We recently connected with Dawn Train and have shared our conversation below.

Dawn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I am a single mom of two with a degree in early childhood and have a love for art. I especially love working with 18 months to two-year old’s in a classroom setting. In March of 2020 I was skiing on the mountain during spring break with my son and suffered a severe concussion on my very first ever ski run. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was skiing with Adaptive Sports as a parent since my son was the participant. After taking a tumble, I sat up and said “I don’t know what just happened, but I’m OK” and I remember looking across the slope and I could see my instructors face was white as a sheet and his mouth just open like oh my gosh what just happened. He seriously thought they were going to have to get ski patrol to help get me off the mountain is how bad it looked to him.

Literally in the middle of the ski run, we sat there and took a break before we tried to get me to stand up, and thankfully, he was such a professional as a person and a skier he was able to hold my poles and ski backwards as he took me down the mountain to take a break and get me looked over. At first, we just chalked it up to “Dawn” issues. As I suffer from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, ADHD and sensory issues. Being so hard headed and wanting to get right back out there and at that point was feeling fine. I hit the bunny slopes that afternoon and then again, the next morning with no issues. However, when the sun started coming up that’s when it hit me. I was dizzy, nauseous and having a hard time focusing more than usual. That is when the head of Adaptive Sports took me to see the doctor on the mountain and he said no more skiing, you have a concussion. Ironically during this time COVID was unknowingly just about to shut the whole mountain down. This is most likely why they didn’t really give me as much attention as they might have if all the craziness with COVID wasn’t going on. So still not understanding the full severity of my injury I stopped skiing but still had to take care of my son and help my dad drive back to San Antonio.

Fortunately, we got back to San Antonio and I thought life would just go on as normal but boy was I wrong. It turned out that I couldn’t use my phone, computer or TV for a full 3 months without having symptoms. During this time, I also found out I needed a hysterectomy. So, I’m sitting in my house recovering from two major procedures/issues with the world shut down and my ADHD is going off the charts with boredom. I decided to clean out my house as I love to organize (it’s therapeutic to me, besides pulling weeds) and that wasn’t causing any issues with my recovery. After weeks of cleaning and organizing I came across some old scrapbooking supplies and there was my Klutz book of quilling strips. So, I thought to myself what can I do with these as Mother’s Day was coming up. Slowly I was able to search the internet for little amounts of time and came across some interesting bowl designs. I thought immediately how my mom would love a bowl/vase. So, I got to work and thus created my first piece.

Mother’s Day came and as we sat outside my brother’s house celebrating my mom opened her gift and since we were all sitting in family groups my sister-in-law immediately got up and came closer as she thought it was so cool. After seeing their reactions, I started looking into more things that I could do and from there it spiraled into a 4-year journey of teaching myself how to make different things. I started off with more bowls. Then I moved onto a jelly fish and a fox and that’s when things took a huge creative turn for me. Hanukkah was coming up and I needed to give something to my 3 best friends so I created a Hamsa. Of course, my friends loved them. So, I was getting more confident in the elements I was making and techniques I was using.

As an artist you never throw anything away as you might be able to use it in something else. Then I thought how about I make a collage with my leftover pieces. So, getting some more inspiration from the internet I put my pieces to work and that’s when I came up with a design, I call Colorful Anxiety, as I also suffer from generalized anxiety which is one of my bigger disabilities. It takes away your confidence away and adds major worry no matter how strong you seem to be on the outside. Somehow this art form turned and negative anxiety into a positive anxiety. Now I was anxious over will my color pallet work, will the elements I’m working on look good and fit or will this even turn out cool. It was a positive addictive rush of that I just went with the flow of. Again, I used my mom as my first person to experiment on and gave her a framed piece for her 75th birthday with hidden elements about our family. Of course, all of her friends love it and so did she. That’s when I knew I had something unique and could possibly take this to the next level.

In the midst of all this I also started acquiring a ton of supplies and was in heaven getting to organize it all. I had paper strips that were 10mm, 7mm, 5mm and 3mm. Plus sorting trays with cork boards in them. Not to mention all the tools. So, this made it extra fun for me. I kept creating and framed my first 6 pieces. Four colorful anxieties, the jelly fish and a fox. I had no clue how or where I was going to sell them but I knew I needed to see them framed and work on pricing.

I decided to ask an old friend to come over and see everything had created and try to help me price everything. I met this amazing person at the preschool where I used to teach and became close to the family. When my son was 2 as I was looking for therapies to help him in his needs and she started a mommy and me art class for me and a few of my friends out of her house. Then comes 2008 and she opened a children’s art studio Paint Paper Scissors and hired me to work there. I LOVED IT. I got to be a big kid with adult responsibilities creating art and learning from someone I looked up to. So back to her coming over to see my news endeavor she was blown away. To the point where she says “I’m not leaving here without one of these”.

