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Tanya Lown
Sometimes we have two major interests, one we pursue for a living and one we pursue for our soul. That was the case for Tanya Lown, who spent her career in education: in banking as a program development officer and division training manager, as a teaching associate while pursuing her Ph.D. in French, and as a high school teacher and department manager. Little did she realize at the time, that the creativity required to develop learning materials would translate to creating art.
Once retired, she excitedly returned to her childhood interest in art and silversmithing. Tanya feels so fortunate to have found a rewarding second career. She fell in love with manipulating silver into beautiful wearable art and has worked to continually perfect her craft. Tanya has received almost as many honors for her work in silver as she did as a teacher and creator of training programs. In addition to many First Place awards and Best in Class, she has also found recognition in a variety of publications.
The timeless beauty of nature inspires Tanya to create in silver, leather, and occasionally in copper and bronze. Fascinated by the beauty of the natural world: plants, mountains, sea, natural stones and pearls, she aims to reflect a uniqueness but also a one of a kind modern elegance and sophistication in each piece she creates. As a reflection of nature, her creations range from the simply elegant to statement pieces. Because she lives in Arizona, much of the desert and mountains is depicted in her art. She keeps journals in which she draws her inspirations and uses her drawings to create templates for use in her creations.
After several years creating in silver, Tanya added leather to her artist interest. To perfect her skill, she took classes in preparing the leather, etching, tooling, coloring, and finishing. Due to her love for plants, mountains, animals and birds, these have found their way to inspiring the pictures on her bookmarks, keychains, and journals.
Her range of her work can be seen at the Leaping Lizard Art Gallery in Tucson, the Cactus Wren Art Gallery in Tubac, and in Catalina where she has a limited collection of petite earrings and necklaces at the Freebird Shoppe. Most of her work can also be seen at tanyalowndesigns.com. Follow her on instagram @tanyalowndesigns.
