Dara Weyna crochets at her in-home studio in Windsor, Colorado April 22, 2024.

After sending her sons to school, Dara Weyna prepares a fresh cup of coffee and retreats to her breezy in-home studio in the garage with her black cat. Brightly colored accessories adorn the homey studio everywhere one looks. The walls are covered in Weyna’s artwork, from crocheted floral breasts, to figurative landscape paintings, to tight, detailed sketches of nature, some colored and some not. Friendly cards, clippings from friends and family, and inspiring quotes are assorted on a black bulletin board. Boxes of supplies line a triple-decker shelf filled with cloth, paints, yarn, brushes, and other art supplies. Woven rainbow rugs rest on the floor, and Weyna’s latest project supplies lay scattered on a green table in the center of the room. She lights a lavender-vanilla scented candle and starts her session by shading and sketching curved lines on an easel taller than her to “get loose.” Until her sons arrive home from school, she spends all her time working intentionally, and often blissfully, in the studio.

Multidisciplinary artist Dara Weyna crochets, paints, draws and creates jewelry and collage art, in addition to mothering two children in Windsor, Colorado. However, Weyna’s artwork isn’t limited to the confines of her current studio – it’s been prominent throughout her entire life.

Artistic from an Early Age

Growing up in Chicago, Weyna has always been artistic. She said her parents noticed that all she wanted to do as a child was color and draw with crayons and paper. During her youth, she met great art teachers who encouraged her to pursue her passion. But for a long time, Weyna didn’t know what life would look like as an artist.

“There wasn’t really a lot of role models I could look to back then,” Weyna says. “Being a fine artist was like, ‘Who does that? You’re gonna be living on the streets, and no artists ever actually succeed.’ I was still very encouraged to do something artistic, but I didn’t know I could have a path as a fine artist until much later in life.”

She spent her twenties “jumping from place to place,” including spending a year abroad in Paris and then attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison for two years. After that, she left college and moved to San Francisco for a few years before returning to Chicago, where she worked in the arts. Eventually, just before turning 30, she returned to Northeastern Illinois University to obtain her art degree, where she studied a robust fine art curriculum that included drawing, sculpting, and color theory. At the time, Weyna’s work focused on a more realistic and classical art style.

“I actually was quite good at that style of drawing,” Weyna says. “But over time, realism didn’t fulfill the creative part that I wanted to explore. But drawing was my first real love. Anything I make always starts with a drawing.”

After graduating from Northeastern Illinois University with a bachelor’s degree in studio art and art history, she said she knew she needed to continue making art all the time.

“I waited tables, I bartended, I did all those jobs that artists typically do and really enjoyed it because it gave me the freedom to make art and kind of make my own schedule,” Weyna says. “I would never be a nine-to-five person. I would just lose my mind.”

1. Dara Weyna paints at her studio in Windsor, CO on April 22, 2024.

2. Dara Weyna crochets behind her commissioned wine label art at her studio in Windsor, CO on April 22, 2024.

3. Dara Weyna paints on canvas with a small brush at her studio in Windsor, CO on April 22, 2024.

4. Dara Weyna smiles for a photo while painting at her studio in Windsor, CO on April 22, 2024.

Never Satisfied with One Medium

Weyna said that of all the mediums she utilizes, she mainly works with crochet art and painting. According to Weyna, crocheting and painting often “inform one another” and inspire her creative visions.

“I often get to a point where I’m painting and then I start thinking, ‘How would this work if I was doing a similar thing in crochet painting?’” She says. “And the same thing when I’m crocheting, I think, ‘This is really cool three-dimensionally, but what would it look like if it was a flat painting?’”

Among Weyna’s most well-known artistic projects is her colorful crochet breasts, which she started creating in 2021. Weyna said they originally started as crochet circles before she had the idea to add nipples and areola and transform the circles into breasts. She was also working simultaneously on nature drawings inspired by breasts but more abstract. Then, she decided to incorporate elements of those nature drawings into the crochet breasts so they would also resemble flowers. The breasts were essentially a “happy accident.”

“I think it’s important to recognize the beauty and importance of the female breast and of itself,” Weyna said. “Like all the things that it goes through in its life. They’re so amazing, and there’s so many things you can explore with the subject of the female breasts.”

According to Weyna’s online portfolio, her intention with the project was to create a grid of breasts that would appear like colorful circles from a distance. The artwork reflects on themes of self-acceptance, womanhood, and motherhood. Lesly Alvarez-Rivera, a visitor relations associate at the Museum of Art Fort Collins, said she loves how her artwork draws attention to women’s issues through the artistic lens of the female body.

“At first, you don’t see it because it’s just a lot of colors, and it kind of looks more like a landscape, but when you actually look into the details, you can see the more hidden image of the female body,” Alvarez-Rivera said. “I’m a big fan of bringing more female worlds out [into the public].”

Another project, the “You are Loved” crochet series, is “one of her favorite things she has ever done.” The project involves Weyna creating small, simple crochet hearts. She started the project after her grandmother, who helped raised her as a child, passed away in 2013.

“I was crocheting these hearts on the plane ride to her funeral,” Weyna said. “My intention was to make one of these hearts for each of her great-grandchildren so they could put them in the casket. It was lovely and very sweet. After that, I wanted to keep making the hearts because it was very healing for me.”

Eventually, Weyna had crocheted so many hearts that she decided there was no point in leaving the hearts in the studio since she wasn’t doing anything with them, and she began leaving the hearts in public places, like the store and a park bench. As people started finding the hearts, Weyna began receiving requests to donate baskets of hearts for charity benefits, like the Children’s Hospital and senior centers. She’s also taught others how to crochet hearts, so the project “just keeps going.”

“It’s something that feels really good for me to do,” Weyna said. “And I know it’s bringing joy to others even if I don’t know who finds them. Complete strangers could find them, and as long as it’s making their day a little happier, that’s the whole point.”

1. Dara Weyna grabs a paintbrush at her studio in Windsor, CO on April 22, 2024.

2. Dara Weyna’s various colored drawings in notebooks are sprawled on a table at her studio in Windsor, CO on April 22, 2024.

3. Plastic boxes of yarn and other art supplies are lined on a triple-decker shelf at Dara Weyna’s studio in Windsor, CO on April 22, 2024.

4. Dara Weyna paints at her in-home studio with the garage door open in Windsor, CO on April 22, 2024.