Dasha’s most frequently recurring characters — the coffee bears — remind her of floating on cloud nine:

“The bears are carefree, life is good, coffee is hot, and good camaraderie!”

For the upcoming anniversary exhibition, Dasha is creating an elaborate apartment complex to house the coffee bears. Features of the apartment building to watch out for:

• Doubles as a dentist’s office — so the bears can “always have clean teeth after drinking lots of coffee.”
• You can peek inside the world of the coffee bears through the building’s  windows.
• Inside, the bears are drinking coffee (“of course!”), taking a shower, filming scenes for YouTube, and more.
• The couple of bears you’ll find outside of the building include one who is attempting to fly, and another waiting below to catch her.

In this and other pieces, Dasha wants to depict the coffee bears as “regular people with a home and place to stay.” The inspiration for their apartment complex came from the houses she’s seen in Baltimore, as well as puzzle houses Dasha played with as a child.

Make Studio artists are counting down each day until our ninth anniversary celebration by sharing something that puts them on cloud nine. To help us celebrate, join them here on the blog all month through February 22nd, and in-person on February 23rd at Cloud 9!