Nancy Treherne Craig
Late Roadoil on canvas |
Stop and look, wherever you are: there are roads, paths, passages - routes - for our Journey all around us; all we need is here if we will wake up and see. The trails and tracks that I see most clearly happen to be in the "natural" world, so I find my way in landscape.
The ways I find the land call me to paint: I respond by referring visually to a specific site's land/water/sky and by expressing visual ideas about the artwork itself, ideas sometimes confrontational in the context of landscape. All of these elements are fluid as I work: the scene changes with the continually changing light; my thoughts ripen as the scene changes; and my ideas about the painting itself develop as I build and interact with each piece and the piece itself takes on new aspects, of physical object or expressive vehicle.
As for the process of my artmaking, I like to begin work on site, either on canvas or in color drawings. I paint with acrylics for environmental and health reasons and for stability and permanence of the art object. Collage elements are often included on the canvas, usually the textiles that have fascinated me since childhood, sometimes my own weave of various materials. Recently I've bcome interested in moving off the wall, adding a third dimension to the painting by hinging and angling canvases. What comes next? I can't wait to find out: the work tells me where it wants to go, and I try to hear.
BIOGRAPHY
Although I’ve been drawing and designing and fabricating artwork of one kind or another for most of my life, I’m primarily a painter. My work is exhibited around Buffalo, in Manhattan, and in other locations in the Northeast as well as the Southeast. I was born in Baltimore in 1940 and grew up in Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I studied painting at Cornell University, Penn State, the Maryland Institute College of Art, and SUNY Buffalo, and I have worked as a graphic designer and artist. After leaving college, I raised six children and painted sporadically over a span of twenty-odd years in Maryland, finding small daily ways to stave off my hunger for making visual art, showing in regional galleries and shows and grateful for the occasional sale. The next thirteen years as a single mother in Western New York were a difficult but exciting period of growth that sealed my creative determination; I did salaried and freelance graphic work, painted more and even showed again. I’ve lived in Western New York for over 20 years now, currently south of Buffalo with my husband Dwight, with whom I share a large combined family. Major influences on my work are apparent: love of the outdoors, especially rolling farmland and upland woods; a strong spiritual life; and a lifelong fascination with textiles. I enjoy the work of many painters; I am moved also by land art and much three-dimensional work..
The ways I find the land call me to paint: I respond by referring visually to a specific site's land/water/sky and by expressing visual ideas about the artwork itself, ideas sometimes confrontational in the context of landscape. All of these elements are fluid as I work: the scene changes with the continually changing light; my thoughts ripen as the scene changes; and my ideas about the painting itself develop as I build and interact with each piece and the piece itself takes on new aspects, of physical object or expressive vehicle.
As for the process of my artmaking, I like to begin work on site, either on canvas or in color drawings. I paint with acrylics for environmental and health reasons and for stability and permanence of the art object. Collage elements are often included on the canvas, usually the textiles that have fascinated me since childhood, sometimes my own weave of various materials. Recently I've bcome interested in moving off the wall, adding a third dimension to the painting by hinging and angling canvases. What comes next? I can't wait to find out: the work tells me where it wants to go, and I try to hear.
BIOGRAPHY
Although I’ve been drawing and designing and fabricating artwork of one kind or another for most of my life, I’m primarily a painter. My work is exhibited around Buffalo, in Manhattan, and in other locations in the Northeast as well as the Southeast. I was born in Baltimore in 1940 and grew up in Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I studied painting at Cornell University, Penn State, the Maryland Institute College of Art, and SUNY Buffalo, and I have worked as a graphic designer and artist. After leaving college, I raised six children and painted sporadically over a span of twenty-odd years in Maryland, finding small daily ways to stave off my hunger for making visual art, showing in regional galleries and shows and grateful for the occasional sale. The next thirteen years as a single mother in Western New York were a difficult but exciting period of growth that sealed my creative determination; I did salaried and freelance graphic work, painted more and even showed again. I’ve lived in Western New York for over 20 years now, currently south of Buffalo with my husband Dwight, with whom I share a large combined family. Major influences on my work are apparent: love of the outdoors, especially rolling farmland and upland woods; a strong spiritual life; and a lifelong fascination with textiles. I enjoy the work of many painters; I am moved also by land art and much three-dimensional work..