Tina Dorff

Tina Dorff: Human Story Told


Tina Marie Dorff left this Living Art Gallery on Tuesday, September 4th, 2018 after leaving her house in Lancaster, CA for work. She had just returned from a labor day weekend vacation in Napa Valley with her beloved boyfriend Rodney, where she hiked for the first time since recovering from a full knee replacement surgery. She was 60 years loved as of April this year.


Tina was born on April 05, 1958 in Norwood, Pennsylvania to her Irish Catholic mother Theresa Rita Gallagher and Irish German father Thomas Edmund Dorff. Her life-long journey of artistry began at a very early age, where she spent much of her time sketching and devouring books. Encouraged to keep drawing by her father, she graduated from Ridley High School in 1976, where she had been enrolled in a Vo-tech program for Art. She studied Commercial Art and Illustration at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, and later at the Hussain School of Art. She continued her schooling at Temple University, where she graduated Cum Laude in June 1981 with an Associates Degree in Landscape Design and Horticulture, and was awarded the Ambler Alumni Scholarship for merit. While at school she lived with her sister Theresa and half-wolf-half-husky Kiska, and were both so poor at times they lived on beets picked from the neighbors gardens. Throughout everything, she always had a painting on her easel.


She moved to Chesapeake Bay where she bought her first house and worked for Green Briar as a landscape designer. In 1995, following her wanderlust spirit, she made the compulsive decision to leave for Germany, where she began working as the Director of the Arts & Crafts Center on the Katterbach Army Base. Here, she honed her skills running a myriad of creative departments including a portrait studio, retail crafts store, woodshop, frame shop, engraving shop, and pottery studio. She met her mentor, realist painter Manfred Hönig, and studied under him for six years across Europe, taking her from “talented, technically proficient artist to painter”. She spent much of her free time in her Arts & Crafts studio, where she would drag her cat Dylan to on the weekends to paint.


Missing her family, Tina returned to the US in 2008 and began working on Edwards Air Force Base in California as their Director of Arts & Crafts. During this time Tina bought a house in Lancaster, and proceeded to transform it into a haven of art, inspiration, and warmth. She surrounded herself with animals, artwork, and Polish pottery. Her home was filled with trinkets of the world, and every object, be it an elegant vase or a piece of silverware, had a rich story. She continued her career at Edwards, and in 2013 was reassigned to the F-16 Flight Test Squadron where she worked as their Office Manager.


In December 2015, her art was featured in the MOAH in an exhibit entitled “Tina Dorff: Human Story Told.” The year before, her art was featured in their 29th annual juried art exhibition, where she took home the Beryl Amspoker award, a honor given to the best female artist.


In April of 2018 Tina retired from government services and began working at JT4 LLC in the Human Resources Department. She was well loved and appreciated here, and truly looked forward to going to work everyday.


Her spirit lives on in the brushstrokes of her artwork, where the vulnerability of her pain, happiness, mistakes and achievements are all on display for us to see. We are forever fortunate to have these expressions of her with us, even after her passing. As so wisely articulated by her niece Adria, when we look up to the night sky, “we will smile, for Tina drew that.”


She is survived by her mother Theresa; siblings Theresa, Thomas & Diane; nieces/nephews Adria, Nick, Deirdra, Eric, Katelin & Brandon, boyfriend Rodney, and fur babies Abby, Boz, Sadie, Puck, and Trudge.


“I tell my stories through the painted figure for you to interpret...and now it is your story.” -Tina Dorff


Rest in Paint, Teeny.