Meet Dot Com!
Dorothy Comollatti aka ‘Dot Com’ has been a part of the Benevolent Family for 14 years, but she has been a part of our history for much longer than that. Dot was actually born here 94 years ago, when there was a hospital on this land. Dot is one of our most colourful residents and is known as our Artist in Residence. Dorothy grew up in Comet and has always has a passion for art but never really got into it until she moved into Benevolent.
“I always used to mess around with a pen and pencil and I never really had a chance to do any art before I came here.”
When she moved to here she thought to herself, “what am I going to do?”
“I decided to get some paints out and just have a go, you’ve got to put your mind to something or you’ll go mad.”
“There was a man who used to come up and sit down with us and teach us what he knew about the arts.”
“He would show us how to draw, and how to paint, he was very good.”
“He went back to the bush through, but we just kept on going without him.”
Dorothy’s younger life wasn’t as full of art as her life at Benevolent has been, “we didn’t really have a lot of money growing up and I didn’t have the time to get any lessons.”
After living in Comet until she was 14, Dot moved to Duaringa for work. That’s where she met her husband Norman or Norm as everyone used to call him.
“We used to go to dances and to the pictures, he wasn’t much of a dancer and neither was I, so we used to play cards instead.”
Dot and Norm went on to have six children, and now she has too many grandchildren and great-grandchildren to count.
Her sons have inherited some of the Art Gene and they help her when she sketches houses.
“If I wanted to draw a homestead I would always pick their minds about what should go where.”
“Most of the time they would tell me something’s off or something’s on the wrong angle and I’d have to shift it,” she remembers fondly.
She always liked the country life, where her family ran a dairy for years.
“I miss the old cows, I would go out and give them a scratch or a rub down, you could always have a chat to our cows they were always there.”
Dorothy’s country roots inspire a lot of her artwork. She particularly loves painting bush scenes and old homesteads, especially the house her husbands’ family lived in for years, which still hangs in her room today. Dot confesses she doesn’t have a favourite art medium, but since being at Benevolent she has tried her hand at mosaic, ceramics, painting and everything in between to the delight of the Benevolent staff and residents.
You just have to walk into her room to see that, its Benevolent’s very own Art Gallery.
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