Artist Statement
About the Work
Combining geometric lines and vivid colors, my elegant hand-crafted jewelry is the culmination of a life-long fascination with structural elements and a love of clean, vibrant design. The result is lightweight jewelry that is bold, adventurous, and easy to wear. Whether a distinctive one-of-a-kind necklace, or colorful earrings, all my work is hand-fabricated using steel, sterling silver, 18 karat gold, and colorful, durable powder-coated brass in a range of colorways and sizes.
Working intuitively, I draw upon a cache of visual memories: bridges, elevated roadways, telephone towers, and city scaffolding. Through arranging and rearranging, simple lines and basic shapes accumulate into voluminous structures, in other instances these forms are distilled down to their essential elements. Monumental or minimal, a singular art object, or part of a small product line, each jewelry piece provides the wearer an opportunity to comfortably take up a little more space.
Biography
About Donna
From the time I was a child growing up in New York’s Hudson Valley, I knew I wanted to be an artist. An interest in illustration led me to study graphic design, but my foray into jewelry was part happenstance, part coercion: my undergraduate professor at SUNY Buffalo State College practically dragged me to the metal studio. Everything clicked when I was handed a length of steel wire and prompted to make a drawing.
The exercise encouraged my designer’s mind to play with line three dimensionally and invited explorations of volume, scale, and color. I started out creating one-of-a-kind art jewelry and over the years expanded my ideas into sculpture. The dance of expansion and contraction between jewelry scale and sculpture objects continues to propel my practice. My limited run, hand-crafted jewelry collections are distillations of these ideas, made accessible as easy to wear, every-day statement pieces.
In twenty-plus years since receiving an MFA in jewelry and metalsmithing at Kent State University, my works have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in Craft In America: Expanding Traditions. My one-of-a-kind and production jewelry have been featured in a variety of publications, including Vogue Italia, American Craft, and Metalsmith magazine. My works are in the permanent collections of the Fuller Craft Museum and the Racine Art Museum and held in numerous private collections.
a teacher at heart
Demonstration time:
Donna taught for several years at the University level and occasionally teaches workshops. If you are interested in inviting her to teach at your school or organization, please contact her below.