Not Too Pretty to Walk On: Textile and Book Artist Donna Thomas Celebrates Exhibition

February 1, 2023April 30, 2023 slvpost.com

By Julie Horner

The storm in January sent the sea spilling over the berm at Bonita Lagoon, the surge of saltwater and debris coming a bit too close to Peter and Donna Thomas’ home studios for comfort. Makers of plant fiber art books for more than four decades, they quickly moved things to higher ground until the tide subsided.

The Wandering Book Artists

Donna Thomas is a well-respected Santa Cruz textile artist known for her book- and papermaking and hand-painted illustrations. Donna met Peter in college in the 1970s and they spent early days making music together and sharing their handicrafts at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. The couple gained a following by making paper from local plants, printing using old-world techniques, and binding hand-embellished pages into books. In 2009 they took their art on the road in a whimsical wooden caravan and spent the next ten years demonstrating and teaching bookmaking across the United States.

The Thomas’ books are artistic expressions, they’re not solely for getting information. Filled with Donna’s original watercolor illustrations, the choice of color, texture, design, and binding contributes to the overall reading experience. “When you’re reading a paperback book, you’re not really thinking, oh, I like how this paper feels,” Donna said. “When we do a book, we consider how the book itself contributes to the subject matter. Does this paper make you feel like you’re hiking in the mountains, does it have plant fibers from that place, does the color of the cover evoke the sunset?” Sought after by private collectors of art books and university special collections, their enormous volume of works is documented in bibliographic detail on their website, along with a fascinating blog that follows their backpacking adventures and travels in the caravan: members.cruzio.com/~peteranddonna

Exquisite Textiles

Hands and imagination never still, Donna finds joy working with textiles, weaving, and knitting. A recent trip to Estonia with a knitting group sparked a fascination with intricate Scandinavian designs for wool caps, mittens, shawls, and sweaters, which she sells at boutique popups to tremendous acclaim every winter. “I get lots of inspiration from folk art from around the world, like rosemaling [a form of decorative folk painting from 18th Century Norway] and other techniques from the 19th and 20th century, some Aztec designs, patterns from The Caucasus.” She has incorporated many of these global influences into decorative yarn rugs so exquisite that one can’t imagine treading upon them.

With the canvas stretched on a wooden frame, Donna uses the Oxford Punch Needle to work the yarn into tufted loops following a pattern. Working from the back, everything is done in reverse. “I just freehand draw on the back, then punch through, and it makes these loops on the front.” It’s all done with recycled wool. “People buy yarn for a project then never get around to it and wind up having a huge stash, so they give it to me!” The colors she chooses are at the whim of the salvaged material. “It’s really fun to just do wacko combinations of color.” Most of Donna’s fiber work is highly controlled, she said, and rug making is “a way to get really free.”