Books by Dori DeCamillis
Dori has written three books. The first two are memoirs, and the third is about her painting series before 2011. Read below for reviews of each book.
The Freeway
In her late 20s Dori traveled the United States for three years in a vintage motor home, selling her paintings at outdoor art festivals. "The Freeway", chronicles her hair-raising adventures on the road.
Praise for The Freeway
Two young painters sell everything they own, buy a vintage motor home, and hit the road to seek their fortune. This is the story of their adventures. In a voice as unafffected as the paintings that she and her husband create, Dori tells the story of her three year-long journey. Often funny, sometimes heartbreaking, with echoes of Huck Finn, Jack Kerouac, and Lucy and Desi in the long, long trailer, The Freeway takes the reader not simply across America, but to a place somewhere in the center of the heart.
--Joyce Maynard, author of Labor Day and To Die For
The Freeway is warm, funny, and wonderfully engaging. In the best tradition of travel writing since Huck Finn, it the journey, not the destination, that counts, and this is one you'll love going along on.
--Charles Gaines, author of Pumping Iron and Stay Hungry
My Steamboat
Born in Steamboat Springs, Colorado before the cold, remote mountain town became a world-class ski resort, Dori tells stories of growing up with her eccentric family in "My Steamboat."
Praise for My Steamboat
In the freewheeling memoir, My Steamboat, Dori Duckels DeCamillis revels in the uncommon cold of her Rocky Mountain girlhood--complete with fierce, funny parents, wily siblings, improbably-named classmates, and the feisty menagerie who just happened by. Set in the shadows of postcard-perfect Storm Mountain, her book recounts how the people and place irrevocably shaped her, at the very moment her sleepy little hometown was becoming a big-time resort. Part picaresque parable, part insider travelogue, My Steamboat adroitly spins an endearing coming-of-age tale of love, laughter and growing up, candidly reminding us about the abiding power of place and family.
--Mary Kay Culpepper, journalist and longtime editor, Cooking LIght magazine.
More reviews for My Steamboat
Exhibit A
"Exhibit A" is a colorful catalogue of images and information about her 12 panel painting project funded in part by an Alabama Council of Arts Fellowship. Dori produced intricate works of art inspired by 12 places in Alabama.
More about Exhibit A
A catalogue of full-page reproductions of "Exhibit A" a series of panels I completed between 2006 and 2011. The pieces are painted with oils on board and copper with handmade ceramic tile.
I moved to Alabama in 1994, amazed by the historical and natural wonders that are largely overlooked by Alabamians. I received the Alabama State Council on the Arts Individual Artists Fellowship for 2006-07 which inspired a series of 12 large paintings in my mixed-media panel format based on some of my favorite Alabama places.
In most cases I worked with a handful of extremely dedicated people who have devoted their lives to saving, managing, and promoting awareness of their place. The series was featured in a solo exhibit of the work titled "Prominence of Place" from April to September of 2011 at the Mobile Museum of Art.
The Current Student Resource page is now password-protected. Email Dori for the password. You can also get used to the new improved location on the Painting Classes page.