Onna Schwindt is a mixed media embroidery artist who resides in El Cerrito, California.  As a child she spent time with her grandmother and mother making countless midwest style farm crafts, including embroidery projects.  These cherished moments sparked the desire for her to constantly create things with her hands.  Later in life, she also explored jewelry making, beadweaving, crochet, collage, painting, and bead embroidery.  Recently, while helping her dad downsize his house, she discovered many family embroideries hidden away and came to the realization that she descends from a long line of stitchers.  This reconnected her with her childhood passion for embroidery, as she attempts to take it to a new level.  

Her work is inspired by the patterns, circles, symmetry, and sacred geometry that surrounds us in daily life.  No matter what media she’s working with, these repetitive patterns appear in her work.  She combines different materials and techniques into her work, but they almost always include beads.  The slow stitching process provides comfort, quiet, and calmness in the chaos of life; it is both her art and meditation.  She is primarily a self-taught artist, but has also studied embroidery with Laura Tandeske, The Embroidery Guild of America, and The Royal School of Needlework.  She has won awards for her work at the Embroidery Guild’s Right Stitch Seminar, The El Cerrito Art Association Annual Show, and with the Northern California Bead Society.  Her work has been exhibited in Mill Valley, Berkeley, El Cerrito, San Rafael, Albany, Benicia, Fremont, Sacramento, and online.