Nancy Simonds Answers "4 Questions"
1. Your stories/memories are personal. What do you think about viewers
bringing their own interpretation to your paintings?
I think it is terrific if viewers react and bring their personal responses to my work. If my work is evocative in any way to a viewer, I am grateful my piece is giving them a new or interesting visual experience.
2. How do you overcome creative blocks?
If I reach a dead end in a particular piece, say of my OVOID series, I usually turn to one of my other series: BLOCK STACKS, CROPPED OVOIDS, ARC SWEEPS. Also I vary the scale working in varying sizes, small, medium and large.
3. What is your biggest inspiration?
If I need an extra boost of inspiration, I love to go to museums in around where I live or when I travel. Also, I love looking at landscapes, particularly in Maine but in different parts of the country too. Combinations of color or the changing seasons give me endless ideas around color and shape. The architecture of buildings gives me inspiration too: the way fenestration works punctuating the facades of buildings
4. How does your art affect other aspects of your life?
My studio practice is what is central to and grounds my life. The studio is a place that is an oasis, a place of rejuvenation, of endless challenge and feeling productive. It is a gift that I am able to maintain a studio practice.
And it also a gift that what I do in the studio gets visibility in the outside world in a place, the Portland Art Gallery, that is such a showcase for so much artistic energy and enterprise.
Learn more about this artist: