SB: Bridget Dobson's Paintings
TVSoapProd
can see SB co-creator Bridget Dobson's paintings. (see below article for
details) Bridget has taken up painting as a "job" since leaving the world of
soaps. The first article below, if you go to to that web site, you can see one
of Bridget's paintings. The second article was from a showing of her work last
year in Wisconsin.
The articles are very informative, I didn't know her mother and grandfather
were Socialists! LOL Guess you learn something new everyday! Well I hope
you all find these articles as intersting as I did.
http://www.carolinaarts.com/602burroughschapin.html
June Issue 2002
Bridget Dobson to Show at Burroughs-Chapin Art Museum in Myrtle Beach, SC
When Bridget Dobson's show comes to Myrtle Beach this month, it won't be one of
her Emmy Award winning daytime dramas TV audiences enjoyed for almost three
decades. Dobson, who with her husband Jerry Dobson, created and wrote Santa
Barbara, now has a new role in life. She has left the world of "soaps" and
California to settle in Atlanta and devote herself to painting Matisse-like
canvases alive with color and fantasy. Visitors to the Franklin G.
Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum in Myrtle Beach, SC, will be able to view
her exhibition Visual Expressions of Drama, Joy & Passion through Aug. 4, 2002.
Though her medium has changed, a good story still seems to lie at the heart of
Dobson's work. Having co-written and co-produced 6,000 hours of daytime
television for shows such as General Hospital, As the World Turns, and The
Guiding Light, she knows how to find the sweet and the tart in human
interactions. "The journey to find a lifetime partner can be the most exciting
and the most harrowing. I have written it hundreds of times, I have lived it,
and now I have painted it. To survive the journey--whether writing it, living
it, or painting it-I have found that a soupçon of humor helps," says Dobson in
describing her whimsical expressionistic acrylic works which have been
extensively displayed over the past few years in galleries and museums
throughout the country.
Dobson's life story is as compelling as those of her characters on television
and canvas. Her pedigree includes grandfather, Victor Berger, the first
socialist congressman in the United States, who was elected from Wisconsin in
1910. Dobson's mother, also a socialist and a lawyer, started in show business
by writing for radio with her husband. She hated art, saying it was for
"dilettantes," and discouraged Dobson's youthful passion for museums and the
Impressionists. As a child Dobson moved to Los Angeles with her parents who
eventually created General Hospital. She earned her undergraduate degree from
Stanford University, and then became one of the first women to enter the
Harvard School of Business. Her master's degree came from Stanford, where she
met her husband. It was as a young newlywed with a baby on the way that she
begged her parents for her first "soaps" writing job. Her husband eventually
teamed up with her after learning the craft by reading over her shoulder.
Following years of success culminating in their retirement as the head writers
for As the World Turns, they joined with NBC to create Santa Barbara based on
eccentric and extraordinary characters who surrounded them in their own
exclusive Santa Barbara, CA, residence. The soap opera became enormously
successful with more than 30 Emmy Awards from 1985 until 1992 and a worldwide
audience.
Amidst all this success, Dobson's life began to move in a new direction when
her husband signed her up for a UCLA art class. She resisted attending, but
eventually succumbed to his urgings and ultimately pronounced her first class
as "the greatest day" of her life. The rest, as they say, is history. Dobson's
exhibition at the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum is one of
eight exhibitions in a tour of her works organized by Virginia's Higginbotham
Museum. The tour follows on the heels of a 2001 New York City opening at the
Walter Wickiser Gallery.
For more information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings or call the
gallery at 843/238-2510.
http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2001/08/31/29059.html
Indepth Arts News:
"Dreamscapes: Bridget Dobson Paintings"
2001-08-31 until 2001-10-21
Charles Allis Art Museum
Milwaukee, , USA United States of America
Born in Milwaukee, Bridget Dobson made the transition from writing Emmy
award-winning soap operas to spinning fantastical dreamlike tales in oil.
Inspired by Matisse, Cézanne, and Post-Impressionism, Dobson‚s colorful
paintings are a journey through the interiors and exteriors of her Atlanta
dream home. Her complex paintings are filled with psychological dramas, as well
as exotic plants and animals interwoven with architectural references.
An intimate selection of works featuring Dobson‚s colorful and exuberant
paintings of her European adventures, European Dreamscapes: Bridget Dobson
Paintings, will be on view at Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum in
conjunction with the Dreamscapes exhibit at the Allis from August 31 through
October 21, 2001. Museum Admission is $3 adults, $2 seniors and students with
valid ID, children under 13 and members are free.
Join Bridget and husband Jerry Dobson for an afternoon Talk & Tea on Sunday,
September 9 at 2 p.m. in the Villa Terrace Great Hall. Enjoy lively
conversation as they reminisce about their Hollywood careers as creators,
producers, and head writers of the most successful soap opera of all time,
Santa Barbara, and discuss Bridget‚s evolution from award-winning writer to
accomplished painter. Tea admission is $15; limited seating. Make checks
payable and mail to: Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, 2220 N. Terrace
Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53202. Call Villa Terrace at (414) 271-3656, for
reservations by Wednesday, September 5. MORE
Bridget Dobson was born in Milwaukee to a family well known in political
circles. Her mother was a Socialist and a lawyer, and her grandfather, Victor
L. Berger, was the first Socialist congressman in the United States, elected by
the fifth district of Wisconsin in 1910. At age seven, she moved to Los Angeles
with her parents who eventually created the afternoon serial drama General
Hospital. Dobson spent her undergraduate years at Stanford University. After
graduating, she was one of the first women to attend the Harvard Business
School. She returned to Stanford for her Master‚s Degree in Mass
Communications, at which time she met her husband, Jerry Dobson.
For the next 27 years, Bridget and Jerry Dobson co-wrote 6,000 hours of
television drama, becoming daytime drama's most honored writing team. They
began writing for General Hospital in 1965 and by 1983 they had created,
executive-produced, and head-wrote the daytime drama Santa Barbara on NBC-TV.
This highly successful program won in excess of 30 Emmy Awards, six for Dobson
herself, more than any other show in history at that time. In 1993, she
authored and co-wrote the lyrics for Slings and Eros, a musical that was
produced in Los Angeles and Chicago.
In the 1980s, Jerry Dobson enrolled Bridget in an art class at UCLA without her
knowledge. From the first class, which she describes as the best day of her
life, Bridget immersed herself in painting. She and Jerry left Hollywood for
Atlanta, Georgia where they built their dream house that is the setting for so
many of Dobson‚s intensely personal paintings ˆ one might almost say dramas
in paint instead of words. For Dobson, painting is more than an avocation, it
is her passion. She had her first solo exhibition in 1999 at the Fay Gold
Gallery in Atlanta which evolved into the current tour of eight individually
curated exhibitions, a unique concept where the curator of each venue
supplements the core exhibition with paintings chosen from Dobson‚s already
extensive oeuvre. She is represented by the Fay Gold Gallery and the Walter
Wickiser Gallery in New York City.
CCCapwell
I just had to repost this line from
the second article! :)
In the context of creativity, Santa Barbara was the most successful soap! Too
bad
it wasn't successful in the Nielsens... although the ratings were rising during
the 1st Dobson era, 84-87/88, the ratings
started dropping shortly after the Dobson's
were locked-out of SB. If only the Dobsons were never locked-out; SB
would likely be celebrating its 18th year on the air in a few weeks.