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Williams artist spotlight: watercolor artist Bonnie Dent

Williams resident Bonnie Dent is a former public school art teacher and a watercolor artist. Dent is also an owner of The Gallery in Williams, an artist co-op.
Photo by Wendy Howell.

Williams resident Bonnie Dent is a former public school art teacher and a watercolor artist. Dent is also an owner of The Gallery in Williams, an artist co-op.

WILLIAMS, Ariz. — Anyone interested in the visual arts in Williams has heard of Bonnie Dent. Those who have attended one of her adult watercolor workshops, dropped by The Gallery in Williams, or enrolled in one of her public school classes know that Dent is an ever present figure in the Williams art scene.

Dent has been involved with the Williams art world for over 40 years. Many know her as an owner of The Gallery in Williams, a co-op art business, or from her 37 years of teaching in the Williams public schools. She also is a member of the Williams Alliance for the Arts — through which she leads youth and adult arts and crafts workshops for the community.

Art has been a passion for Dent since she was a young child.

“I was an artsy kind of kid,” Dent said. “I was one of those kids.”

Dent said her friends and teachers knew of her interest and talent as a child and often asked her to make posters, certificates and other art work for them.

“Back in those days there weren’t copy machines or anything, so they would come to me and I would do 20 posters for a rummage sale. I got lots and lots of practice,” she said.

Dent also began taking lessons in painting. Her parents enrolled her in private watercolor lessons, and she continued the lessons until she was about 16 years old.

“Watercolor is my first love,” Dent said.

Dent continued her art education at West Texas State University where she received a Bachelor of Science in Art Education. She followed up with graduate studies in art at Northern Arizona University. She worked as a visual arts teacher mostly at Williams High School and also taught watercolor and drawing at Coconino Community College.

Dent has been recognized for her work in the community. In 1998, she was chosen as a delegate to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women and the United States/China Joint Conference on Women’s Issues.

In 2000, Dent was selected as the Coconino County Teacher of the Year and was a Fulbright Memorial Fund Scholar, which provided a fully-funded short-term study tour of Japan. There she studied the teaching of folk art in schools, museums and civic centers.

In 2001, she received a scholarship for the Teacher Workshop in Contemporary Art program and in 2006 received the Arizona Governor’s Award for Arts in Education.

Following retirement, Dent became more involved with sharing art in the Williams community. She continued teaching part-time in some of the area schools. Three years ago she became one of four owners of The Gallery in Williams. She and the other owners interview and choose local artists to display their art in the gallery.

“The art in here is excellent,” Dent said. “We won’t take anything in here that isn’t.”

Dent said the co-op has been successful at its location on Historic Route 66 in downtown Williams. There is no overhead since each artist works a few shifts per month in return for their space in the gallery.

“Our prices are low because of that,” she said. “At one point it was determined that we were about 30 percent under the price of other galleries selling the same artists’ work.”

Dent is also heavily involved with the Williams Alliance for the Arts. The group works to teach and share art with adults and children in the community. The group sponsors youth art exhibits, adult art workshops and special classes in the local schools. With support from the Alliance, Dent teaches adult and youth art classes each month for the community.

“Over the past couple of years I’ve done a free workshop,” Dent said. “Every other month it’s for adults and then it’s kids.”

The group is also hoping to use the old elementary school on Sheridan Street to host an artist-in-residence type of program.

“You can see the potential there,” Dent said. “We would like for people to rent space there. We think that people around the world would enjoy being near the Grand Canyon for a month or six weeks.”

Dent said the group has been working to find donors to get the program off the ground.

“We need to be able to apply for the bigger grants,” Dent said. “To do that we need several years of being vital in the community. We are doing that with our workshops and exhibits.”

Besides helping run The Gallery in Williams and working with the Williams Alliance for the Arts, Dent works on her own watercolors and is illustrating a tourist map for the city of Williams. She also recently illustrated a children’s book

“I enjoyed it very much,” she said. “I may do that again some time.”


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