Artist, teacher Dorothy Zitzler loves creating

“I’ve been interested in art since I was a child,” said Las Cruces artist Dorothy Zitzler, whose first medium was “just a regular pencil. I found it so amazing that with that one instrument so much could be created.”

Since her childhood in Park Ridge, Illinois, Zitzler has explored a wide range of artist media as a student, teacher and artist. She studied music and art in high school, attended the Chicago Art Institute and the American Academy of Fine Arts and earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and printmaking from the Kansas City Art Institute.

Zitzler first visited New Mexico while attending a friend’s wedding in Albuquerque and moved to Las Cruces for the first time in 1975. She ran an art program at the School for the Visually Handicapped in Alamogordo, where “pretty much everybody was able to do art.”

During her first time living in Las Cruces, Zitzler said she began working in clay, and “just kind of fell in love with it. You take mud out of the earth and make anything.”  

Her works in clay include utilitarian items like plates and coffee mugs, as well as custom work that includes tile, fountains and pool surrounds. She also sculpts, does printmaking and makes jewelry. Zitzler also draws and paints, working in watercolor, acrylic and oil.

Zitzler moved out of state for several years before returning to Las Cruces for good in 1994, shortly after which she bought the home in which she lives and works north of Las Cruces.

For more information, contact Zitzler at 575-640-5362 or zitz5@comcast.net.