A B O U T D O N N A M O N R O E
My love affair with making, mixing, patterning, collaging, stitching, coloring, pasting
began early. Scrapbooking and creating my own images with cut outs from Life
magazines is one of my fondest and earliest art making memories. Coming from a long
lineage of women who embroidered, quilted, knit and crocheted, instilled a love of the
feel and texture of fiber and thread. While a child at my grandmother's knee I
experienced the thrill of plying a needle with a bright length of colored thread through
flour sacking to create a set of dish towels.
Graduating from the University of California Santa Cruz with degrees in Photography
and printmaking, I spent the next several years taking a lot of pictures. At a point about
20 years ago I returned to my first love and began a series of original needlepoint
pillows. At the time I was living a gypsy lifestyle and the ease and lightness of carrying
canvas and yarn around was very appealing and allowed me to work with the lush colors
and richness of Persian yarns.
After settling in T or C I had the good fortune to buy a house with a large studio space
and my focus changed from small, portable pieces to larger and more varied work which
includes wall hangings, totem figures, bags, fabric collage and assemblages. Of utmost
importance to my aesthetic is the unearthing of found fabrics, paper, beads, sticks rocks,
rusty stuff found in the desert, on the street and anywhere else one stumbles upon the
detritus of human activity for reuse, repurposing, and reshaping into whatever captures
my fancy at any given moment. Having fun combining all of these elements along with
color and pattern gives me such great pleasure in making things.
...Donna Monroe