Dolores Chiappone Artist — Dolores Chiappone

Timeline

1931

Born November 4 in Rochester to Laura Chiappone, a first-generation Italian American, and Louis Chiappone, an immigrant barber from Sicily.

1934

Dolores shows an interest in art at an early age, making drawings of flowers and creating pictures outside with grass, stones, leaves, seaweed and shells.

1935

Sister Nancy is born in Rochester.
Laura Chiappone works in a sweatshop as a seamstress to help support the family

1942

During WWII the Chiappone family drives cross country on Route 66, before settling in East Los Angeles, CA.
Dolores and Nancy attend St. Anthony’s Catholic elementary school, Montebello, CA.

1946 - 1950

Dolores attends Montebello High School, after begging her parents to allow her to go to public school.
Once there, Dolores receives formal art instruction for the first time.
Her art teacher speaks to her parents about Dolores’ interest in art and encourages her to go to college.

1950

Dolores becomes pregnant in her senior year at Montebello High School.
After graduation, she elopes with Oscar Moreno.

1951

Dolores gives birth to their first son in Los Angeles.
Oscar and Dolores drive to Acapulco for their first trip to Mexico as a belated honeymoon.
The couple stops in Mazatlán, Mexico City, and visits the pyramids of Teotihuacán for their first encounter with Mexican indigenous culture.

1952

Oscar works odd jobs but is unable to support his family.
The young Moreno family move in with Oscar’s parents and his three younger siblings in East LA.

1953 - 56

Dolores paints her first still-life oils.
She attends a life drawing class in Los Angeles.

1957

Dolores gives birth to her second son in Los Angeles.

1958

Dolores seeks help from Dr. Oscar Janiger for severe postpartum depression and is briefly hospitalized.
For her recovery, her husband drives Dolores and the boys to Mazatlán, Mexico,and leaves them in a rented house for one month.
Dolores is unable to take care of herself or her children.
Oscar takes them back to his parents’ home in Tempe, AZ.
Dolores and Oscar are unable to provide a stable home environment for their children. The boys are taken in to be raised by Oscar’s parents.
Dolores attempts to see her children but is forbidden by her in-laws.
Dolores leaves Arizona and returns to Los Angeles, resuming treatment with her psychiatrist, Dr. Janiger.
She participates in Dr. Oscar Janiger’s study of LSD and creativity on hundreds of artists.

1959

Dolores begins a new series of oil paintings influenced by her experience with LSD.
She stops taking LSD and moves to San Francisco to break from the drug scene in Los Angeles.
Dolores suffers from hallucinations and recovers with help from doctors as an out-patient at San Francisco’s Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital.

1960 – 1967

Dolores returns to Mexico without notifying her family. Not knowing her whereabouts, her parents hire a private detective to locate her, but the search is unsuccessful.
She settles in an artist community in Tlaquepaque, near Guadalajara.
Dolores met Jorge Wilmot, a Mexican ceramicist, who became a mentor and a lifelong friend.
She is exposed to the work of Remedios Varo, Frida Kahlo and Leonora Carrington―Mexican Surrealists―and begins to exhibit an affinity for their work.
Dolores’ paintings are influenced by her surroundings.
She sets up a workshop for hand-crafted furniture, Los Naguales, in Tlaquepaque and later in Puerto Vallarta.

1968

Dolores travels throughout Mexico, settling in San Ángel, Mexico City, and continues to paint.
She visits the newly opened National Museum of Anthropology and falls in love with the Pre-Columbian sculptures and artifacts.
Dolores sees murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco in Mexico City.

1969

Dolores returns to the USA and relocates to New York City.
She re-establishes contact with her family and temporarily reunites in Tempe, Arizona with her sons, now 18 and 12 years old.

1970 - 1975

Dolores lives and paints in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She returns to Mexico, frequently staying in her painting studio in Tonalá, Jalisco, at Jorge Wilmot’s estate.

1973

Her painting Party in the Wall is used as the book cover art for Das Energi, a hippie-spiritual classic, by Paul Williams.

1974

Another of her paintings, Untitled, is used as book cover art for Wizard of the Upper Amazon: The Story of Manuel Córdova-Rios, a book by F. Bruce Lamb, who lived among the indigenous Huni Kuin people of South America at the beginning of the 20th century, where he used hallucinogenic drugs like ayahuasca.

1976 - 1999

Dolores is invited to Carmel, California by collectors of her work who also owned The Connoisseur Gallery.
She makes decorative paintings and paints antique furniture for sale in Luciano Antiques in Carmel.

1982

Dolores becomes a member of the Carmel Art Association.

1994

She has her first solo exhibition, Inside Out, at the Pacific Grove Art Center Dyke Gallery, Pacific Grove, CA.

1995

She exhibits oil paintings at the Samsara Gallery, Monterey, CA.
Dolores has an exhibition titled, Angels, at the Vehicle Gallery, Pacific Grove, CA.

2000 - 2015

Dolores settles in Cordes Lakes, Arizona, where she continues to paint.
Her work is represented by Ian Russell Gallery in Prescott, AZ.

2015

Dolores moves to Seaside, California where she lives and paints.
She is reinstated in the Carmel Art Association where she must show a new painting every month.

2018