ABOUT
Diane Ely Binder grew up in the small, rural village of Nicholsville, Ohio,
enveloped by family, woods, gardens, creeks and open fields. This backdrop is what instilled within her a love for simple things, and graced her life with a rich environment for the imagination and creativity. Diane’s most vivid memory of the first day of kindergarten was finding a brand new box of thick, waxy, colorful crayons lying open at her desk as if anxiously waiting her arrival. The delight discovered making a collage in an elementary art class would plant a seed that would lie dormant for decades. Instilled with a talent for resourcefulness is what Diane believes inspired her love of finding discarded items to use in her collages. As Diane devoted herself to raising a family, she would delve into the arts inspired by her mother and grandmothers. Her creative expression was developed in gardening, canning, quilting, sewing, knitting, baking bread, soap making, and pottery.
Once her children were off making lives of their own, Diane and her husband spent a short season living in Laramie,Wyoming. It is there that she decided to go to Laramie County Community College and take every art studio class she could. She received an Associates Degree in Fine Art and Humanities and began writing poems and essays about her childhood. It would be this creative writing process that would begin to spark memories and ignite images that she longed to illustrate through collage. Diane lives in the Hocking Hill region of Ohio with her husband, Chris. After showing her work at the Columbus Arts Festival in June, 2019 through The Emerging Artist Program, Diane was honored to receive the Best of Show award, and become the first emerging artist in the history of the festival to do so.