Nancy MacLeod
Visual Arts: Constructions/Collage, Crafts, Functional and/or Decorative, Painting, Textiles
I grew up in the beauty of oak trees and yuccas in southern California’s chaparral. From the time I was a little kid, I drew and painted and made things every day. By High School, which had a fabulous art department, the format was such that I was able to take 8 art classes my senior year.
The year after high school I spent studying with painters Ed Seagaitz and Jo Mahoney in Claremont, Calif. I then moved north and put myself through Calif. College of Arts and Crafts making one-of-a-kind art-to-wear garments, and graduated with distinction with a major in Fine Arts, emphasis in painting. I lived and made art in the Bay Area until 2003, when we moved to Philo, where we still live.
My main goal in creating art is to make political, social and spiritual commentary in a way that is playful and fun to have around. I like to paint pictures about things I think have an important message. Some of those things are really very ugly, like war, injustice, environmental destruction- but I don’t like to paint ugly things. The idea I want to convey is often, though not always, serious. The execution is meant to be fun, playful, so as not to scare the viewer away, but to give them pause to think on it without being beaten over the head. I paint in what I call “Primitive Narrative”, or “Folk Art Fantasy”. My husband and I also make furniture together, mostly cupboards, which we call “Folk Art Fantasy Furniture”.
