Gourd Bowls and Pine Needle Baskets - Dani started Pine Needle weaving when she first moved to Green Valley Lake which was during the bark beetle epidemic.  Due to the large amount of dying trees, pine needles were in abundance.  Her first two baskets were made with these needles, but then she discovered that harvesting and drying the needles turned the needles into a lovely mint green rather than brown.  Dani's love for the Native American culture and look is her inspiration for the beads and leather that adorn some of the baskets. 


Contact - dani@etoolcart.com

Artist Biography

Dani is a very talented photographer, but it doesn’t stop there. She has learned to cross the gap between a photo and a painting. "The best part," she says, "is that I don’t need to start with the perfect photograph. In fact, I have started some of my paintings with really bad photographs; I just like the way the photo was arranged or some special element within it. I then work with the photograph enhancing or adding color and transforming it with interesting effects." The end result is remarkable — some look like watercolors, some like oil paintings, others like pastels. Each one is printed on special watercolor paper, turning them into long lasting museum quality prints. Two of them won second prize in separate juried shows in 2002.

Dani has sketched and painted for decades, working in many different mediums: watercolors, acrylics, charcoal. She even did custom airbrushing on motorcycles. But the marriage of photography and the digital age opened up a whole new artistic world for her. Now, along with her digital painting, she does amazing web designs and graphic art.

Dani is also a very talented musician. She plays percussion, sings lead and back up in the local Irish band Wake the Bard, and is learning the fiddle. She picks up on harmonies very quickly—something she learned singing in church choirs for many years. What is her passion, though, is the flute. She has a beautiful Native American flute on which she plays hauntingly gorgeous melodies that she just makes up. It is very soothing music that fits right in to the magnificent forest setting where she lives.

One wonders how she ever finds time to help run the business she and her husband Ben started several years ago. It’s an internet automotive specialty business called www.etoolcart.com. For a while they ran it out of their home, but it became so successful they decided to rent space in an office in Running Springs and hire a full-time employee to help out. Dani does all the web design work which she is very good at. Twelve years ago she was trained and certified as a Network Administrator and has been doing web designs ever since. The most recent one was for right here; it is called www.green-valley-lake.com and is already chock full of information even though it isn’t 100% finished yet.

Dani loves living in Green Valley Lake because of its mountain setting and surrounding national forest. She gathers up the pine needles and weaves them into the most exquisite baskets you have ever seen—some have lids with little pine cones on top; some have deer antlers for a handle; some are decorated with feathers, beads and leather ties; some have blue stain wood or agates on the bottom. They are incredibly beautiful and definitely a must see on the Artisan Tour!

She’s an avid hiker and always takes her camera along shooting butterflies, flowers, rocks, logs, everything. "Seeing what you don’t normally see" is the inspiration that she takes into the field with her as she looks for just the right photograph to create her digital paintings. "I love to move in close and I am thrilled at the little things I find later when I look at the final photo, something I never noticed out in the field, a little surprise. Then when I get it into my computer, it is all mine to transform and embellish as I see fit." You, too, will be absolutely delighted with Dani’s amazing artwork.