Bonnie Meltzer

Bonnie Meltzer’s art-making, activism, community building and gardening are linked together like crochet; one thread looping with itself creating an interlocking life.

Born in New Jersey, Bonnie moved to Seattle to get an MFA at the University of Washington. There, she found her medium, her social commentary voice, and installation as a format. As a networker she crochets (crochet being a form of net making) and in the other meaning, she purposefully designs projects that invite people to participate and connect with each other. Throughout her career she has used fiber art techniques and found objects in experimental ways to make very mixed media social commentary. In the last five years she has added stitched and crocheted text to her body of work that comments on the social fabric.

Textile Month 2021 highlighted her interactive Installation, Tikkun Olam – Mending the Social Fabric at the Oregon Jewish Museum, which included 75 handkerchiefs with embroidered text. At the same exhibition, visitors under Bonnie’s guidance mended a torn parachute, a metaphorical social fabric. The coming together in those traumatic times brought a sense of healing to the sewers. Other recent work includes a beaded wire and fishing line crocheted sculpture of the Columbia River was exhibited at Maryhill Museum. “Water and Land”, a decade of environmental works were shown at PLACE Portland during spring 2023.

Her work is in private and public collections; The National Science Foundation, University of Washington, Baylor University Rosenberg Artist Book Collection, Community Music Center, Portland and Multnomah County, Oregon. Her mixed media sculpture is on the covers of the books “The Fine Art of Crochet” and “Artistry in Fiber: Sculpture”. Her pioneering crochet is in many crochet books from the 1970s. She has taught textile workshops for decades. This past summer she taught “Text on Textiles” sponsored by Creative Arts Community at Menucha