Visions from past: Feinstein’s artwork
Senator’s colorful drawings from ’90s held in high regard among colleagues
WASHINGTON — Every day, hundreds of tourists walk past a nondescript office in a nook of the U.S. Capitol, unaware that inside is one of the most exclusive galleries in D.C.
It’s the hideaway of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein — a prestigious office space close to the Senate floor that she’s earned with her seniority and stature in the chamber. Inside, the powerful top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and former Intelligence Committee chairwoman has held countless meetings with colleagues, officials and foreign dignitar
ies.
While there, they’ve been treated to walls adorned with a lesserknown part of Feinstein’s work — her drawings. Some have been lucky enough to leave with a print of their own.
The coloredpencil drawings depict flowers and birds. She drew them more than 20 years ago, but Feinstein can still name the source of each one.
“Shirley’s Teapot” is an arrangement featuring her housekeeper’s teapot and an assortment of wildflowers. “Washington Spring” includes a pot of tulips and hyacinths, the first flowers to bloom in Washington each year, that Feinstein said brought color to her apartment early in her time in the capital.
Feinstein, 86, insists that she’s “not an artist.”
“I’m a doodler,” she said in an interview in her hideaway. “I started doodling a while back, and then it turned into this.”
The drawings on display were all done in the 1990s, and Feinstein says she no longer makes such prints. Elected to the Senate in 1992, the longtime California politician said she was lonely at first in Washington, so she took up drawing.
“For some reason, I don’t it anymore. I don’t know why,” Feinstein said. “Like so many things, you know, life is filled with phases. You go through a phase where you do this and a phase where you do that. This was a phase in the ’90s.”
The drawings have become something of an underground collector’s item in Washington. The senator has them printed from the originals and enjoys handing them out. She has donated several to the California State Society in Washington to be raffled off for charity each year for more than a decade, and some of her former chiefs of staff confirm they have more than one at home or in the office.
Rep. Jackie Speier, DSan Mateo, said she has a framed print of daffodils. Rep. Mike Thompson, DSt. Helena, has four Feinstein prints — “they’re awesome,” he says.
Sen. Susan Collins, RMaine, said she has a Feinstein print hanging in her own Senate hideaway, along with a coffee mug that the California senator had made with a print. She called Feinstein a “gifted artist.”
Former Gov. Jerry Brown said he was “very touched” to receive his drawing of flowers. Former Sen. Barbara Boxer, DCalif., gave her Feinstein drawing to UC Berkeley with her archive of papers.
“I'm very proud because they bring in some good numbers for charity,” Feinstein said. “That’s a nice part of it. It’s something to give to someone to use, or to hang.”
The prints are paid for with personal funds, not government money, her office said.
Feinstein never took art classes. Her process is simple, she said. She draws the images on a pad of paper, some on the first try and others after multiple attempts. “It just sort of comes to me,” she said.
She said her first drawing betrays that she was “sort of tentative” at the beginning, but she got more confident as time wore on.
Feinstein’s favorite print is a collection of California gold red tulips — so named because they open in the sun with a golden center — from the garden of a house where she used to live in San Francisco. She depicted them in a simple glass vase with smaller white flowers.
The drawing is named “Primary Tulips,” after her first Senate campaign in 1992. She said that’s probably why they stand out to her.
“I was in a campaign, you see,” she said. “I’m particularly fond of this one because it’s bold, and I like that . ... Red is my color.”
“I started doodling a while back, and then it turned into this.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, on her works of art