Thanks to the open arms of Ted Watkins, owner of Gold Beach Books (affectionately referred to as the The Biscuit Building), an eager audience of forty-some people had assembled in the Special Book Room on the second floor. It was to be the unfolding of yet another part of Nancy's dream, of sharing her paintings with the public.
Nancy and I became reacquainted just before she gave a public introduction to her first-ever art show. Almost in her wise seventies, Nancy exudes more energy than most people half her age. Seemingly blessed with the company of an eternal muse, and using a very unique method that she just loves to share with others, Nancy conceives art that has recently been enjoying widespread local appeal. The message that her vibrant canvases embody is one of universal love and hope.
• • •
Nancy and I spoke at The Biscuit a few days after her opening reception, in early April of 2004:
NANCY:
They’ve never used this room before, to have a show, a one-person show or otherwise. I completed six entirely new paintings for this display. For all this to happen, this building had to be here, Ted and all the others had to recognize that there’s something going on here, and then all the people had to come and express interest.
When I paint
I empty myself and let Spirit flow through me.
It’s similar to Japanese brush painting. And the more I let myself become childlike and let it flow, the greater it seems to be. Great Central Sun [1] and Violet Flame [2] are from the very first times that the energy started coming in.
When the energies start coming through into a human being, they’re really powerful. And I had never done this particular thing — I had painted for about forty years, but not like this. Well, a few years ago I was listening and could feel this tremendous rush coming, but I didn’t exactly know what to do with it. It turned out that it was pure energy from the Great Central Sun, which is another sun behind ours that the scientists probably don’t even know about. It’s from the Heaven’s, God’s sources. And
my painting is raw expression. I absolutely let myself be used that way, in their way.
Creation I [3] was the third painting. I got inspired to paint it when the comet Hale Bopp was in our heavens, after I had met my ex-husband. I was living in the last house, across the Rogue River in Wedderburn, overlooking the ocean — just before the cattle-guard, after you pass all those fancy houses. Well, I was the humble one at the very end. I had a panoramic view right there, and I could walk that beach anytime I wanted, for a couple of miles up to the right, and hardly anybody else would ever go there. It was a very powerful place. My husband was gone for a whole week, teaching, and every night I meditated and I’d feel this energy coming right off of Hale Bopp.
When I started to understand a little about the energies, I started this painting and I thought I was going to do a galaxy. I got out a large canvas and when I began to put all my paints on, they all started to run. And I was devastated! For one, it’s hard to find a big canvas around here and another thing is, you know, they get costly. I was also hearing inside, not an actual voice, but hearing still, May the rain of blessings fall. So then I thought, OK, if something’s trying to come through, I will separate myself. I give up, the painting that I thought I was going to have is ruined, so angels, do your thing, just do your thing. I kept hearing, May the rain of blessings fall, and I took some gold paint, and then of course it all ran down. Well, I hid it for several days because I was afraid of my husband seeing it and making fun of me or saying, "Well, what is it?" or something like that.
But then I’d peek at it every once in a while and I’d go, My God, I really love it, although I’d never seen this kind of thing. So then, a friend of mine who is very spiritually-minded came over and she said, "Oh my, this is fantastic! There are inter-dimensional portals here, that’s what’s happening." I said, "There are?" She said, "That’s your gift, that’s what’s trying to come through."
Several months later I went to the Soakers coffeeshop in Gold Beach and I saw one of our local artists there, and asked her, "Would you like to see one of my paintings?" She did, and when I took Creation I out of the car, it was upside down, and I thought, Well, that really works upside down, too, isn’t that interesting? I had always had it hanging in my house the original way. Turned around, it seemed so powerful, like the energy’s coming up, and it's about building this new time, this new Earth. It’s like everything that was initially about the rain of blessings is now causing the seeds to grow and come up. So, I asked different people, "Which way do you like it?" Most people like it upside down, as Creation II [4]. That’s the story on my Creation paintings.
In the beginning, none of my paintings were for sale, and then I was able to do these six for the show. I’ve also made available two of my first paintings which, (she chuckles) when I become rich and famous, will be worth a lot of money. Yes, it’s hard to give them up. It really is. But I keep thinking, Hey, you are making these for humanity — this is your job, and now it’s time to let them go. I’ve started to sign my paintings on the side. This is the first time I’ve ever signed my pictures.
