Gallery Wall and Art Talk

“The O'Brien Memorial Library received a new piece of public art thanks to Eugene sculptor Mark Andrew, who donated and installed a hand-carved limestone column on Wednesday, November 26….

Andrew will be presenting an O'Brien Library Art Talk about his work and the new installation at a soon to be announced date.“

Current Gallery Artist

Nancy Holzhauser’s Art Talk,

Febuary 7th at 2:00pm

at the O’Brien Memorial Library

Instagram: nancyholzhauser.
Web page: Chickadeewoodsstudios.com

Painting is a journey, it is how I record my path through life.
Nancy has been drawing and painting since she was a kid, encouraged by her mom and grandfather who was a professional painter himself. She has also been fully immersed in field ecology. She received an MS in Aquatic Ecology from UC Davis in 1976, and worked for the Forest Service in Lake Tahoe and the McKenzie River Valley of Oregon until the mid-1980s, when she quit to paint full-time.
For 13 years she showed and sold in art galleries around the western US. In 1996, divorced and in her mid-40s, she realized that she needed to go back to her more financially lucrative work of being a field ecologist, and ran a successful business, Environmental Solutions LLC, for 20 years. Her decades of being out in the wilderness and the "field" with her work enabled her to feel a keen sense of the land, its energies, and its offering of solace and peace, especially when she ventures out alone. These are all important components that she strives to express in her paintings.
Nancy spent most of her working life trying to break down barriers to women in field careers, which have been historically dominated by men. These were the years when an employer could say they don't hire women; these were the years of ignored sexual harassment. In order to be taken seriously, she had to suppress her own voice and be a "little man". When she closed her business in 2015 and was getting back into painting, she was hit with a dis-ease that affected her eyes, and thought she wasn't going to be able to see again. "I was devastated and felt like my life was over. I totally went into the depths of the depths. I didn't realize at the time that it was my body telling me I didn't have to fight to be seen or heard any more."
Slowly she healed, working with a mind-body mentor who taught her to let go, reach inside for her own truth, and embrace that. She has been releasing those limiting beliefs that our culture puts especially on women, to suppress individuality. It took her 4 years before she started creating art again. But with a totally different approach: she was alive, she survived, she could see, she was healed and life is beautiful. "I learned to surrender, have an open heart, and receive from all that is around me. This is how I live and paint now. I don't have a consistent style, and I cannot live in that box anymore. I start a painting with pure emotional response to what is going on inside of me: loneliness, grief, rage, peace, awe. At the onset, I have no idea what will emerge, which is glorious, healing, and meditative. I keep receiving surprises on the canvas."