ABOUT

The quietness and beauty of the Great Lakes and boreal forests of her youth and her curiosities about these ecosystems drew her to become a naturalist. As a naturalist one observes both the large and small within our world. The color across a bed of ferns on a foggy morning or the sun’s rays highlighting one section on the distant cliff are her sparks of inspiration. An intuitive sense for form and color and a spark of an idea on a walk is all it takes for the creativity to flow. 

Growing up in Detroit, Donna comes from generations of garment makers. Her love of the outdoors led her to pursue degrees in Environmental Education and Landscape Architecture from the University of Michigan. Fiber art allows her to combine her tailoring heritage with her environmental career pursuits, creating whimsical felted pieces inspired by the natural world. She uses a similar skill set in designing garments that she does in designing a garden. There is a similar flow of color, form, texture and structure. Her goal is to complement the structure of the human body. 

After years of running the family small business and raising two exceptional children, a course in Nuno Felting inspired her to revisit tailoring with the intention of incorporating felt in fashion design. The Port Townsend Wearable Art Show has provided the perfect opportunity to challenge her to use  felted wool and silk, exclusively, in creating fashions. The tailoring lessons learned from her grandmother in the shaping and attention to detail inform her work today. Her work ranges from one of a kind colorful wearable art, to sculpted animal ‘masks,’ to various sized and shaped landscape and abstract wall art.

She has recently left her beloved Great Lakes of Michigan, but the Puget Sound region of the Pacific Northwest continues to inspire her.

Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries nationally. She continues to display her work at Fine Art Festivals primarily in the Pacific Northwest where she resides with her husband.