Born in Kaneohe, Hawai’i, Fonda is an artist living and working in Oakland, California. She is driven to make work inspired by personal experience and observations of society and nature. She often works in series, with repetition and patterning as a constant throughout her work. Her first memory of making was as a child, at a Kapa workshop, where she beat bark into cloth. She continues to be inspired by the visual arts and dance of Hawai’i and indigenous cultures. She traces the way she works back to her ancestors, working to support themselves and their families and engaged in art whenever they could, because the need to create is so strong.
Fonda received a Masters of Fine Arts with a concentration in Ceramics from Rhode Island School of Design and a Certificate in Collegiate Teaching from Harriet Sheridan Center for Teaching + Learning, Brown University. She received a BA in Art Studio and Sociology from University of California, Davis.
