Color and pattern captured my sense of wonder early on, becoming my earliest memories of growing up in Ireland. From my working-class roots in Dublin to the fast-paced fashion industry in Manhattan, and most recently, to the wild beauty of the desert landscape, my delight for colors and pattern has been a constant companion on my journey as a designer and now as a home decorator.
Whether I am helping you choose paint colors as the foundation of your interior statement, crafting an intricate Mexican tile design for your kitchen or bathroom, or serving as a home stager for builders and realtors, my purpose is to create beautiful sanctuaries that are reflective of each client’s personality and vision and I look forward to assisting you.
To Be Irish is to Tell a Story
As a child I was continuously fascinated with tile layouts and, most memorably, with fabric patterns that repeated and matched at the seams, especially in the garment of the person kneeling in front of me at church! I also vividly recall trying to figure out how my ugly 1960’s curtains at home created a pattern within a pattern and how colors overlapped to create other colors. Intriguing!
And, in elementary school, the first seed was planted with my favorite project: a tile design. Learning to make a pattern repeat in a square, saturated with rich cobalt and tones of blue, set my imagination on fire – which is absolutely no surprise! To this day variations of blue are my favorite colors to work with. Sadly, that first tile layout was consigned to the dustbin when a mouse became equally enthralled with it – as food – leaving confetti beneath the radiator where I’d hidden it in my classroom.
You could say that mouse was my first critic! But I was undeterred.
As a teen I showed a keen interest in theater and fashion. One evening I looked up from my homework and stated “I want to be a fashion designer” to a mixed review. But, from that day onwards my father, a bus driver, would stop the bus filled with passengers at the newsstand and buy the latest issue of British Vogue for me. That was all the encouragement I needed.
Having graduated from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, Ireland, I won a scholarship to work with Marc Jacobs at Perry Ellis in New York. The opportunity was a dream come true: I resigned my teaching job, sold my car and headed stateside. I vowed what was a three-month internship would become a full-time job - and it did.
A Fashion Career in the United States
In the United States I found my home. After a thirty-plus career in design I’m an expert in color and pattern. My life has been spent in the fashion industry, working for companies such as Perry Ellis with Marc Jacobs, Carole Little, Dana Buchman, Kellwood and retailers Victoria’s Secret, JCPenney and Ascena. But the industry and my personal vision underwent immense changes over the years. The creative aspect of the fashion industry had down-trended, so I decided to seek out another creative outlet. All the while, percolating underneath the surface, was my love of interior decorating.
I have lived and worked in many states but my little stone craftsman cottage in New York state was always my anchor. Little did I know that, during my travels to northern New Mexico, I would fall in love with the uncompromising beauty of the mesa. It was inevitable I’d answer the call to live here.
East Meets West – Color Consulting and Tile Work Design in the High Desert
Twenty-five years later I cut the chain that held me to New York and the clothing industry and moved to Taos to embark on a new adventure as a home decorator. Like so many who have been drawn to the brillo pad* beauty of the high desert, I put logic aside and followed my heart. And honestly, I was energized by the idea of designing a new life, a new house and a new tile layout!
I’m so glad I listened to my inner voice. Taking a leap and choosing to apply my passion for design in a new way has been as challenging as it has been invigorating: I am amazed by the way things have unfolded here. My hope is that this new adventure into color and pattern will become your adventure too.
I invite you to join me on this colorful journey.
*Scott Cooper, director, “Hostiles”
“Moya Donnellan is a strong, reserved, surprising, wry, clever and talented design thinker and artist. She is a steadfast, careful, and at the same time, pioneering leader. Her particular ability in the areas of color and pattern were a special delight to watch develop each season and provided great direction for the design and trend teams alike. The generosity she showed every person on the team by sharing the incredible wealth of experience she holds was greatly appreciated by all. Her taste level, inspired and rich, was coupled with practicality for creating realistic, yet inspirational, product. ”
Color Philosophy
I like to look at life in color.
Color can be captivating and appealingly abstract. Places reveal their identity through a color palette. Color has an extraordinary ability to create an atmosphere, either calming or energizing or even both, in the same home.
Can you imagine the welcome home your special color scheme will provide to both you and your guests?
A color scheme can be informed by a favorite piece of art, a journey, or even an experience that had a significant impact on you. It can be as simple as a cherished photograph, a talavera tile or a necklace handed down through the generations. The most impactful interiors are a combination of inspirational elements: I look for color combinations in nature, art, architecture, and even in food, to allow a tale to evolve along the way.
The basis of any color palette is research: we will embark on a visual journey that will delight and surprise you – an adventure that leads us toward something unexpected.
The journey begins with a visual story created exclusively for your home, with specific colors for each room that will draw you from area to area. Your personalized color palette is developed from a concept board and reviewed with you in your own home where we can see how the light interacts with it and how the colors feel…... The process evolves through color swatches by room, trial sections on your wall, to a finalized color scheme.
There is nothing I love more than creating a color concept for a client, developing a color palette to supplement an already-existing one, or designing a new departure for an entire home.
I look forward to sharing my enthusiasm for color with you in a way that expresses who you are in every room of your home. We will work together, through your own custom color story, to achieve a place of beauty to welcome family and friends. A home that reflects who you are and is a place of personal peace that reveals your unique identity.
“Moya Donnellan is a true talent. She has an unsurpassed eye for color and a gift for mixing pattern and texture. She is able to truly define a product or space and identify what gives it character without over-designing. Great attention to detail together with using color and materials in a refined and, at the same time, comfortable way comes naturally to her.”