Nancy Lilly
When asked to summarize my background I always recall my earliest memory of being taken to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., I was about four years old. My father was holding me in his arms, and I remember like it was yesterday the painting by Leonardo da Vinci, Portrait of Ginevra de Benci. It was painted on both sides.
My father was part of the “Great Generation” that served in WWII, and who remained in the military. At night and on weekends he worked on his sculptures. Portraits of his children in wood and stone. He was self-taught. It was only after I was about 40 years old that I realized that I too worked by day and was an ‘artist by night.’ I too read art history, went to museums, and puttered when I could on ‘art projects.’
I attended the University of Texas with a singular focus on becoming an artist. But life had other plans for me, and after motherhood and a career in high tech, I was 65 when I finally came to a place where I could truly dedicate real time to art. Many people take up art after ‘retirement’ to fill their time; I lunged into art making with a sense of urgency that there was only so much time left. I was not entertaining myself; I was validating my promise knowing it was going to be a sprint to the finish line, not a stroll.
Every work I do is allegorical. Every object in a still life is a symbol. Every landscape is a message about life. My family has been in Texas for more than 150 years, small wonder that the big sky, the vast austere beauty of the American West latches on to me. The self-reliance and integrity required to live in such a remote and challenging land has honed my values. It is no wonder that I return to it time and again. I value endurance and respond intensely to the strong light of the southwest. I look at a clump of cactus and see hope, strength, beauty. My work is about looking farther and looking closer to find the enduring beauty of being true. I am drawn to the implacable revelations of the harsh, glorious, and the remote dry earth of home.
Most of the time I work in pastel. Pastel has a lasting brilliance that oil or acrylic paint do not have. It is a dry medium, less forgiving but more expressive. Only Pastel has the luminescence that can capture a West Texas sky. It does not darken or crack over time, it endures.
