uncles, great- grandparents — who virtually took over an entire neighborhood in the tiny mid-Maine town of Veazie.

“You can’t throw a rock without hitting relatives of mine up there,” quipped the artist, who has since immigrated south to Portland, calling her upbringing a “privilege.” “I recognize how special it was.”

And also how rare. Bemis, in her prolific encaustic geometric works, explores the loss of such generational bonds and conduits of knowledge in today’s fractured, solitary, technology-dependent society.

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