KAI:
I don’t want to call your art abstract. You can’t define it in normal terms. It’s intuitive, definitely, but it’s the type of art that people a lot of times don’t understand — they often just pass it by, and I think you’re doing an incredible thing by bringing it out.
NANCY:
It’s awesome to me, it really is. There’s a friend that visits me often, and she always says, "Your paintings are alive!" I know what she's saying — it's the difference between going to a gallery and just looking at paintings, and being around this art, which really is alive. Next to it, everything pales, because this is done with the heart and with intent, and as my techniques improve, the closer that the higher realms are working with me, the better it’s going to be.
KAI:
It’s great to hear you so excited...
NANCY:
Well, it amazes me. But I feel that I’m just the hands and feet. When Lemuria [5] happened, I thought, My God, that’s beautiful! It’s true — if we just empty ourselves and become the channel for, whatever you want to call it, it really happens. And it's the same for photography, music, anything else just as well.
KAI:
You can say it in a number of ways — tuning yourself in, going with the flow, losing yourself, finding yourself — I think it’s all the same. They’re just different names. And I think people do this subconsciously more often than they realize.
NANCY:
When you catch onto what your divine mission is, and you start to do it with full intent, then it really jumps out! I’m consciously working with the angelic and the elementary realms, consisting of the devas and the fairies and the gnomes, and fire, air, water, and earth. The elementals are also in the paints themselves. I'm open to anything else that wants to come through as well, deliberately invoking these higher vibrations. And when I do that, my guides just explode, they go, Oh my God, you’re here! We’re here! We’ve been waiting for eons of time to have that remembrance of working together. Because that’s what we did, in the ages past. We did it consciously. And each painting individually emanates a ray. And when a person is attracted to it, she or he might have coding — receptors within themselves — and then that energy comes into them. I bring the higher energies into form, earthly substance, through my art.
The pictures embody the sacred names of God, are of the same energy as God.
KAI:
So, you paint in your living room?
NANCY:
Yes, or in the hallway, when you first walk in but it doesn't have the best light. It's where I painted Divine Being [6]. I don’t know why I did paint it then — the energy just came over me. It was in the evening, and it was hardly lit up from above, and I set my easel up, and it was just pouring through me. So when this energy came through, I knew it represented the Divine Mother, it was so fast and furious and I thought, I want a big canvas, but I didn’t have one. So, then they tell me to get the paints, and I got the paints out, and I started doing all these different things, and I thought that this would interfere and ruin the picture. They said, Never mind, just do it. I started on it and then all I could see was magenta...well, that actually gave the picture depth, so I never know. Sometimes I stop painting and I can’t finish it because it’s a forerunner of something else. And then I started rubbing the canvas lightly with my hands, and not that I have a tremor or that I’m out of my mind, but
sometimes my hand will just start doing things...just like when you know how to type well, you don’t pay any attention, like that.
Then, this started happening, and they said to just to add all these squiggles. I don’t know why, they just said to do it. And I thought, Well, maybe it’s going to ruin the painting. So be it. It didn’t look very pretty, to tell you the truth, when I finished it in this dim light, in the hallway. And then the next day it was sunny and I brought it into the other room and thought, Oh, this is really pretty neat! So, I learned something then.
Sometimes I get in the mood I normally paint a picture in, and then I don’t. It kind of fritters out, and I know that if I don't do it right that minute, if for some reason I have an appointment or something, it just fades away.
KAI:
And you go back to it later on and it’s just not the same.
NANCY:
It’s gone. And anybody who recognizes this technique understands that it’s ephemeral — it comes and goes, and you run with it or you don’t. It’s not a rational matter, it’s a heart thing.
KAI:
Do you have any of your paintings from the previous era?
NANCY:
I don’t think I have even one. I always gave them away, or they got wrecked, and I’ve moved so many times...
KAI:
I’d be really interested to see one.
NANCY:
I think one was a big wave on a rock, a big wave crashing. I gave it to somebody.
KAI:
You don’t sound too thrilled, describing this painting.
NANCY:
Well, in our process, we just go through so many moves and so many things are given away, or lost, or don’t fit us any more and we don’t want them around. Like, what comes in my house now is always sacred. Otherwise it doesn’t appeal to me at all. And I want my life to be like that...my life is like that.
KAI:
Now you’re learning about the business, or game, of selling art, which is a whole other story.
NANCY:
Or, other people are learning my way, and that is, if somebody feels an impulse towards a certain thing and they really want it, that’s who it’s supposed to go to. I want that to happen. But I have no control — the Universe has a way of working, you know. It really does. I call it the "Great Computer in the Sky."
