Nancy Train Smith
"I was educated at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, graduating in 1968 with a BA in Art History, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. At the SMFA I completed the four year diploma program, in 1977, and the fifth year competition, in 1978. As a winner of the competition I was granted a traveling fellowship and participation in a show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.
My first involvement with installation art was while I was still a student. Three of us presented work in a parking garage in downtown Boston with the idea of presenting art in a non-art context. Later that same year I directed a multi-site quasi performance piece celebrating the first First Night, 1976. For a subsequent First Night I co-developed a store-front presentation of Yeats' Noh-style play, "At the Hawk's Well", with my teacher Arawana Hayashi.
In 1980, I used my traveling fellowship to travel to the American West to see the site works by Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, Michael Heizer, and Walter De Maria. My purpose on that trip was to try to calibrate the difference between seeing the work through secondary sources such as photographs and drawings and actually encountering the "real" work in the wild.
In the fall of 1980, I joined a ceramic cooperative, and embarked on journey into clay sculpture which preoccupied me until the early 1990s. The work I made during those years was focused mostly on the female figure, using self-portraits as a vehicle for understanding my role as a woman as well as an artist.
From about 1995 to 2005 I engaged in an intensive study, through painting, of the landscape of the estuarine south coast. Often crawling through the underbrush with my camera, I sought to capture the feeling of being "in" the landscape rather than looking "at "it. Working out my vision through painting has been important to me as I move toward what I really want people to experience through my work. Recently, I have been able to make work that actually inhabits that same landscape and others.
Now, in 2012-13, I am shifting back to painting again in preparation for a show at the Dedee Shattuck Gallery in the summer of 2015. Whether painting or making sculpture, I am always trying to capture a moment of quietness and mystery, in the mental and physical space created by the natural world. " - Nancy Train Smith 2013
Dedee Shattuck Gallery Exhibits:
Recent Work by Nancy Train Smith and Lisa Lebofsky, 2015
Additional works available, to inquire about works, please email dedeeshattuckgallery@gmail.com or call 508-636-4177.
Résumé
Born:
Hamilton, Bermuda
EDUCATION:
1978 School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Fifth Year Certificate
1968 Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, B.A. (major field of study: Art History)
AWARDS
1978 Ruth A. Sturtivant Travelling Fellowship Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
TEACHING/PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
2011 Visiting Artist, Curaumilla Art Center, Curaumilla Chile
1998-99 The Wang Center for the Performing Arts, Boston, MA, "Young at Arts" Judges Panel
1993 Workshop, Greenwich House Pottery, New York, NY
1992 Visiting faculty, AR-CO, Lisbon, Portugal. 5 months.
1989 Visiting Artist, Portland School of Art, Portland, ME
1988-92 The Wang Center for the Performing Arts, Boston, MA, "Young at Arts" Judges Panel
1985 "Contemporary Ceramics-Six New England Artists"; University of Massachusetts; Amherst, MA. Group Panel Discussion.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1996 The Standard Times, New Bedford, MA. Oct. 10. "Remain in Light", by Richard Pacheco.
1991 Studio Potter, December, 1991. "The Healing Process", by Nancy Train Smith
1990 Metropolitan Home, February, 1990. "Winners".
1989 Quadrant XX111:1, "Women As Mythmakers Revisited" by Estella Lauter.
1989 Ceramics Monthly. November, 1989. "The Monarch Tile Competition", by William Hunt.
1989 Ceramica No ARCO; Centro de Art e Comunicacao Visual; Ford Lusitana S.A., Instituto Portugues da Qualidade (exhibition catalog)
1988 Jornal de Letras, artes e ideias. 2-8 Agosto,1988. "As Maos Que O Barro Amassou" by Ana Paula Dias. pp.26-27.
1986 Art New England. June 1986. "Nancy Smith, Clark Gallery, Lincoln.", by Euguene Narrett, p.11.
1986 The Sunday Sun, Lowell, MA. April 13, 1986. "Different Viewpoints at New Showing", by Ann Schechter.
1986 Ceramics Monthly. February, 1986. "New England Ceramic Arts", by Regina Coppola, p.41.
1984 Art New England. December 1984. "Contemporary New England Still Life", by Judy Goldman.
COMMISSIONS
1989 Private Garden, Boston, MA Wall Fountain; Eleanor McPeck, Landscape Designer
1988 First Night, Boston, MA "At the Hawk's Well", collaboration with dancer/choreographer Arawana Hayashi. Theatrical/sculptural images inspired by Yeats' Noh-style play.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2013 New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, MA: Migration: New Bedford Whaling Museum, a permanent installation
2002 Rogers Gallery, Mattapoisett, MA; Nancy Train Smith, "Language of Place"
1999 Paul Mellon Art Center, Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, CT; Nancy Train Smith, "The Spirit of Place"
1996 Dartmouth Gallery, Dartmouth, MA; Nancy Train Smith, "Meditations"
1986 Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA; "Nancy Smith, Ceramic Sculpture"
1979 A St. Gallery, Boston, MA; "Nancy Smith"
1978 Flag Gallery, Boston, MA; "Nancy Smith"
EXHIBITIONS:
2012 Dedee Shattuck Gallery, Westport, MA: Small Works Show
2011 Dedee Shattuck Gallery, Westport, MA: Inaugural Exhibition
2011 Cairn Croft Sculpture Show, Dover, MA
2010 New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA; "In the Landscape: 4 Painters-4 Seasons"
2009 Slocum River Reserve, Dartmouth, MA, "The River Project"
2009 Gustin Gallery, Dartmouth, MA; “Form and Image”
2006 Borowicz Gallery, Dartmouth, MA; various shows
2005 Rogers Gallery, Mattapoisett, MA; Women's Fund Show
1999 Rogers Gallery, Mattapoisett, MA; Bill Shattuck, Nancy Train Smith, and Laura Anderson, "Recent Work"
1999 Joanne Rapp Gallery/Hand and Spirit, Scottsdale, AZ; "Spirit Vessels"
1999 Northwest Craft Center, Seattle, WA; "Go Figure"
1992 Pro-Art, St. Louis, MO; "Teapot Invitational"
1991 Georgia State University Gallery, Atlanta, GA; "Figurative Clay"
1990 "Classicism Reconsidered"
1989 The Art Institute, Boston, MA; "Outside Paradise"
1989 San Angelo Museum of Art, San Angelo, TX; "Monarch Tile Competition" (purchase prize)
1989 Museo des Azulejos, Lisbon, Portugal; "Ceramicas No ARCO"
1988 Galeria Municipal de Arte, Almada, Portugal; "Ceramica na Quinta San Miguel"
1987 Fuller Art Museum, Brockton, MA; "Triennial"
1985 Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA; "Animal Imagery"
1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA; "Contemporary Ceramics: Six New England Artists"
1985 Thomas Segal Gallery, Boston, MA; "Still Life"
1984 DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
1984 Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island
1984 "Contemporary New England Still Life"
1982 Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA
1978 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; "Travelling Fellowship Exhibition"
1976 First Night, Boston, MA "Countdown Door"
I conceived, planned and supervised execution of a city-wide, multi-media event, which took place preceding and in conjunction with the First Night Festival.
1976 Brimmer Street Garage Show, Boston, MA
An environmental installation which evolved from a desire to work in a "non-art" context.
Dedeeshattuckgallery@gmail.com | 508. 636. 4177 | 1 Partners' Lane, Westport, MA 02790 | W - Sat, 10 - 5, Sun 12 - 5