Hundreds upon thousands of dots add up to dazzling works of art

By Patricia Guthrie / Special to The Herald

FREELAND — Make dots.

Lots of dots.

Lots of dots on rocks.

What initially sounds like an assignment for kindergarteners is an elaborate art form and business for Renee Boyce. The Whidbey Island resident is known for creating intricate, colorful mandalas drawn on flat rocks. Using the tiniest of fine brushes and metal dotting tools, she paints hundreds upon thousands of dots into designs she conjures up on the spot, so to speak. No patterns, no stencils, no copycats.

Her images are in the pattern of a mandala, circular with a center starting point radiating out. The designs are complex and delicate, symmetrical yet spinning free. Some look like sea urchins. Others appear as shining beaded jewels from a distance.

But it’s all dots. Thick, tactile spots of dots.

“The colors are determined by my mood whenever I’m painting,” Boyce says as she delicately tops an array of dots with another layer of blue, by far her favorite color.

Layer upon layer of acrylic paint and contrasting hues give the stone a three-dimensional effect. Resin seals the design for shine and protection. The pattern pops and the stone seems to hypnotically swirl into itself.

“For me, it’s like an emotional process to make a mandala,” said Boyce, 35. “You get in the zone and everything just kind of goes away.”

Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning “circle.” In recent years, this spiritual and ritual symbol of Hinduism and Buddhism started showing up on clothing, in adult coloring books and on hunks of hard earth.

Boyce is a hit on Etsy, where there’s no shortage of amazing mandala stones for sale from around the world. She has thousands of followers on Instagram and Facebook, where she posts under her business name, Freeland Art Shack.

Boyce had been successfully selling at a now-closed Whidbey Island artist consignment shop. Plans to sell her creations at numerous regional festivals and art shows also vaporized with the pandemic.

“Consecutively for almost three years, I was living almost entirely off my art. I was making a substantial contribution to the household finances,” said Boyce, who lives with her fiancee and son.

Last year, Boyce did sell at Cultus Bay Gardens’ Summer Art & Craft Market, where she’d previously displayed her art and artistry.

“People always love to see her demonstrating her work at her table,” Cultus Bay Gardens owner Mary Fisher said. “After meeting Renee, I was captivated by her presence and how she uses her painting as a meditation and calming centering practice to deal with life in general.”

Pursuing a “kind of experiment” away from previous art pursuits, Boyce dove into the internet’s endless offerings of arts and crafts just after the birth of her first child.

She stumbled upon a global community of pin-precision artists who call themselves “dotters” and who gladly share the tricks of their pointed trade.

“I have always been very good at looking at something and figuring out how to do it myself,” Boyce said. “I’ve never taken an art course. I like to do trial by fire.”

She spent a year practicing the art form. She’d put the baby to bed and paint until the wee hours of the morning, trying to figure it out.

In time, she said, “I guess it just clicked.”

Elspeth McLean, an Australian artist and art therapist now living in British Columbia, is credited with launching what she calls “dotillism.” It differs from pointillism, which uses tiny dots of various colors blended together to form an image and trick the eye.

Dot paintings have long been associated with art by aboriginal Australians, whose paintings are said to be drawn to disguise sacred meanings and stories.

Though similar, the two art forms are very different, said Jessica Dalgleish, an Australian dot artist who became long-distance friends with Boyce after admiring her work online. Dalgleish, whose dot art includes coasters, tiles, prints and paintings, goes by the name JessyD Designs.

“Dot mandala art doesn’t tell any stories like aboriginal art does,” Dalgleish wrote in an e-mail. “Both are equally beautiful though.”

Dalgleish said she’s a fan of the small stone earring and pendant mandala jewelry that Boyce perfected during the early days of the pandemic. They’ve become her best sellers.

Pat Sasson can’t get enough of them. She’s a board member of the non-profit, private Meerkerk Gardens, a 53-acre woodland garden on Whidbey Island that attracts thousands of rhododendron lovers each year.

Sasson first fell in love with Boyce’s mandala flat stones at a crafts show four years ago, then with her rock jewelry, then with the artist herself after Boyce generously donated 10 pieces to Meerkerk Gardens’ annual fundraiser.

“She makes these beautiful pendants I give as Christmas presents,” Sasson said. “She’s just a pleasant, generous young lady and she’s so talented. I just love her. And her prices are affordable.”

Prices range from $22 to $200 for her mandala stones, jewelry and small wall paintings; larger sizes range from $300 to $1,500, depending on the number of hours she spends on each piece. She’s also professionally scanned and printed some of her larger works into prints, stickers and bookmarks.

Small rocks shining with their own natural beauty are also popular with Boyce’s customers. The slick shine of beach stones fades all too soon. They dry, they dull, as any rockhound knows.

Boyce found a way to preserve the wet, detailed look — turning the offerings of the tide into simple jewelry. She scrubs the small stones with water and vinegar, dries them indoors for weeks, coats them with layers of resin and hangs them from sterling silver necklace chains.

“When you resin them, it brings that detail right back out,” she says. Those sell for $18.

Originally from South Carolina, Boyce said she probably wouldn’t have much success selling her new art form in the land of smooth beaches and Charleston sensibilities.

She’s thankful to be on Whidbey Island. Residents here paint rocks, they hide rocks, they find rocks. Beaches are nothing but rock. Whidbey’s moniker is The Rock.

“I had no idea Whidbey Island Rocks was a thing until I moved here,” Boyce said.

Whidbey Island Rocks, one of hundreds of global groups connected to the the Kindness Rocks Project, counts 27,500 fans on its community Facebook page.

Boyce occasionally joins in on the joy of leaving and finding unexpected treasures by placing some of her bright stones in hidden crevices, under trees and along trails.

“Or I leave them on the playgrounds for the kids,” she said. “Then, sometimes I hide behind a tree and wait for one to be discovered. That’s so much fun.”

For information on the art of Renee Boyce, go to these websites:

www.facebook.com/FreelandArtShack

www.etsy.com/shop/FreelandArtShack

www.pinterest.com/freelandartshack

Email: Freelandartshack@gmail.com

Washington North Coast Magazine

This article is featured in the spring issue of Washington North Coast Magazine, a supplement of The Daily Herald. Explore Snohomish and Island counties with each quarterly magazine. Each issue is $3.99. Subscribe to receive all four editions for $14 per year. Call 425-339-3200 or go to www.washingtonnorthcoast.com for more information.