For example, my daughter Cheryl came up a year ago, just spur of the moment. I’ve lived here 13 years and none of my family have ever come up to visit me. They live in Washington and California, and they’re very busy, like everybody else, and it was all right to go visit them, but they never have been here. She’s the most organized, stable, wonderful business-woman. I’m stable, too, but she doesn’t know anything about this part of my life, the spiritual part...and she stayed for three days and it was a beautiful experience. I shared my paintings with her, and the crystals and all the different things I have. We were having a candlelight dinner that I made for her, and she turned to me and said,
"Mom, I’m so sorry I never came up to see you," she said, "I didn’t know who you really were," and she started to cry. It was very meaningful to me, it just opened my heart and her heart and made us really close.
At another time, when Cheryl’s partner Ed saw my pictures, he said, "Well, I could put you on the Internet!" So he created a website for me not very long ago, and got me started on the computer, which I still barely know how to use. And then Cheryl lent me her personal computer, and they got me a printer, and everything started happening, just a few months ago, I think. All of a sudden, I came and saw this building, and loved it, talked with Ted about different artists, and I said, "Oh, I’m an artist, too," and he asked me to bring in the paintings.
KAI:
That’s the beauty of a little town — you’re much closer to the center of it than you are if you were living in Portland. To get a show together at a big gallery there would take lots of work, and you need connections, and you need money, and all that...and here, it’s all out in the open.
NANCY:
I had no idea how this would evolve. But you know, I was told that this was my work, and that the paintings have an impulse, an energy, that will go out to whoever sees them, whoever touches them.
It will be just like a dandelion, when you blow the dandelion and all the little seeds go out, that’s what Spirit told me.
I was just in awe of the process, and realized that it’s like connect-the-dots — every little piece is really important, it’s just that when you see it happening, or when you see your work in print or in a book, when it really starts to happen and people respond to it, it's kind of shocking. Because there’s so much time in between each stage of growth...
KAI:
Sometimes it takes a lifetime to build up the momentum, and then everything happens all at once.
NANCY:
It’s really fun. And people who are in other aspects of art, such as photography, when they hear my story, I hope it inspires them, because if I can come from nothing and all of a sudden have all this inspiration happening, well, so can other people.
KAI:
How do you like Brookings, where you’re at now?
NANCY:
Well, I like it, but I believe that we’re also sent to be in certain places that maybe we wouldn’t necessarily pick for ourselves. I’d rather be either overlooking the ocean or out in the woods somewhere. Instead, I live in a senior complex in the center of town, but see, it’s all divine and it’s all the same thing. If this is to go out to the world, then I need to be in the world, and I’m definitely in the world. And it’s all glorious because
when people see these paintings, they change inside. And that’s why we’re here on Earth, to bring forth this light, and we each have our own unique way of doing it.
If we co-create together, work together to help each other create, awesome things happen, just awesome! It’s limitless. It’s going to be much more fun from now on. Things are going to really meld, and we’re going to find each other, we're going to connect with people of like minds, and it’s going to go out to the world. This is the time of truth, and this is the time we’re to let it all out. It’s time that everything comes out — our desires, our hopes, our dreams. There’s no reason why we can’t go for them.
KAI:
What would you say is the purpose of art in general? Some people see it as superficial, not practical, but I read a good definition of art once, and it said that art is practical if it has some kind of effect. And a great piece of art makes people feel. So actually, it’s the most practical of all things. It’s as useful as a kitchen knife or anything else.
NANCY:
It speaks to the soul. I don’t know where I’ve read it, but I have read that
you can learn about the spirituality of a civilization by their art.
KAI:
A lot of people would say that about technology, which is also true.
NANCY:
Well, technology can be art, also. Look at all the computer art we have. I think that art is the extension of our being, and when you purposefully try to create something that’s beautiful, and you display it, it’s a very vulnerable part of yourself that you choose to share with other people.
I think art is...well, it’s kind of like saying, How important are flowers?
It's the same with gemstones and beautiful crystals — they’re all important aspects of this glorious world. Art does something to our heart and our soul, it enlightens us. And we certainly grow through the process, too, because it opens us up. Like people’s criticism, "She’s never had any training," that kind of thing. "She doesn’t have a degree in art" — why should I think about what people would say? Or Peace Divine [7], which may not look like it’s finished. But when I got to a certain point in the process of painting it, I was told, That’s it. When I had my show I explained that although to some people it might seem like it’s not finished, in actuality, it is. I have to stay open to receiving Spirit's instructions.
