Below
are excerpts from an article from the May, 2002 issue of Wire Artist.
Jessie was the featured artist of that month.
"Jessie
Donnan may be the only wire artist you will ever meet from Mars
-- Mars, Pennsylvania, that is."
"Yates,
Jessie's husband, had collected rocks and cut cabochons since the
50's. I guess his enthusiasm for the hobby rubbed off on me. We
joined the local gem and mineral society primarily so we could go
on field trips. At club meetings we heard about the great workshops
at William Holland and Wildacres. However, it wasn't until I retired
that we decided to go."
"They
signed up for their first workshop in the summer of 1995. Yates
took silversmithing and Jessie took a beginner's course in wire-art
jewelry. 'I selected wire art because I had bought a shark's tooth
at the club show that year that I wanted to wear. The instructor
for my first course was Martha Spies. I enjoyed her class so much
I signed up for a second course that same summer under Mimi Murray.
By the end of the summer I was really hooked.'"
"Over
the next several years, Jessie took other courses -- silversmithing,
cabochon cutting, dichroic glass, intarsia and lost-wax design/casting--but
there was no question she was addicted to wire-art jewelry."
|