D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
September 2010
Our Cover Artist
When we saw Barbara Nance's painting of "Mr. Quail" perusing "the biggest little paper in the Southwest," we knew it had to be on our cover — and since it depicts reading, it was perfect for our annual writing-contest issue. The painting provided the title for a show of new works by Nance, "Desert Exposure," that opened at the Blue Dome Gallery in May. Other "locals" were featured in other paintings, as well, along with a "desert garden" filled with a fantasy of seven-foot welded sunflowers, prickly pear cactus and giant bugs. She also created metal horses ready to gallop to your home and garden.
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The new works represent a bit of a departure for the Silver City artist, who was last featured on our cover with her fairy-tale-looking birds (August 2007) and who's previously been best known for delightful representations of bears.
A successful illustrator and cartoonist for 21 years in Los Angeles, Nance and her husband Sherwood moved to Silver City in 2005. The whimsical bears captured the fancy of many California collectors; each of these paintings contained 16 — count 'em, 16 — bears, some hidden in the landscape while others sip wine or roast fish in the foreground. The bear, she says, is her "totem."
But she has also painted "sky horses," reminiscent of ancient petroglyphs, and carved sculptures out of rocks, typically depicting female figures. She's even created stone sculptures of sandwiches. So it should surprise no one that Nance is now trying her hand at gigantic metal dragonflies — or quail with excellent taste in reading material.
Nance's work can now be seen at Bear Mountain Lodge, newly reopened by the owners of Blue Dome Gallery (see this month's Business Beat).