Bonita R. Datta
Rocky View County, Alberta
BIOGRAPHY
Born Bonita Rosella Anderson, in Lafleche, Saskatchewan, on August 20, 1947. Her family relocated to Alberta in 1952 and settled on a farm near Airdrie. She attended high school in Airdrie, completed a B.A. in mathematics at the University of Calgary, and went on to complete an M.Sc. in mathematics at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, R.I., USA. Her career in the computer industry spanned two decades, and after early retirement she was able to turn to her lifelong interest in textiles. Handweaving became the medium of choice, and she undertook extensive research, applying mathematical principles such as proportion, series, symmetry, tessellations and randomness, to the patterning and structure of woven textiles. She now lives in the same little farmhouse that her family moved to when she was a child, and spends most days designing woven pieces, making warps, dressing looms (threading, sleying, tensioning the warp), weaving and finishing her one-of-a-kind scarves, shawls, wraps and throws.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Learning to embroider with my grandmother was the start of my lifelong interest in the textile medium as a creative outlet. I loved it all — embroidery, knitting, sewing — but upon my first encounter with handweaving on a loom I knew I had found my passion. With its very structured skill set and its remarkably mathematical underpinnings, weaving became the thing I wanted to know everything about, to experiment with all of the variables. Now, almost thirty years into it, I continue to revel in the fact that I learn, improvise and achieve — all while creating textiles with integrity in design, materials and workmanship.