A Letter from the Board President

Dear Arts Supporter,

Dorland Mountain Arts Colony has proved its worth to the artistic community for the past 25 years, providing an experience, and an inspiration, that has become ever more precious with each passing year. As the technological clutter of our lives becomes ever more intrusive, and the mall culture almost universal, Dorland has offered a respite, a retreat, a literal wellspring for the creative impulse. Nature, aided by the light and sure touch of Robert and Ellen Dorland, produced a simple heaven of oaks and spring-fed pools surrounded by 300 mountainous acres of classic California chaparral.

Capriciously, in an otherwise minor wildfire by local standards, the same chaparral that breathes year-round life and beauty into Dorland, suddenly took it away. Now, those of us entrusted with ensuring that Dorland's future will be worthy of its past, have resolved to rebuild it. We are hard at work, with the goal of breaking ground by April 2006.

Our ambitious rebuilding plans would be impossible without the outpouring of community support described elsewhere in this portfolio. Indeed, the loss of the first Dorland has awakened the young, explosively-growing community in nearby Temecula Valley to the value of this cultural jewel on its doorstep. For an arts-hungry community, with precious little real connection to its historic California roots (Temecula's post office was only the second in California), Dorland provides a living link, a reminder of what drew people to California in the first place, and why this still-extraordinary place inspires such creativity in all the arts.

Please join us in being a part of Dorland's rebirth, including a strawbale-construction community performance/open studio space which will give us a new capacity for community service and outreach, all in surroundings which honor the historic Dorland Adobe and Kitchen House buildings.

Your major gift will not only help emerging and established artists reach their full potential at the renewed Dorland, it will also give the public a new window onto the creative process, its relationship to nature, and its value to restore the spirit being crushed by so much in our everyday experience.

Dorland's oaks are already doing their part in the comeback. Won't you join them, in sheltering future generations of creative people sharing their work with the public?

Gratefully yours,

Curtis Horton
President, Board of Directors

Header graphic: Detail from "View From Composer's Studio toward Temecula" (watercolor) by Jane Culp. Please visit the Merchandise page to purchase this image on notecards and help rebuild Dorland.