Dawn Starr Looking Elk: artist, designer, creative

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Meet Dawn Starr Looking Elk: The Artist, the Stagehand, the Visionary Behind Stardust Studios

Every creative journey begins with a spark — a moment of wonder that stays with you, shapes you, and eventually grows into something bigger. For Dawn Starr Looking Elk, that spark has always been creativity, color, imagination, and the desire to turn stories into something people can feel.

Today, Dawn is an artist, designer, festival technician, entertainment rigger-in-training, and the founder of Stardust Studios. But her story is so much bigger — woven across decades of art, music festivals, costume design, lighting rigs, and community-building.

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A Lifelong Artist Rooted in Imagination

Dawn has been an artist for as long as she could hold a pencil. Growing up with the vibrant worlds of Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, Jem and the Holograms, and 90s cartoons like X-Men, she found early inspiration in color, emotion, and expressive characters.

In college, Dawn discovered costume design and thrived — winning both a regional theatre award and a university award for her work. She earned her BAFA in Theater Technician & Art Studio from the University of New Mexico in 2004, setting the stage for a life dedicated to creativity.

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From Costumes to Stages: The Early Career

After graduating, Dawn moved to Las Vegas — a city built on lighting, color, performance, and spectacle.

Her early roles included:

• Henna tattoo artist
• Visual specialist for Banana Republic, training new hires across the city
• Retail and textile work focused on cut, fit, and creative merchandising
• High-end art sales at Signature Galleries
• Art Director for multiple nightlife venues and galleries
• Painting instructor for community art classes
• Writer for Vegas Cannabis Magazine

These experiences sharpened Dawn’s eye for design, strengthened her storytelling instincts, and taught her what it meant to bring art into public spaces.

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A Decade of Festivals, Shows & Creative Production

Around 2011, Dawn entered the world that would shape the next decade of her life: music festivals and live events.

She went on to work in creative and technical positions at:

• Dirtybird Campout (artist assistant, stagehand, welcome crew, waste management)
• Life Is Beautiful (assistant to artists with JUSTKIDS, artist relations)
• EDC Las Vegas (site ops, waste management, food vendor support)
• Coachella (vendor, stagehand, tech support)
• Desert Hearts Flagstaff (welcome crew, site ops)
• When We Were Young, Sick New World, Lovers & Friends (site ops and support)
• Numerous live shows, small theaters, and special events

Her roles ranged from costume design and wardrobe to lighting (L2, L3), video (V2, V3), truss building, scaffolding, stage work, and general production support.

Dawn built her reputation on grit, kindness, versatility, and showing up with all the tools needed to get the job done.

 

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A New Chapter: Entertainment Rigging

In 2024–2025, Dawn began a new exciting evolution in her career: entertainment rigging and rope access.

She currently holds:

• Fall protection certification
• OSHA 10
• Forklift certification
• Full PPE and rigging tools
• In-progress boom lift + scissor lift certification

Dawn is accumulating high rigging hours, taking classes, and walking toward the next level of her career — where riggers earn some of the strongest wages in entertainment and work on the biggest shows in the world.

Her long-term vision includes traveling productions, touring work, and major-scale events.

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Stardust Studios: A Personal Universe of Color & Creativity

In 2022, Dawn launched Stardust Studios, a place for her creative voice to live outside of the tech world.

Here, she merges:

• 90s rave culture
• Nostalgic cartoons and alt aesthetics
• Bold color
• Hand-drawn art
• Design work
• Rave wear concepts
• Digital art and merchandising

 

Stardust Studios is where Dawn dreams big — building a creative brand that reflects her childhood, her influences, her imagination, and her identity as a Native artist and a lifelong maker.

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Pop Up Cinema with Dawn Starr: The New Channel

In 2025, Dawn began working on her newest project:

a YouTube channel focused on movies, TV series, symbolism, Easter eggs, and fun Pop-Up Video–style commentary.

The channel blends:

• Film analysis
• Reactions
• Behind-the-scenes trivia
• Pop culture knowledge
• Her deep love for storytelling

It’s educational, entertaining, and built for a community of viewers who love to go deep into the stories they watch.

She’s currently collaborating with editors and looking for on-camera reactors to share the experience with.

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A Life Made of Stories, Stages & Stardust

Dawn’s journey has been anything but linear — but it has always been creative.

From festivals to film, from costumes to rigging, from art studios to YouTube, her path is built on passion, resilience, and exploration.

She is an artist.

A technician.

A storyteller.

A builder.

A dreamer.

And someone who believes deeply in the power of reinvention.