Up Nort h Art Watch

Curious Creatures

by PATTY LANOUE STEARNS

Inside the wild imagination of Nancy Adams Nash.

Traverse City native Nancy Adams

Nash’s lively works kindle joy, mystery and questions: Who are these exotic creatures, and what do they represent? With titles such as “The Origin of Sculpture as Told by the Dragon,” one can only imagine how her mind runs wild when she sits at her easel and her cat-, deer- and alien-like images take form.

“I don’t have any preconceived ideas when I sit down,” Nash says. But what comes next is always the same process: First, she covers her canvas in a light color. After that dries, a thick coat of dark paint. Next, while the paint is still wet, she etches the lines for her figures. She then paints inside the lines, layering on colors for depth and texture. “The lines are kind of primitive, not straight,” she says.

Nash, who lives across from Houghton Lake in Prudenville with her Siamese cats, Panda and Lord Jameson, has been a painter for more than 45 years. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1975 from Michigan State University and spent a year in Wayne State University’s Masters of Fine Arts program, after which she pursued her talents on the East and West coasts—making public murals, teaching and managing an art gallery before her homecoming to Michigan. Her works are in public and private collections across the U.S.

“Animal-Vegetable-Mineral: Paintings by Nancy Adams Nash,” will be on exhibit through the summer at Crooked Tree Arts Center’s Bonfield Gallery in Petoskey, with a July 27 artist meet-and-greet. crookedtree.org