‘No right or wrong in my art’
Dina Fernandez is an experimental artist. Something about her work is empowering and illustrates a world of possibilities.
“My biggest word is ‘why,’ ” she explained. “Why can’t I put a wasp nest in the middle of a piece? Why can’t I put rusty bits with lace? There is no right or wrong in my art.”
Fernandez’s father was in the Air Force, a career that took the family through the United States and into Europe where Fernandez visited museums and galleries, went castle hunting and crossed the threshold of historical places, such as Anne Frank’s hiding place.
“My education started fairly early,” she said. Constantly moving, Fernandez made friends with her journal, which she confided in and filled with thoughts, observations and creative expressions.
When Fernandez was about 12, her father retired from the military and they settled in Spokane Valley. She attended West Valley High School where she expressed herself through fashion statements and creative writing. She went on to earn an associate of arts degree from Spokane Falls Community College and then a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Eastern Washington University. She had considered being a teacher but changed her mind.
Fernandez married and had a daughter. When her daughter started school, Fernandez started making purses and selling them. “I’ve been experimenting ever since,” she said.
She created a patchwork wall hanging adorned with beads, buttons, felt and found objects and stamped words from a poem she had written onto the fabric. She began collecting things from secondhand stores and found objects to incorporate into her art.
A large closet in her lower South Hill home is filled with containers of acorns, wasp nests, beads, pieces of metal, fabric, buttons, and other odds and ends that she glues onto her multimedia creations. “Glue is an important tool to have,” she said, “If you can glue something to something, go for it.”
She makes funky felt tentacles as hair accessories, small, crocheted purses, bracelets made of felt balls, altered dominos, and beads, found-object necklaces, boxes and folding wooden chairs with painted accents and glued-on photos.
Her wall pieces contain iconic images of strong women from reproductions of famous paintings by artists like Gustav Klimt or Frida Kahlo, an artist known for exposing her pain in her art. To the wall hangings, Fernandez adds trinkets that serve as subtle messages to a viewer. “It’s almost intuitive,” Fernandez mused, “I start with a picture then I pull colors out and start rummaging through my things. The pieces come together like a puzzle. The message appears when the puzzle is complete.”
Fernandez, 38, has taught art in her home and in local galleries and set up her wares at area art festivals including ArtFest. She has done commission pieces, taking a client’s treasured photo, adorning it with unique items and transforming it into a work of art that she said is both whimsical and organic. “Whimsical because I feel like Alice, who has fallen down the rabbit hole where things that shouldn’t go together do because it is a world with no rules. Organic because I like to use seed pods, pressed flowers, wasps nests in my work. I also use the word organic because my work isn’t perfect.”
Perfect or not, Fernandez’s work illustrates empowerment through her use of imagery and objects transformed into items likely to be found in Wonderland.