In Donna Moses' studio, classical music plays gently in the background, and sun through a skylight warms an already agreeable setting. The walls vibrate with cheerful paintings of happy family life, inspiration for which Donna draws from her own family, and from her intense love of her country. They are rendered in a style she terms “Peasant Folk”. The figures that people her scenes look out at us with rosy-cheeked innocence, but there is a highly sophisticated sense of design at work, a combination of motifs that might appear to be random but are too harmonious to be so dismissed.

Donna's comfortable manner and the cordial smile in her hazel eyes project the same serenity that mellows her surroundings. When she tells of the evolution of her development as a painter, the sparks begin to fly. She remembers at a very young age she decorated mud pies with geranium petals and noticed some were heart shaped, a motif she continues to use liberally in her paintings.

Marriage to Deryl, her college sweetheart, who then went into the Navy and recently retired from being an airline pilot, and the births of her three children were further inspiration. She began to make decorative items for her home, incorporating fabric in the borders of her paintings and moving on to create intricate designs that became emblematic of her work.

In 1983 Donna took eight small paintings to the Bill Dodge Gallery in Carmel, and asked for a “critique”. Bill was captivated with her work and asked to display her original paintings in the gallery. He took samples of her cards and paintings to Art Expo in New York and that led to a contract with a publisher in Minnesota.

Donna's paintings express a sunny optimistic outlook and she concurs that, yes this is how she sees the world. The expression of traditional American values takes on a delightful freshness in her hands. Her patriotism has been fed by travel to many parts of the world, giving her immeasurable gratitude for the life she is privileged to live. “My faith in God continues to fuel everything I do”. Her seven grandchildren have made her the “other Grandma Moses”, and a more enthusiastic grandmother you're not likely to find.

From June 1997 to March 2006 Donna's “Peasant Folk Collection “gallery in the Barnyard Shopping Village in Carmel, California was home to a wide array of Folk Art. Also featured in her gallery were several other artists from around the country including her mentor, Bill Dodge, folk artist Donna Perkins, Quilter Jeannie Aschenbrenner and watercolorist, Nancy Stirm. She refers to her Gallery as an “oasis of joy” which made everyone's heart smile. Currently Donna works out of her studio at home.

Deryl has been her constant support and she credits him with the continuing success of a career “beyond what I ever dreamed”. He's always been right there to make sure I had what I needed in every situation. Her success also carried her market to Japan where she has had five exhibitions of her art...the Internet has opened up the rest of the world.

If there is a restlessness under the calm exterior, it is the restlessness that drives all creative people, the constant striving to do better. “The picture isn't finished yet you know...the picture that's me”. And that's the thought I took with me as I left. Secure in her creativity, Donna welcomes the changes that attend it and confidently looks forward to adding brush strokes to the “unfinished portrait of the artist”.

Betty Oliver,
Freelance Writer

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