After graduating with her MFA Doell spent time working as a Berlitz English instructor in Montreal and on short term teaching assignments at Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB and University College of the Cariboo (now Thompson Rivers University) in Kamloops, BC. In 1996 Doell moved to Alamosa, Colorado where she began teaching at Adams State College. Doell has been teaching printmaking, photography and a variety of other classes at ASC since then. Doell became department chair in 2003. She has exhibited across Canada and the United States with solo exhibitions in Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Windsor, St. John’s, Banff, Montreal and Alamosa.

 

Doell lives in Alamosa and enjoys golfing, spending time at the cabin in South Fork , hiking and traveling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the Horizon explores ideas of place and the identity that may be associated with it. The work is comprised of both landscape images and written text. The landscapes are based on the landscape of my childhood, the Canadian prairies, and the idea that my sense of landscape comes from those early places. Every place I have lived since then is considered in comparison to the prairie landscape. This sense of place and memory, however, is much more than just a visual. It is a collage of experiences which are juxtaposed and intermingled into unreliable, but seemingly accurate memories. The experience of working at Friesen’s is clearly a significant influence in this work and another signifier for place. These experiences are visually represented by book signatures which have not yet been folded into the book. They tell stories and show maps, complete with notations which give another level to the meaning of place than that shown in the landscape images. The later works in the series combine all these elements, collaged into a single print to replicate the multi-layered images which inhabit the human mind.

 

The other print images also explore less literally the idea of self and are in some ways self portraits, although perhaps in a less literal way. The Battle of the Left & Right Brain reflects a feeling I often have that the right side of the brain is in conflict with the left. Emotion battles logic. The visual battles the verbal. Some time they work together, not always. This print attempts to put the characteristics of the right brain and the left brain into a visual form, as well as illustrate this conflict. The idea in and of itself is probably flawed. Can the verbal and logical be represented visually? Or is it merely serving to give the right brain its turn? How to Grow a Spine suggests the difficulty of overcoming obstacles in life in a metaphorical way. It is, in effect, a recipe on how to overcome adversity and be a stronger person. Cheshire Kitty was a commission for a friend who loved cats and was obviously inspired by rereading Alice in Wonderland. It is in this exhibition because it is colorful and fun.

 

The cyanotypes included in this exhibition are part of a series of self-portraits. The self-portrait has a long tradition in the history of art and photography. Self Portrait with Small Feet originated as a demonstration on cyanotypes for a class I was teaching in the summer of 1998. I found the distortions created by the 17mm lens gave me a view of myself I had often seen but never really considered. This evolved into a larger body of work that explores the idea that a true self portrait would not represent the face but rather the everyday life of the artist or photographer. I don’t see my face unless I happen to look in a mirror. But I do see myself carrying out a wide variety of activities. What I see is mostly my hands, arms, legs, and feet. The cyanotype photographs in this exhibition show these body parts as I see them; talking with relatives, in Mom’s garden, with my cats, etc. It is my hope that the viewer will find these interesting parallels to their own activities and views of self, as well as wonder, “who is this person?” and “should I be looking?”