Meet Nancy L. Bond

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nancy L. Bond a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nancy L., we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

Finding my purpose has been an ongoing, lifelong journey. Over my 77 years, I picked up incentives to what is purposeful; adding it to my life to create many roles. The first one I picked up was as a young girl when my grandmother, who cared for me, died leaving my Parkinson’s grandfather without his life’s mate. I became a caregiver for him. Caregiving became my first purpose. That led me to caring for my younger brother’s, having children of my own, and becoming a mental health therapist. Within that role, I developed innovative ways of caring for others. I began to teach others these methods, which gave me another purpose. I found these methods had a creative element to them as I applied them differently to each person I cared for. It made me realize that I was a creative person; not only professionally and at home, but with the many years of craft work I created.

From my late 20’s up to now, I have created in many different ways: In the 1960’s, I began to sew my own clothes. In the 70’s it was macrame and, interior design. In the 80’s it was Martial Arts and parenting. (Effective parenting must be creative.) This is when I began to create methods of caretaking for members of my family, and my clients.

After retirement, I volunteered at a local hospice. There I envied a pencil drawing a nurse had at her desk. It was simply of a foot . I could not draw a stick figure. Since I believe in the saying, “That which you envy, you have within yourself”, I decided to take a drawing class. At this point I was 60 years old! That was the beginning of my visual arts journey.

For me, I love to learn. Since then I have taken many in-person, and on-line classes. I love being part of a gathering of people’s learning a common topic. In this case it was the beginning of my mixed media work. I began with that drawing class and built my artwork like a collage: watercolor, acrylic, some oil, stained glass, colored pencils, ink and papers. I can’t leave out whatever I find at the local hardware store or in my backyard to add to a surface.

Together much is possible!

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

“You certainly love color”! That is the comment I regularly hear about my mixed media paintings.

I have traced my love of color from childhood to adulthood. I as a child lived in a multi-cultural Catholic community in Buffalo, N.Y. I loved the architecture of those churches, particularly the glow from candles as they accentuated the glass.

We moved several times beginning with Arizona and ending up in California. In Arizona the sunsets of the desert were burned into my creative memory. In California, I body surfed in the silent shades of blue along the coastline. Later in our world travels, I saw how these colors, and various materials, were brought together to create those museum masterpieces that I had come to know and love.

I began my artistic evolution in my late 20’s with sewing a wardrobe of clothes. As a single working Mom in my 30’s, I did many crafts from macrame to interior design. In my 40’s, we frequently traveled to Hawaii where snorkeling, the culture, and fragrant botanicals, were my inspiration for art quilting. Venice, Italy wowed me with stained glass mosaics. Painting came after our trip to France. The impressionists’ and bronze statuary touched my heart. I knew I had to figure out how to paint!

I did not know how to draw or paint until I retired from my mental health private practice in 2006. As a volunteer at a local hospice I admired an anatomical pencil drawing of a foot by one of the workers. It was so well done! I envied her talent. That spontaneous event reminded me of the saying, “That which you envy, you have within yourself.” Fortunately there was a new drawing class at a local community center. Taking that class, along with many other classes included watercolor, collage, and now Sumi-e, has kept me engaged in the creative process. It gives me completion. I can’t imagine doing any new types artwork since I have, at my fingertips, many tools to create in various ways.

With encouragement from family, friends, and teachers, I have had my work hung in galleries and made sales. While my motivation to do artwork has always been a need; an internal drive, I do like having my work seen and sold. If only to give me space to store additional works! I some of my work is at nbondart@instagram.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I was born into a poor family. I was not encouraged to do artwork. Artwork was a leisure we could not afford in time or materials. It was through the encouragement of teachers, extended members of our family that displayed their own creative journeys, and my attraction to architecture and nature, that motivated me to create an image. Later in retirement, I had that time. I had time to learn new skills, to observe and to regularly practice. I observe nature in our gardens and travels. I could now take classes, both online and in person. Many of these classes, including the free ones on YouTube, gave me the opportunity to share my work and admire other artists’ work. Contrary to what seems to be seen in movies or TV, I don’t think to be a good artist you must have a chaotic space. I believe it helps to have a devoted, organized space; whatever the size.

Because of my own life’s journey and my professional history, I have noticed that creative folks can come from families who have frequently moved. It may be from a parent being in the military, or just parents running away from something or someone. These changes can create new situations in which a person is forced to acquire flexibility. To me that can enhance creativity. Out of the chaos of new places, new friends, and new possibilities, creativeness may emerge. While there can be costs to not having regularity as a person develops, there are also a multitude of experiences to draw from.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

There are teachers, family, and friends who have influenced and supported my work. Of all of them Gerald Brommer’s (1927-2020) collage methods gave me a new way to think about what I thought would be a mistake.

Gerald has written 23 books of which Collage Techniques influenced me the most. He produced videos of which “From Line and Shape to Complex Surfaces” and “Stained Paper and Collage” are my favorites. He has videos on Youtube through Cheap Joes Art Supplies. He left behind a legacy of teaching all over the U.S. I was fortunate to take a 3 dat workshop from him here in Oregon in 2014. Probably from all the skills and methods he created, the idea that nothing was a mistake, was the most helpful. He taught that if the artist did not like something about their collage work, simply use a matte medium to cover it up and start again. In doing so the surface, which I covered with watercolor and papers, became more complex and wonderful.

That idea helped me to recreate rather than judge my work as a failure. I became more flexible by posing the question, what can I do next? Rather than feeling discussed, I would rework the surface to develop an image I was satisfied with. This idea was a game changer for me. It has carried over into other types of media that I have done. I hope this instruction helps others as well.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: nbondart@instagram