Dawn Duino Leitzell

Born and raised (30 years) in San Francisco to artistic parents, I was graduated from UC Berkeley with a Master's in Librarianship. After working at the San Francisco Public Library for eight years, I moved to Sacramento, California to work at the Sacramento Public Library.

I was active in the local poetry scene (readings, publications under my then name Dawn Panasenko). I taught poetry writing with the Poetry in the Schools program (kindergarten through high school) under the auspices of San Francisco State College, now California State University, San Francisco.

I met Jim in 1975. Together we parented my son Dan and his two daughters, Chandra and Katie. In 1997 Jim and I bought "the Farm" and were lucky to connect to a paper arts workshop, the "Wednesday Group." My creativity is now channeled into paper collages inspired by the plethora of beautiful decorative papers from all over the world.

Jim Leitzell

After a long, varied life as an artist and teacher (and volunteer firefighter), I decided to retire in 2011, a decision made easy by budget cuts in education. Since then I've been busier than ever painting and drawing and working to establish our Art Farm, an environment dedicated to planting and nurturing the seeds of art and art education. I hold private classes locally, check out our classes and workshops page.

I'm a native Californian, born in the great central valley near Fresno. I earned a BFA in Advertising Design from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. After twelve years in art directing, mostly film and video, I realized my first love was painting. I went back to school and took a MA in Studio Art at CSU Sacramento. I've shown in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento.

I love living on the Farm and visiting Yosemite.