BELLA MACCHINE: JEWEL IN THE DEPTHS (2017) Sculpture by Don Dougan

As a child Don began collect and draw rocks, fossils, and seashells. These activities grew into an interest in paleontology and archaeology, but it was the modeling of clay dinosaurs and making of wooden boats that lead him to become a sculptor. He learned to work wood by helping his father in his garage woodshop, and by high school Don had started teaching himself to carve both in wood and stone, and at university he continued the auto-didactic exploration of working stone as the school he attended had no stone-carving sculpture faculty. Don also worked for a collector of antique hand tools for many years, and through his work in researching, writing, and displaying literally thousands of those tools for the collector Don developed an avid interest in the many types of hand tool and their traditional — and not-so-traditional — usage. When the collection became the core of a history museum in North Georgia Don had the additional experience of learning to display and present the collection in a more-formal manner to a different standard for the public. Each of these learning experiences has come-out in his artwork and in the tool-making he often does to create some of the works that require that ‘one-off’ approach.
Though stone is a primary material in which he sculpts, other materials and found objects are also worked in conjunction with the stone to explore the potential expressiveness of each combination. His work is firstly about the material — through the direct interaction of his hands with each material he delves into what those materials can express about his perceptions of the world. The auto-didactic learning process is also an essential part of his work — he tries to explore something new in each new piece; whether it is a new material or combination-of-materials, a new tool, a new approach or technique, or a new premise or idea.
Don has given workshops and taught university-level classes in sculpture and stone-carving in several schools in the metro-Atlanta area, as well as in Italy and in Finland. His work has been exhibited widely in the Southeast region, across the nation, and internationally.




Born 1952 Portland Oregon
BFA Atlanta College of Art, 1975
MFA Georgia State University, 1990
Visiting Sculpture Professor Cortona, Italy — University of Georgia Studies Abroad Program 1993, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2005
Artist-In-Residence Cortona, Italy — University of Georgia Studies Abroad Program 1991, 1997
Visiting Sculpture Professor Imatra, Finland — South Karelia Polytechnic 2004, 2005
Sculpture Instructor — Atlanta College of Art 1986-2006
Instructor of 3D and Sculpture — Georgia Perimeter College 1995-2011
Instructor of 3D and Sculpture — Gainesville College 1999

• Nationality: UNITED STATES
• Date of birth : unknown date
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary American Artists