Dara is a full time studio artist based in Salt Lake City, UT. She received a BFA from Virginia Tech and an MFA from Montana State University. In 2005, she was an Artist in Residence at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. After graduate school she moved to Washington and taught at Clark College in Vancouver, WA and at Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, OR. While in Oregon she was commissioned by Marriott to create 70 figurative sculptures for their Courtyard by Marriott Portland City Center hotel. Seven years ago Dara’s life brought her to Salt Lake City, UT where she worked for 3 years as a product designer, a design team leader, and traveled to China to work with factories on model design and production. In 2018 Dara was a Resident Artist at the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in Jingdezhen, China.