by Samantha Nordstrom, CSU Student
After sending her sons to school, Dara Weyna prepares a fresh cup of coffee and retreats to her breezy in-home studio in the garage with her black cat. Brightly colored accessories adorn the homey studio everywhere one looks. The walls are covered in Weyna’s artwork, from crocheted floral breasts to figurative landscape paintings, to tight, detailed sketches of nature, some colored and some not. Friendly cards, clippings from friends and family, and inspiring quotes are assorted on a black bulletin board. Boxes of supplies line a triple-decker shelf filled with cloth, paints, yarn, brushes, and other art
supplies. Woven rainbow rugs rest on the floor, and Weyna’s latest project supplies lay scattered on a green table in the center of the room. She lights a lavender-vanilla scented candle and starts her session by shading and sketching curved lines on an easel taller than her to “get loose.” Until her sons arrive home from school, she spends all her time working intentionally, and often blissfully, in the studio.
Multidisciplinary artist Dara Weyna crochets, paints, draws and creates jewelry and collage art, in addition to mothering two children in Windsor, Colorado. However, Weyna’s artwork isn’t limited to the confines of her current studio – it’s been prominent throughout her entire life.
Artistic from an Early Age
Growing up in Chicago, Weyna has always been artistic. During her youth, she met great art teachers who encouraged her to pursue her passion. But for a long time, Weyna didn’t know what life would look like as an artist. Just before turning 30, she returned to Northeastern Illinois University to obtain her art degree. After graduating from Northeastern Illinois University with a bachelor’s degree in studio art and art history, she said she knew she needed to continue making art all the time. “I would never be a nine-to-five person,” Weyna said. “I would just lose my mind.”
Never Satisfied with One Medium
Weyna said that of all the mediums she utilizes, she mainly works with crochet art and painting. According to Weyna, crocheting and painting often “inform one another” and inspire her creative visions. “I often get to a point where I’m painting and then I start thinking, ‘How would this work if I was doing a similar thing in crochet painting?’” She said. “And the same thing when I’m crocheting, I think, ‘This is really cool three-dimensionally, but what would it
look like if it was a flat painting?’” Among Weyna’s most well-known artistic projects is her colorful crochet breasts, which she started creating in 2021. Weyna said they originally started as crochet circles before she had the idea to add nipples and areola and transform the circles into breasts.
She was also working simultaneously on nature drawings inspired by breasts but more abstract. Then, she decided to incorporate elements of those nature drawings into the crochet breasts so they would also resemble flowers. The breasts were essentially a “happy accident.” “I think it’s important to recognize the beauty and importance of the female breast and of itself,” Weyna said. “Like all the things that it goes through in its life. They’re so amazing, and there’s so many things you can explore with the subject of the female breast.”
Weyna’s portfolio states that her intention with the project was to create a grid of breasts that would appear like colorful circles from a distance. The artwork reflects on themes of self-acceptance, womanhood, and motherhood. Lesly Alvarez-Rivera, a visitor relations associate at the Museum of Art Fort Collins, said she loves how her artwork draws attention to women’s issues through the artistic lens of the female body. “At first, you don’t see it because it’s just a lot of colors, and it kind of looks more like a landscape, but when you actually look into the details, you can see the more hidden image of the female body,” Alvarez-Rivera said. “I’m a big fan of bringing more female worlds out [into the public].”
Most recently, Weyna created a mask for the 2024 Masks Fundraiser and Exhibition at the Museum of Art Fort Collins. The mask is a colorful, floral crochet boob called “Grace’s Garden,” and is a continuation of Weyna’s crochet breast series. The mask is currently on display in the museum and available for auction online. Another project, the “You are Loved” crochet series, is “one of her favorite things she has ever done.” The project involves Weyna creating small, simple crochet hearts. She started the project after her grandmother, who helped raised her as a child, passed away in 2013. Eventually, Weyna had crocheted so many hearts that she began leaving the hearts in public places, like the store and a park bench. As people started finding the hearts, Weyna began receiving requests to donate baskets of hearts for charity benefits. She’s also taught others how to crochet hearts, so the project “just keeps going.”
“It’s something that feels really good for me to do,” Weyna said. “And I know it’s bringing joy to others even if I don’t know who finds them. Complete strangers could find them, and as long as it’s making their day a little happier, that’s the whole point.”
Always Learning, Always Creating
Weyna has sold her artwork at Dandelions and Rust, a thrift boutique in Old Town Fort Collins, and was selected for the 2023 Rocky Mountain Triennial at the Museum of Art Fort Collins. She’s also had an exhibit in the local Fort Collins art lab, hosts workshops from her studio and sells her work in the Museum of Fort Collins gift shop. “Her art is so unique,” Anna DeSoto, another visitor relationships associate at the Museum of Art Fort Collins, said. “We don’t have anything like it in the gift shop. I really love how unassuming her Rocky Mountain Triennial piece was. It’s fun and playful but also really centered around the female anatomy.”
When asked how she grew as an artist and came to develop her own “creative vision,” Weyna said she’s still trying to hone it. She believes that she’s developed her owns style from years of work, trying new things and not giving up. Weyna said she cares about constructive criticism and feedback, but she does not try to mold her art into what other people want to see. She creates art for herself and “to be fulfilled from the act of creation.” Ultimately, Weyna said that being creative is work in itself, and her creative process happens inside and outside the studio.
“Maybe I’m not crocheting or making something, but I’m thinking about it,” She said. “Even when I don’t have time to be in my studio and execute my ideas, I’m still working. It’s a part of my DNA, and it doesn’t ever go away.”