Meet Donna
Personal Biography
Donna Velliaris is a first-generation Australian who grew up in Adelaide and became the first person in her family to complete high school. Education was not an inherited pathway or an assumed destination. An early experience as an exchange student in Japan opened a much larger world and began a connection with the country that would continue across different stages of her life.
Donna has long lived by the personal motto “work hard and play hard”. For many years, that meant studying intensively to complete a degree or postgraduate programme and then rewarding herself with a journey somewhere new. Travel became part of the rhythm of her adult life. She has visited more than 40 countries, mostly independently, preferring the freedom to wander, change direction, get slightly lost, and discover places beyond organised itineraries.
It was on one of these adventures that Donna met her husband. After years of study, travel, work, and international moves, she nested for several years and family life became the priority. Now the mother of two teenage children, she has developed considerable expertise in selective hearing, vanishing food, and conversations conducted through closed bedroom doors. With family life entering a new stage, she has returned to interests that had been waiting in the background, particularly composing poetry and collecting art.
An enthusiastic collector and restorer of art, with a particular weakness for the weird and wonderful. Much of her collection has been gathered from Japanese flea markets.
Poetry has become a cathartic process, shaped by both good and difficult experiences. Inspiration can come from an encounter, a memory, an observation, a disappointment, or something unexpectedly funny. Some poems begin as thoughtful reflection; others begin as venting and, for the protection of everyone concerned, will probably never be shared. Writing offers a different freedom from academic work: experience can be captured without having to be explained, referenced, or neatly resolved.
Donna is an enthusiastic collector and restorer of art, with a particular weakness for the weird and wonderful. Much of her collection has been gathered from Japanese flea markets, where years of regular visits transformed her from a casual browser into a familiar face and something of an insider. Part of the pleasure is the negotiation. Donna loves haggling in Japanese and considers a successful exchange almost as satisfying as whatever eventually comes home with her.
She is drawn to pieces with age, character, imperfections, and evidence of previous lives. Finding something is often only the beginning. Donna enjoys cleaning, repairing, painting, restoring, and reframing neglected pieces, particularly when something overlooked can be given another life. Her home now resembles a small museum, although unlike most museums, objects occasionally disappear from one wall and reappear on another because Donna has decided they were never quite right there in the first place.
Donna remains curious about what lies beyond the familiar. She enjoys discovering unexpected places, rescuing overlooked objects, finding humour in everyday life, and turning experience into words. After a life containing more than a few changes of country, direction, and plan, she has learned that some of the best stories begin when the itinerary does not quite work out.
You can read Donna’s professional biography here.