Donna Weber

My name is Donna Weber and I am a fiber artist from Mahwah, New Jersey. After getting my MBA I went back to school for Fine Arts to pursue my first passion ~ textiles. Being an avid quilter I automatically would look for a way the classes I was taking could be integrated into my work. In my still life drawing class, my best work was not of the pots of flowers or items on a table, it was the architectural assignment when I drew the corner of the room. Being a quilter, I am drawn to the linear aspect of this type of art and knew it would only be a matter of time before I would find a way to work this new skill into my quilting. At the same time, I took any textile classes I could to expand my knowledge of different surface treatments, such as structuring patterns to print, mono printing, using Versatex as printing inks, fabric dying and combinations of these skills.

While in school, I ordered a few different fabrics from Dharma to complete my final project. That was the beginning of moving away for just cotton to dye and use in my quilts. I found all of the wonderful linens, bamboo, rayon, hemp, nylon, and silk that I knew I wanted to incorporate in my quilts.

The two finally connected with the quilt "City Scape". This was the first quilt where I decided to keep the piecing simple, and use the actual quilting to fill in the details of the buildings and to add depth. In this quilt, the background is a cotton/silk blend and the buildings are made out of two different weights of linen, a 60% Hemp 40% Silk Blend, and a Bamboo/Rayon blend ~ all hand dyed by me with Procion dyes.

This was also the quilt that led me to the work I am doing now. I get inspiration from buildings ~ both inside and out ~ by taking pictures at different angels. Being so close to New York City, my first inspiration came from the Metropolitan Museum of art and the arches inside the building. From there I moved on to the George Washington Bridge and other great building architecture in and around the city.