Rachel Bodnar named to Budding Artist Program
Dancing Tree Creations Artisans Gallery & Studio is proud to name Rachel Bodnar as their next Budding Artist. An opening reception was held during September’s Fourth Friday Boyertown Art Walk on Sept. 22. The Budding Artist Program provides school-aged artists an opportunity to join over 200 local and national artisans in exhibiting and selling their crafts for a three-month period of time with all proceeds going to the Budding Artist.
Bodnar, a senior at Boyertown Area Senior High, is the Gallery’s 12th Budding Artist; her work will be available through December 2017.
For Bodnar, creating art was always a hobby; but once she began high school and started to
take art more seriously, it became much more. Until then, painting was only what she did when she was spontaneously inspired; now it is a driving force with inspiration harvested from everyday life.
Her first high school drawing class, taught by Mr. Dareneau, was nothing like she expected. Like most people who get to this level, she expected strict rules on her artistic process that would result in a photo-realistic masterpiece. Instead, what she received was helpful advice tailored to her creativity and encouragement to foster her own style. Instead of creating a photocopy of an existing object (which she can also now do, thanks to the teachings of Mr. Dareneau), she learned to create her own art.
Painting intensified her new-found love of creating. Bodnar credits Mrs. Pamela Hendrix, a Boyertown High School Painting and Mixed Media teacher, with helping her understand the feeling behind art, the passion that moves a brush across a canvas. By giving her students the explicit freedom to create whatever they found inspiring or intriguing, Hendrix helped Bodnar discover the hunger she had for painting, “While drawing, to me, has always been about precision and grit,” Bodnar states, “painting has become a children’s story book, ripe with imagination and color.”
Bodnar’s future with art remains a blank canvas. Not only is she interested in any and all forms of creation and capturing beauty, she is still trying to translate this love into a college and career plan. The Savannah College of Art and Design has always been in her sights, but so have many other schools. Working for a company like Disney has always interested her because of their dedication to detail and creativity. “Maybe I will end up there someday,” Bodnar said, “working on a creative team and dreaming up ideas for people of all ages to squeal and laugh over, tear up or sing along to; but I know that my future lies in my imagination, and the only thing that can catch up to that is my art.”
“We hope you’ll be able to join Rachel at her reception to encourage her further and learn more about this talented budding artist’s imagination,” said Lyn Camella-Rich, co-owner of Dancing Tree Creations.