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Donna Joy Wolfe didn’t come to art. It came to her. Art literally knocked down her front door when she found herself with extra apartment space and decided to open a gallery in her front room. She ran an ad in the newspaper and was flooded with applications from artists. The front of her home was a successful art gallery for ten years.
Having filled her extra space, Donna found herself with some extra time between bartending jobs. Without any dramatic soul-searching self-transformation, she looked around her, found a way to fill her time, and found her art. Donna had a long dormant collection of bottles and beautifully patterned textiles. She asked herself how she might replicate the fabric’s texture and design on the bottle, not just by copying it but by translating it. How could the bottle embody the fabric, communicate its texture? She wrangled up some black and white paint from under the sink, the forgotten leftovers of household projects. Her tool was a toothpick—all she had handy for designs so meticulous. She set to work.
Learning along the way, Donna tackled bottle after bottle and pattern after pattern. Eventually, she moved her art a few rooms over and displayed it in her own gallery. She was so excited, she gushed, the first time a passer-by spotted and asked after one of her pieces. It was only at that moment that she realized it: she had become an artist. With free time and what was lying around the house, Donna made art and remade herself.
In her work Donna now uses acrylic enamels and a sharpened wooden stick—the tool she developed to replace the too-tedious toothpicks. Her deeply textured patterns now adorn much more than her bottle collection. She now relishes taking on larger feats such as oars, drums, and boxes. She even joked I couldn’t pay her to paint a bottle right now.
These objects are much more than three-dimensional canvasses for Donna’s work. She begins each piece by considering and evaluating the nature of the object itself. From the object, she creates a complimentary design. It is perhaps no coincidence then that as they have grown in scale, her projects have grown in complexity. Her designs have become richer and more nuanced, especially in her increasing use of color. Starting from that black and white house paint, Donna’s goal now, she says, is to take on vibrant, lively colors: from outside her comfort zone.
I couldn’t help but notice that Donna sounded a little nervous about color. Her trepidation over something as seemingly simple as color surprised me. As Donna described the big changes in her life, her personal evolution, she never spoke drastically. She never rejected a past self and “made that big change.” She doesn’t operate in magazine terms. Instead, when something doesn’t work for her and for her life, she moves on. She changes. No song and dance. No montage. She takes some paint from under the sink, and she starts. Yet here she was, speaking about color as a fearsome feat.
Perhaps color remains alien due to Donna’s remarkable focus on texture. In the middle of explaining her design to me, Donna paused for a moment to study my skirt, finger the hem, describe the pattern. She compelled me to look with new eyes at the simple grey fabric of an old dress. Glancing up to gauge my understanding, Donna snapped back into her gregarious, engaging gesticulation. In her textural design, Donna synthesizes the object, the paint, and the pattern to create a complete object, one you can feel with your eyes.
Donna’s work and life benefit from daily long walks along the lake and from yearly stays in Mexico. Both refresh and focus her. It is in Mexico that Donna feels closest to her work, and those two months of the year are her most productive. During this year’s trip she truly hopes to take on color.
Donna’s work is unique and striking in the gallery. Donna has been with Artisans 21 for two years now and says it is “working.” When she spends a day at Artisans, she enthusiastically chatters with the other artists; she seems at home in the gallery. When it stops working for her, she states without hesitation or anxiety, she’ll stop.
You can also visit Donna @ www.djwolfestudio.com
