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lorraine
MARA
LOCAL ARTIST DAZZLES WITH DOTS! WRITTEN BY WENDY HOBDAY HAUGH | PHOTOS PROVIDED | ARTWORK BY LORRAINE MARA
Dot artist Lorraine Mara at work in her home studio.
Gorgeous badge reels and glass cases.
If you’ve ever seen a piece of dot-studded art and been blown away by its intricate beauty, artist Lorraine Mara wants you to know that dot art—the repeated imprinting of dots of different sizes and colors on a surface—is a lot easier than it looks. “Anyone can learn to do it,” insists the Town of Day resident. “All it takes is patience, practice, paints of the right consistency, and the right tools.” As a child, Lorraine Mara enjoyed doing all kinds of arts and crafts. But over time, creative hobbies were swept aside as she focused on college, employment, and marriage. “Occasionally, I might make a few Christmas gifts,” she muses, “but I was busy with work and other activities, so creative interests fell to the wayside. In the back of my mind, though, I always planned to take an art course or do something artistic ‘one of these days.’” For the past 17 years, Mara has been a Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker with Berkshire Hathaway. But a few years 26 | SIMPLY SARATOGA | HOLIDAY 2023
ago, when her husband, Joe, retired, she suddenly found herself with a little more free time. And shortly thereafter, when COVID hit and the world ground to a halt, Mara found herself with even more time to rekindle the artistic endeavors she’d enjoyed in her youth. “First, I signed up for a ZOOM Intro to Drawing art course through SUNY Adirondack,” she explains. “It was great! I just sat at my kitchen table with my charcoal and drawing pad and interacted with my teacher and fellow students. Then, in the fall of 2020, I read that a wood-burning course, Intro to Pyrography, was being offered at The Adirondack Folk School in Lake Luzerne. I’d always been interested in the school’s many courses, and since I lived nearby and other things in my life were temporarily on hold, I decided to sign up.” Mara not only enjoyed wood-burning but excelled at it—so much so that she is currently scheduled to teach Intro to Pyrography classes in The Adirondack Folk School’s spring, summer, and fall 2024 line-up! saratogaTODAYnewspaper.com