My Struggle to Become An Artist 

I have been taking art classes since 1955, almost 50 years!  I have learned a lot from my teachers, and gained some technical skills.  But the most important lesson I learned was, “I can do it!”  Those teachers who really cared about me, understood that I wanted to go beyond my present state, to dare to do things I didn’t even dare to try. In 1958, my Mother told Ugo Graziotti, my first teacher, “Nancy can do better than she ever tried to do.”  That is still true.  Those teachers gave me the courage to try.  

Like Tio Giambruni who told me to make a life-sized sculpture, a nude figure sitting on a chair.  I had been making small figures, larger and larger.  “Who me?”  I asked incredulously.  He said, “Go to the city dump and get a chair.”  He smiled his charming smile.  So I did it.  

Or Squeek Carnwath, who wanted me to make an installation.  “Who me?”  I said. “You can do it!”  she shouted from her car.  I was unable to make the installation for various reasons, but I made a smaller version of it.

Or Wayne Thiebaud, who was a hard taskmaster, but a role model as a human being.  He knew I could do great things if I just worked at it. 

And Cornelia Schultz, my Buddhist mentor.  I once said to her, “You are pushing me!”  She said, “I will always push you.”  

Those art teachers, starting with the young man at Teachers’ College in NYC who encouraged me to paint a mural, helped me to find myself, and to grow into a bigger, bolder person, proud of my accomplishments.  I feel very grateful to all of them.