In this fascinating Friday Feature Artist interview, fibre artist Donna discusses all things wabi-sabi and washi papers as she shares her Japanese roots and her discovery of not only wabi-sabi but herself.
Donna Watson's Friday Feature Artist Interview can be found at the bottom of this page.
With a professional artistic career spanning over 45 years, Donna Watson knows what it takes to be an artist. Her practice has evolved from representational watercolour landscapes, to remarkable cold wax, assemblage and collage artwork with meaning.
Wabi-Sabi
Donna describes wabi-sabi... “The concept of wabi-sabi is basically: Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. When you can find that beauty within the imperfections that are all around you, you accept a natural cycle of birth, growth and decay. And you celebrate this transience that's around you all the time, in the seasons, between winter and then spring. So the rebirth comes again.”
Donna discovered that she already had wabi-sabi all around her. “I started seeing I already had a lot of that in my garden and in my studio. I really do love things that are weathered, worn, torn, textured, I just didn't realise it would fit into the wabi-sabi aesthetic. I was always trying to figure out how I could work my love for paper into this wabi-sabi, and that led me to look into the washi papers more. I found myself going more and more to paper stores and always on the search for that special washi paper. I look back on my early years, and I realised, well, I had to go through all that. I truly believe that artists start on this journey where they're at, and whatever they go through is part of where they ended up. Because it took me so long to find out who I am and how much that could influence my work and my journey.”
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Discovering Herself
After years of commercial work, Donna found she lacked an identity as an artist until she found a way to discover herself. “I started looking at who I was as an artist, and I wanted to find out more about my Japanese heritage. I was fortunate enough to go to Japan which had a huge influence on me when I came home. I started exploring wabi-sabi concepts and thinking about ways I could start incorporating my Japanese heritage into my work. It was a process I went through, and I ended up moving from being a painter to more of a collage artist. It is just how I evolved over time. It was on my trips to Japan that I discovered wabi-sabi.”
Paint to Collage
While Donna works largely in collage these days, she started out as a painter. “I actually started off adding papers to my paintings,” she says. “I still considered them paintings, and I still remember a friend many years ago going to Japan. In Japan, whenever you go shopping, everything's wrapped in beautiful papers and put into a beautiful box and then put into a beautiful bag. When you leave the store, you come out with papers, wrappings, bags, and things like that, and he brought home some of this, thinking I might like it. I was so excited to get these little pieces of paper and things that I collaged them onto a painting. That was when the light bulb went off, and I realised I had always had a love for papers.”
For Donna, the connection ran even deeper than a love of paper. “During this time when my friend went and came back with these papers I was already trying to explore who I was, what I liked, what I was attracted to, and actually, at a late age of my life, discovering that I'm half Japanese. And I have this cultural heritage in me. So when he brought these papers, I just took off from there, and I started looking for papers. And then going to Japan on my first trip, I came home with boxes and boxes of papers from the flea market and from the paper stores. So that was the beginning and discovery of my love for paper.”
The Joy of Collage
Donna feels that collage is one of the easier art forms to pick up and try out. “You don't need a lot of paints, you don't need brushes you don't need to practice and practice and practice techniques like watercolour painting,” she says. “I painted for 15 years, so even though I was selling my work, I was constantly trying to perfect that work. It's a long journey, a never-ending journey. Well, they're all never-ending really, but collage, you just need some pieces of paper and some glue.
Collage is so accessible, and so versatile. There are so many ways you can make a collage and so many ways you can use the papers you have. I think that wabi-sabi collage really changed the whole direction of my work. What frustrated me the most was that when I would create my collage, I didn't always feel a connection to it or anything personal. And when I finally started thinking about my connection to my Japanese heritage, I felt a stronger connection to my work. I feel like I'm getting more of who I am onto my collages.”
Donna’s Signature Course with Fibre Arts Take Two
The Way of Wabi-Sabi Collage is designed for you to find out more about wabi-sabi, papers and how to compose and get the content you want into your collages. All while finding your own voice and identity through your content and artwork.
Donna has a particular approach to her courses. “I decided many years ago that I was not going to really do any demos or influence artists in that way. Because we're all easily influenced, so I decided to come up with ways to help artists find their own unique voice, their own identity because I feel like once they substitute what the instructor does, for their own map, and of who they are, they won't rely so much anymore on this or that or what somebody else is doing. And they'll start trying to figure out their own way.”
Donna believes that finding your way as an artist involves discovering what she calls your ‘content’. “I always encourage artists to work to find content. It can be the colour blue, it can be rusty papers, it can be a walk in the woods, and what you see on your walk, they can be birds nests. Your content can be anything you care about or you love. You have to care about and love it so much that you want to do more than one. Like right now my content is peace in the world because of what's going on in the world, so I decided that birds in flight would be my subject matter for peace in the world”.
About Donna Watson
Donna Watson has been a mixed-media painter and collage artist for 45 years.
Her works have been accepted into numerous juried national and international exhibitions and she has received many awards.
Donna is president emeritus of the National Watercolor Society and the Northwest Watercolor Society. She has signature memberships in both the American and the National Watercolor Society.
Donna has extensive experience as a workshop instructor all over the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Her works have been widely published in art magazines like American Artist, The Artist Magazine, and Where Women Create. Her works have also been published in books including MASTERS COLLAGE: Major Works by Leading Artists (Lark), the PULSE OF MIXED MEDIA by Seth Apter (Northlight Books), 100 ARTISTS OF THE NORTHWEST (Schiffer) and STORYTELLING WITH COLLAGE by Roxanne Evans Stout. Most recently, her paintings and collages have been included in the book COLD WAX MEDIUM by Rebecca Crowell and Jerry McLaughlin, and FRAGMENTATION AND REPAIR by Shelley Rhodes. Her art works can be found in the Lynn Hanson Gallery (Seattle, WA) and the Matzke Fine Art Gallery (Camano Island, WA).