KAI:
Well, with the available technology, now you can sell prints, so that makes your art much more available to the general public.
NANCY:
That’s one of the reasons I put up my website. Even the affordable prints will carry the energy, maybe not quite as much as the originals, but they, meaning the company of Heaven, want those out to the public. The paintings have encoded messages. And I think that if the person who produces the prints does it with the intent of bringing this forth, it comes through, even if it’s a print. It does work.
I want to tell you about this group of thousands, maybe millions, of people who bring in specific energies every month that I work with, called Ascended and Free. We consciously try to bring the energy that is being sent here and to ground it on Earth, and this energy of Peace Divine was brought forth all last month. It was written that,
for the beginning of any civilization or new co-creation, it always starts with Peace Divine. There is this quality of peacefulness that is the foundation, the underpinning, of whatever it is that is being created.
It seemed really important. It inspired me to paint my Peace Divine. Its shape is very maternal. So much of the Divine Feminine is coming through there.
The new energy coming in is Divine Hope, which stands for (she reads from pamphlet) Health, Opulence, Peace, and Enlightenment. And this just made my heart sing because it says, I am in-breathing and absorbing the dazzling diamond-pure white flame of Hope. That's going to be the next picture. I don't know how I'm going to do white yet, but that will probably be my next inspiration. I have several canvases waiting at home. In fact, I put one up on the easel this morning, because I better work with this new energy. When I have the meditation on Wednesday night with my group, we perform the new blessing for each month. We breathe it in and then we let it out. And Hope contains the highest belief, the highest expectation, the highest possibilities — it goes on and on and on. Anybody can do this — I believe this is one of the highest teachings on the planet, this particular work. I really resonate to it. Now, a lot of people don't, but
I do this every month, and bring in another aspect of divinity, materializing it into the Earth plane through my paintings. Not only am I in-breathing and out-breathing it — I'm actually putting my hands on the canvas.
Thousands of people, including myself, create a channel, a vortex, of this energy. So it will make humanity more hopeful — all of a sudden we're going to see people that have shining eyes because we're raising the planet's consciousness into the fifth dimension. We've already moved into it — everybody has moved into it, the Earth is in that dimension. We have all ascended, and we're taking everybody with us. We're being used as surrogates for the people who have forgotten or who don't know — we're speaking for them. And so, that's the service that millions of other people and I perform. But when you look around the world it sure doesn’t look like...
KAI:
Like anything’s happened.
NANCY:
But the thing is, it has. It’s the old thought-forms which we’ve been ingrained with that have people believing that nothing’s happened. I try to stay in this ascended mode of being, and it takes a little bit of doing sometimes, especially if something ruffles my feathers or someone gets mad at me, but the truth is that if millions of people are thinking that we're ascended and free, we really are. And our conscious intentions affect the entire world. So it’s very powerful. Just like Hope, which stands for Health, Opulence, Peace, and Enlightenment — that’s the whole thing! What else could you want?
KAI:
I can picture people reading this, either over the Internet or in print, and it will spark them. It will inspire them to experience more art, or go and connect with a certain person, or maybe check out your website. Just help them a little bit along their path.
NANCY:
There are a lot of diamonds out in the hillsides here, all up and down the coast — there are all these gemstones and diamonds in the hearts of many, many people here. I’ve met so many of them and they're just beautiful, radiant beings! They are gifts to our society, but they think of themselves as being alone. And they don’t feel that their light is important or that they’ll make a difference, but it’s time for us to get to know each other.
This is the time to really bring it to the marketplace. We’re all different gems, and though we all come from different spiritual paths and have various ways of approaching life, all of them hold meaning.
It seems to me that when we have spiritual gatherings around here, or when a person like Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist healer, visits, I see in our eyes, in the eyes of the people that show up, that many people have their own path, and they’re all very strong. When Rinpoche was performing his healing here, you could see this light coming from him and the people attending, but everybody remained strong in their own way, individually. We’re not a melting pot, you know, we don’t melt into the "one great teaching." We don’t give our power away, we stay strong with our own spiritual connections, and this is good.
Now, if we can get all these gems into one pile and start shining out individually, and acknowledge to each other that what we all do is wonderful, and share, and get excited — without getting territorial or jealous — just letting our light shine, this is hope!