ABOUT
CEILI SEIPKE
FOUNDER OF THE ART DAMES
“I want women to be brave with their lives and art."
Ceili Seipke went to college at a time when women were still encouraged to find a spouse rather than focusing their energy on following their passions for a career. The advice she was given by a professor concerning making it as an artist was to take any job, even if it meant waiting tables, to support her painting habit.
Even though Ceili graduated in 1984 with a BFA in Painting and a minor in Interior Design from Baylor University, she was still determining which direction she wanted to go in and needed to build self-confidence in her abilities to continue pursuing a career in either. She married after graduation and began a family four years later. Even though Ceili continued to paint and participate in local art events, she put her art in the background while raising her three children and working various jobs. Some jobs were art-related, such as teaching painting and starting a non-profit to create murals in preschools and pediatrician offices.
After her youngest graduated high school in 2018, Ceili was ready to get serious about igniting the art practice she had put into partial hiatus. She used photography, with costume designing, prop making, and compositing scenes on her computer, to create a visual story as her creative outlet for ten years, but was feeling the desire to return to more tactile art making. Ceili used the time during the global pandemic to return to painting and drawing, and to explore other mediums, such as collage making and encaustic wax.
Throughout her life, Ceili has loved science fiction and fanciful stories that take one to another time or place. Such tales influenced her to design character costumes and paint murals to transform rooms into magical places. This fascination with creating dream worlds flowed into her art, especially in her ethereal photography and recent encaustic portraits, where her thought-provoking subjects are often set amid nature-inspired backgrounds.
Ceili currently lives in South Burlington, Vermont, in the United States. She is an active member of several local and online art communities and directories- The S.P.A.C.E Gallery, SEABA, The Art Queen Society, Women United ART MOVEMENT, and The Curator’s Salon Show Your Art Membership. Her work has been shown online with Women United ART MOVEMENT, Create! Magazine, locally at The S.P.A.C.E Gallery, Davis Studio Gallery, and was featured in Art Seen and theThe Huts magazines as well as Women United ART MAGAZINE. Ceili was a finalist in the international Women United ART PRIZE 2022 and 2023 in the Photography & Printmaking category. She also received the People’s Choice award in SEABA’s 2022 Art Hop.
THE ART DAMES SOCIETY
The Art Dames Society was launched as an international support network for women creatives who are changing their career path into the arts, returning to their art after raising children or retiring, or having made art all their life feeling invisible. It shines a spotlight on emerging, mid-career, and established women artists through opportunities to showcase their work and share their stories with the world. We believe that all voices are important as each woman's life and art journeys are unique and shape the circumstances of her art practice.
Having had personal experience with returning to the arts after years of neglecting her creative callings, the founder Ceili Seipke, made it her mission to support like-minded women artists through opportunities, resources and mentorship.
The Art Dames Society is an inclusive platform that currently focuses on showcasing the work of women artists through the First Friday Art Gallery, introducing them to wider audiences through the Artist Directory and In the Spotlight interviews and sharing business/career advice on the Spotlight page.
Join us to be a part of this groundbreaking initiative that is “Celebrating women artists who radiate wisdom, experience, strength, and the beauty of aging.”
We can't wait to welcome you in!