Donna Castelluccio
Fabric artist mixing vintage materials and making one-of-a-kind pieces.
WAG Magazine article 12/3/2019
The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art Featured Post 4/26/2020
Arts Mid-Hudson featured post 4/13/2020
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Nanny, my grandmother, is my source of inspiration. Creating with her was an influential piece of my childhood.
Nanny comes from an artistic family. Her father was a sculptor, he made statues of Saints for churches both in Italy and the US. Both her brothers were also sculptors. Nanny worked on a bust of JFK for years, never satisfied with it.
She made clothing for us, though, I admit I never really liked them. She also crocheted our scarves and hats and we didn’t appreciate them either.
The booties she crocheted for our babies were loved and cherished.
I feel like I have tried every craft imaginable through the years; embroidery, crochet, macramé, rug hooking, crewel, candle wicking, tin punch, and soldering.
I have been taking spinning and weaving classes and trying to learn to make clothes. Clothing construction is not easy, especially given my love/hate relationship with my sewing machine.
I am a nurse and spent years crafting as my hobby. Now I am retired and can dedicate lots of time to creating art and learning new methods.
I've always been an avid thrift shop/flea market attendee and that is where I find a lot of my tools, materials, and inspiration. I am also a gardener and a fairie enthusiast which is evident in many of my designs.
My fiber obsession started at an art retreat, where I took a class in fabric books by Kecia Deveney. I loved the pictures on the website, shabby chic design, so I signed up. I also love books (another obsession). I loved it and took another class with Kecia that night on fabric wall hanging. I still do other mixed media, but fiber is my love.