Donnette A. Cooper
Kingston, Jamaica
Hyattsville, MD
I am a textile/fiber artist who uses the quilt form as my primary medium of expression. I am influenced by African textiles and the individual, cultural and spiritual messages they encode. My work integrates African cloth, self-dyed, stamped and painted fabrics, commercial fabrics, recycled scraps, beads, cowry shells and other embellishments to tell stories and explore cultural values and collective memory. I particularly like working with scraps and recycled clothing. I enjoy reconstructing and reconnecting the torn, disparate pieces into a new form that is different from the original yet connected to it.