OIL PAINTING & ASSEMBLAGE
Diane Canfield Bywaters is a professor emerita of art at the University of Wisconsin—Stevens
Point, where she taught drawing and painting for thirty years. In addition, she has over forty-
five years of creating art. She has concentrated on en plein air landscape painting experience
and she has been selected for more selected U.S. national park artist-in-residencies than any
other artist, including twice at Rocky Mountain National Park, Hawaii Volcanoes and Alaska’s
Denali Wilderness Area. In addition, she has participated in residencies in Italy and France, and
other state parks and private artist-in-residencies. She was honored with both the University’s
Excellence in Teaching Award and the Scholarship Award (for her extensive exhibition record
and residency participation). She has her MFA degree in painting from Washington University
in St. Louis; and was born and raised in Kansas City receiving her BFA in painting from the
University of Kansas in Lawrence.
Though her artistic career concentrated on en plein air painting, seventeen years ago, Bywaters
started also creating assemblage pieces. She began her surprise journey with assemblage art
when she found a dedicated, fun-loving group of artists in southwestern Wisconsin who
especially enjoyed instructor, Michael DeMeng. She found assemblage work suited for
advocacy work, including political statements, something different from the poetic landscapes
she paints (though both series of works have an environmental theme: the 3D work with its
reuse and recycling, the landscapes with the appreciation of nature). She is inspired by items
found in the trash, thrift shops, or antique shops. Collecting items and wondering about their
stories is a very enjoyable part of the process. At times the items inspire the work, other times
an issue or topic is the inspiration. She works relatively intuitive with the pieces, using epoxy
clay to adhere found items and layering with acrylic paint to unify the disjointed pieces.
In 2025 she introduced the Main Point Museum a tiny museum space that resides within
Gallery Q, that she curates and directs. The inaugural exhibition held was her own landscapes
on a 2x3” scale. She looks forward to bringing new artwork to gallery Q with solo exhibitions
and hosting theme exhibitions.
Bywaters’s artwork is in collections including the United Airlines, 3M, State Department,
Michigan Bell, General Motors Corporation, and Pepsi Corporation. She has had solo
exhibitions in Chicago, Las Vegas, Charlotte, North Carolina, and of course Wisconsin in
Milwaukee and central Wisconsin. She resides in Stevens Point, Wisconsin in a historic home
where she raised her daughter who is now a process engineer, and with her husband—Tom
Dailing—an internationally known jewelry designer, and a small menagerie of pets.