Still after pricing everything I had no clue on where to sell. Slowly I kept looking into different places. Then my daughter said I want to try resin. I said, well that’s not easy and blew it off. Then one day I heard of a studio called The Shard and decided to take her there and see what it was all about. We ended up making a canvas with broken glass and my daughter loved it. As we were leaving, she saw a charcuterie board that she wanted to replicate for my mom. So, we went back to make two charcuterie boards. Yes, as another mother’s days gift for my mom. First off, the owner was in love with the board she made and asked us to tag it when we posted it. Then she showed us the take home kits she had made as we were still in the no masking covid time but still not fully clear of it. Since we were going to Colorado for 5 weeks, we decided to pick up two coaster kits and give them a try. Needless to say, we were hooked. I stated buying resin molds and learning how to make resin art while still working on my quilling art. In November of 2023 my mom’s friend asked if I wanted to put out a table at her neighborhood’s art walk. So, I thought this would be the perfect time to sell some of my resin and I had a bunch a quilled Christmas ornaments and gift tags. I also brought just a few of my quilling pieces not really knowing how big of an art walk this really was. I ended up selling a ton of my resin pieces and some quilling too. This got me more excited that I really do have something people want. The resin remains my fun side art as it’s still a learning process but let’s just say I probably now have over 100+ molds and all the add-ins like glitter, rocks and mica powders. So, my daughter’s room was now turning into an art storage room. Plus, it’s been fun and therapeutic to organize and my daughter loves coming over and making stuff. We even got into the Make it Minis, but not trying to go overboard with that.

One week my best friend who had moved to New Jersey was in town visiting and asked me to help at a senior event at our local Jewish community center. There she introduced me to Claude who was the new person running the gift shop. I fell in love with him immediately as he was so energetic and knew all this cool stuff about art as he is a curator. He asked me to bring my art by for him to see. Literally the next day I showed up and from there the rest is history. He asked me to be a spot light artist for the month of September as this was a new program, he was putting together to bring in more people and show off local Jewish artist in our community.

As we discussed different things, he pushed me to think bigger and experiment with different designs. So, I went home and got to work. Now let’s not forget about little miss anxiety here. I was freaking out inside of what can I do that is bigger and different. Slowly I came up with ideas and got to work. Little did he know that I was already working on a personal piece I was going to hang above my bed and the paper strips for that were 1” thick and I had to order them from a company on Etsy called Bethlehem Papers. So, I got in contact with them and stated ordering more colors and adding 1/2” strips to my collection. At this point I had paper strips everywhere. I was reorganizing all the time (which was fun but tiring). Finally, I had to order clothing racks to hang all the paper strips from as I needed to see all the different colors. Most of my orders are from Amazon as it’s the best deal and most consistent in colors and size. One company had 60 colors in 3 to 4 sizes and another had 72 colors in 2 sizes plus all the custom strips. To date I now have 4 clothing racks full of strips.

As I kept trying to think bigger, I also have my love of Judaism and was trying to incorporate that into my art too. I had started making more Hamas and even made a tree of life. One piece I had made was a multi-level image of Shabbos candles. So, I thought why not make a huge tree of life, and I did with the 1/2” strips. That ended up being one of the first pieces to sell.

In the meantime, I had to find a new person to frame my art as the original place went out of business. I was told the best of the best was Art Inc. So, I went to Art Inc without an appointment and just showed up with all my art. I was introduced to Deborah and again my whole world changed with her amazing talent and help. Who knew how framing could elevate your art to a whole new level. It took me a while to get comfortable letting someone else take my art and figure out how to adhere it and frame it but soon enough I got to the point that I could walk in and say here’s another piece and walk right back out saying let me know how it turns out. As Deborah was framing, she was also showing off my art to different clients who wanted to know how they could buy one and they were directed to my upcoming art show. My Colorado summer came and went and I arrived back in San Antonio with only a week before my very first art show. Deborah excitedly saw my new pieces and framed them really quick.

Then it was time. The big day to set up was here and we got to work. I actually ended up selling two pieces just setting up. Now I haven’t mentioned this but I am a loud and proud kind of person. I’ll talk to almost anyone about anything (in the right setting) as I’m a nervous talker and am also not shy to say it as it is and people love that about me. However, I was a totally different person on the inside with this big art show and extremely nervous about how it would go. For the first time in my life, I felt very venerable. It was like I was putting up a personal piece of me that no one knew about and something that was very special to me and I had worked really hard on. Plus, my anxiety was going crazy as I knew this could be the start of something new and take me to new places.

Of course, the show was a success. I ended up selling 40% of my art and had never been so proud of myself like this. I was so humbled by everyone and their love for what I was creating.

Now knowing 100% for sure I was in the right place and have great art I knew it was time to find another place to show at and I had the perfect place. Since we come to Colorado constantly, we have become friends with a local framer Anne that has an art gallery in her frame shop, Gunnison Gallery. I called her up and told her I would be coming up and would like to show her my art. She also dabbles in quilling and origami so she was familiar with my work and had framed a bear for us to put in our house on the mountain. From there she asked me to be a spotlight artist for the upcoming month of August which happens to coincide with a HUGE art show in Crested Butte CO. So that was a definite yes. Now I’m off working my magic again to create wildflowers and more mountainous Colorado art pieces. I have also been asked to do an Artist in residence at the Jewish community center where I had my original art show.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Dawnald77
• Facebook: Dawn Train

Image Credits

I took all the pictures myself