Portrait of an Artist – Nancy Grace: A joyful impressionist

By TIM WILCOX

Special to the Alpine Mountaineer

 

“When I’m out painting in nature, it’s the happiest, most joyful and most satisfying thing I do.”

– Nancy Grace

 

The greeting at the front door of her Lake Arrowhead home, high above Grass Valley Lake, is warm and authentic. It’s amplified by the enthusiastic welcome of Beau Dandy, a large, energetic Goldendoodle.

Nancy Grace leads her visitor to a small, well-equipped studio looking out onto an inviting deck. It’s clear that this is where she invests most of her creative energies when she’s here in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Nancy was born and grew up in Fullerton. Studying initially at the University of Hawaii (Oahu campus), where she majored in art, she repeatedly thought of her family’s getaway times in Big Bear when she was younger.

“I realized that I really missed the mountains,” says Nancy. So, while the islands had an undeniable appeal, in 1982 she moved back to the mainland and settled in Lake Arrowhead, where she had a number of friends.

Nancy finished her undergraduate studies at Cal State San Bernardino, earning a degree in studio art. Then, though she wanted to pursue a career as an artist immediately, she was anything but naïve. “I knew it would be hard to follow that path right away,” she admits.

But for a while Nancy did focus on painting—houses, that is, mostly in Lake Arrowhead. “I met a lot of contractors,” she says, “and began doing interior work as well, including faux finishes and murals.” She also did some decorative woodcarving, such as fireplace mantles, for custom homes. In the process, Nancy met her husband, Keith Grace, a prominent masonry contractor in the mountains. They were married in 1994.

Just prior to that connection, she served as arts-and-crafts director for the UCLA Conference Center (now the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Lodge) – a tenure that produced significant improvements in the quality and scope of the program.

A major move

Inspired to write a new shared chapter, the couple undertook a major move in 1996 to Tenaja, an unincorporated Murrieta community in the coastal mountains northwest of Temecula. There they bought some acreage and built a ranch. That 20-year period was happy and prosperous in many ways. It also began with a devastating house fire that destroyed the almost-finished main structure, four-car garage and most of their possessions.

Nancy recalls that, after the fire, “it was a time of major recovery from that experience.” The resilient couple rebuilt their home. Already a devoted artist, Nancy mourned the loss of much of her completed and in-process works.

“I didn’t know how I was going to move forward at that point,” she confesses. “Then a friend told me, ‘You have a clean slate.’” So she bought some new woodcarving tools, worked on cabinets for the restored residence, and traveled up to Lake Arrowhead from time to time to create mantles and other finish pieces for high-end homes under construction. Revisiting her background in ceramics (she was a stoneware potter for many years), Nancy also ventured into 3D with a slab roller and clay, creating large-tile murals and interior imagery in relief, principally landscapes and still lifes.

Those projects awakened an interest in two-dimensional art that had its genesis in Nancy’s childhood, when her mother bought her paint-by-number sets. “I loved the little containers, the different colors, the liquid texture and the smell of the oil paints,” she says.

Around 2012, then, she purchased a full-on collection of oils and, after letting it sit for five months, began painting in her rebuilt studio. Initially, her subjects were portraits and landscapes drawn from photographs. (A character-rich image of Keith wearing a cowboy hat hangs above the fireplace mantle in their current home.)

Into the open air

It wasn’t until the couple moved back to Lake Arrowhead in 2016, repurchasing their original residence, that Nancy ventured outdoors with her oils, brushes and easel, all contained in what she calls “my backpack studio.” She also carried Masonite boards, which she now prefers to canvas because of their portability and smooth surface.This formative move, into the world of plein air (French for open air) painting, led Nancy to evolve into her primary artistic vocation as a passionate impressionist.

Connecting with Mountain Arts Network (MAN) and taught by well-established oil painter Brenda Gibson, a member of MAN, Nancy roamed all over the local mountains, often accompanied by Brenda.

That purview expanded significantly as Nancy and Keith, now retired, continued pursuing one of their favorite pastimes – far-flung travels in the West with vintage trailer and eventually newer, more spacious trailers in tow. Destinations in California, such as the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains (fall in particular), are favored camping and painting settings. Most recently they took a six-week road trip through Idaho, up into Montana, then west to Washington State and by ferry north of the border to enormous Vancouver Island. Heading south once again into Oregon, they sojourned for the umpteenth time in the Eastern Sierra before heading home.

“When I’m out painting in nature, it’s the happiest, most joyful thing I can do,” Nancy says. In the fullest sense, she’s in her element. “I find that when I study the original California impressionists, in the early 20^th century, I admire their dedication and want to emulate the way they captured and preserved natural settings with their paintings.”

There’s a moment of thoughtful silence, then Nancy continues: “For a long time now I’ve been evolving into creating a real feeling about every setting that matters to me. Rather than just a two-dimensional representation of a subject, I want to have a deeper connection to the land and to nature. It’s both spontaneous and intentional. It involves picking the right time of day, taking into account the light and shadows. Midday is not ideal. But it’s more than that, too.”

Of singular importance, she notes, is that “when you’re painting in plein air, you have to paint really fast, because the scene changes so quickly. You aim to capture not just what you see, but the feeling and the drama of the moment.” Inevitably, this objective adds a certain level of abstraction. It’s central to the ethos of impressionism.

Returning to her home studio from plein air forays, Nancy refines the image. Still, most of her painting is done in the open air, often in one sitting, sometimes two or more. Any final enhancements rendered in the studio must be in harmony with the primary element of spontaneity. “You have to know when to stop,” she emphasizes. “Don’t muck it up!”

Nancy pauses for another introspective moment and glances out at Beau Dandy, who’s looking in from the deck. Then she says: “When a painting comes through and all the elements work together—composition, color, value, brushstrokes—it’s incredibly fulfilling. And when someone buys one of my paintings, it’s the greatest compliment I can be given.”

A member of the Mountain Arts Network for more than six years, Nancy shows her oil paintings and ceramic bowls at the group’s gallery on the lower level of Lake Arrowhead Village. Her email address is kngraceatthelake@gmail.com. She also has a Facebook page (Nancy Grace Artistic Works).