Dot Bardarson enjoys living in the moment when she is in her beautiful studio. The panoramic view of mountains and wetlands is the perfect background for her creative time there, time that seems endless on one hand and “never enough” on the other. She loses track of it when she is engulfed in a project there.
She is primarily a watercolorist, with awards and commissions, both private and from the State of Alaska. She was named “Queen of Arts” by the Seward Arts Council in 2014. Outside of Alaska, she was named “One of TOSCA’s Favorite American Artists.” in 2017. She is the recipient of the 2019 Alaska Governor’s Life Time Achievement Awards in the Arts.
Dot’s background is varied and colorful. She was raised on the East Coast and educated at Lasell College in Boston, then the University of Washington. She came to Alaska as a bride and deck hand aboard a salmon tender. As her husband moved up to management in the fishing industry, she found herself raising their 3 children in outlying canneries at Chatham in SE Alaska, then Port San Juan in Prince William Sound, and at a crab plant in Unalaska. Husband, Linne, changed companies in 1970, to manage a fish plant in Seward. This is where home is now. Dot always found time to paint watercolors during their fish adventures.
