Nancy's favorite artwork

Humanity began with good intentions, trying to make life safer, healthier, and less difficult. But our short‑sightedness and arrogance led us to believe every problem could be solved with the next invention or convenience. Like a mindless virus, we now consume our host, Earth, without regard for the damage we cause. Greed and shared ignorance have become normal.

We hide the evidence of our destruction, burying it or sinking it into the ocean, anywhere but our own backyard. We devour resources, move on when they’re depleted, and never look back. Our actions have poisoned our food and water. Those who try to warn us are ridiculed, ostracized, or silenced because listening would require us to change.

Our children now pay the price for the privileges of generations before them. They see the truth clearly and feel its weight every day. They have solutions unbounded by old assumptions, yet we refuse to hear them. Their futures depend on adults who repeatedly behave with selfishness, fear, and partisan obsession. It could literally cost them everything, even their lives.

Despair engulfs us. Fear divides us. Shame immobilizes us. The expansiveness of our impact overwhelms us. Seeing the truth requires courage. Change comes with inconvenient personal costs; sacrifices most seem unwilling to pay.

Mother Earth warns that time is running out. She needs us to be fearless and to act if we expect her to continue sustaining us as she has for millennia. We are called to awaken from complacency and overconsumption. We are called to be brave, for our children, for the finned, the furred, the feathered, the four‑legged, the crawling creatures, and the living foliage that covers Mother Earth.

We stand precariously on the edge of a planetary threshold—a point of no return.

How are you heeding the call?

This mixed media piece was donated to climate scientist Robert Davies at the University of Utah to be used for climate change education.

Created in 2021 - NFS

These portraits were born from Nancy’s refusal to be dismissed or diminished simply because she is a gray‑haired older woman. Surrounded by so many vibrant, thriving women who share that same silver‑haired strength, she felt inspired to celebrate them.

Nancy set out to paint portraits of these remarkable women, women whose lives are rich with experience, creativity, resilience, humor, heart and wisdom. Her goal was to capture not just their faces, but their ageless spirits. Each portrait weaves in the passions, objects, and moments that light them up from the inside, revealing the energy and joy that society too often overlooks.

This body of work is Nancy’s tribute to the power, beauty, and brilliance of women who refuse to fade.

Created in 2024

School is meant to be a place of safety, yet our children are dying. It should be where they learn, grow, and gently step out of innocence, but instead, that innocence is being violently taken from them. When tragedy struck Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, it became yet another moment where parents from previous school shootings traveled to console families facing a grief and devastation they knew far too well.  

Creating this artwork, I struggled with the feeling that nothing I could do would ever fully honor the children or the magnitude of this issue. How could it? As I began layering the names of schools affected by gun violence, I started with Sandy Hook, the one most deeply etched into my memory. I was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of schools and the countless children they represented. Only after finishing did I realize I had forgotten Columbine, the tragedy that first captured widespread media attention. I fear I forgot it because holding so many nightmares in my heart at once felt impossible. I added another list of missing schools, squeezing them around the edges of the painting. And still, Columbine was not the beginning. The first recorded incident of school gun violence occurred in 1853, when a student returned to school and killed the schoolmaster.  

This painting includes 358 K–12 schools, yet gun violence reaches far beyond them. It has invaded universities, churches, grocery stores, neighborhoods—every corner of our society. Media coverage often focuses on the children who were killed, and while my heart aches for them, I also grieve for the thousands who survived by hiding, running, or witnessing unthinkable horrors. A piece of them died, too. And every child in every school across this country now carries that fear. This trauma has reshaped their understanding of the world and stolen their innocence.  

The unrelenting loss of innocence—on this scale—is more than any society can bear. And still, the fight over guns drags on.  

When will you/we/they choose love and our children first? 

This piece was donated to Jesse Lewis Choosing Love Movement

 Choose Love Movement - Promoting Hope, Healing & Connection 

Created in 2022 - NFS

I did not know whose portrait I would create when I started this piece, Obama or McCain. Months before the 2008 election I was moved to create pastel images depicting the current issues that would challenge the incoming president. From those original 14 images, 4,800 digital images were created and used for this portrait. My focus was - In honor of, and with deep gratitude for, a man who faces daunting responsibilities with unprecedented worldwide effects. This was not meant to be a Democratic or a Republican statement. It reflects back to a time when I was in school, and it was considered patriotic to have a picture of the president in each classroom. It was not a political statement then and it is not a partisan statement now.

Created in 2009-2010 -NFS

The 100th anniversary of suffrage inspired a dive deep into the evolution of women’s right to vote. Revealed was a timeline that spanned decades, many sacrifices made by many players who protested and strategized. This artwork is a tribute to those who came before us. It is a reminder we cannot take for granted the gains, losses and wins those women experienced for us all. Suffrage may be celebrating 100 years, but the struggle started prior to 1776. I dedicate this work to the women who played a role then, and those who work today, to end the disenfranchisement that still occurs. 

Things incorporated into the artwork: 

• Intentionally done with layers to represent the layers of commitment, work and 

         sacrifice 

• A Native American woman prominently voting represents the underrepresented 

        people for whom voting remains a challenge

• The Emancipation Ballot of 1848 echoes today’s issues and the work yet to be 

        done - especially for people of color

• 2020 begs a new amendment be brought forth regarding climate change

• A silhouette of a 1920 suffragette sister voting represents those who came before

• Posters portray the suffrage era logic

• Women march in the background, where they are often relegated

• Sacajawea is credited as being the first woman to vote due to her equal 

         vote on the Lewis and Clark expedition

• Unsung African American women rose to the challenge for suffrage 

• Susan B. Anthony, a leader dedicated to the cause died 14 years before the 

         Anthony amendment was ratified, she also held the belief that Blacks should 

        not have the vote

• Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman are credited with inspiring and 

        supporting suffrage because of how they worked to end slavery

• Helen Hill Weed, like many women, spent days or weeks jailed for protesting or 

         attempting to vote, husbands were not supportive, and marriages ended

• Force feeding was inflicted on women in the United States and Europe in 

         response to hunger strikes while incarcerated

• Red Lipstick used as a fashion protest became a tangible sign of autonomy

• Lancashire Lassie is being arrested, the women in Europe fought a parallel

          battle with inspiration traveling back and forth across the pond

• A timeline frames the piece, outlining the painstaking commitment experienced

          to attain women’s right to vote

• The Pussyhat protest is included because of the need for continued fighting for 

         equality

Suffrage 2020 was donated to the city of Park City, Utah and hangs in city hall.

Created in 2020 - NFS

I watched from the sidelines feeling helpless as nurses, doctors, medical staff, custodians and behind the scenes hospital staff walked into danger daily for their patients. That helplessness grew into an insatiable need to express my gratitude and admiration for the sacrifices in an uncertain environment that were made; sacrifices many of us will never truly understand. I needed this artwork to convey the message to the medical staff that there are many “out there” who appreciate them beyond words; a standing tribute to their valiant efforts during and beyond a global pandemic.

Concepts behind this work:

· The PPE shortages 

· The mystery - Who will it affect? How will it affect them? What is the best 

         treatment? How long will it take to develop a vaccine?

· Tears, grief, losses, helplessness, sacrifices

· The virus could be anywhere - so it escapes the painting out onto the mat

· Hat colors represent the various hospital departments with a white one

        to acknowledge essential staff behind the scenes

· Faces rendered in shades of the grey cloud that the globe became shrouded in

· The artwork demanded it be three dimensional to portray the many effects the 

         virus had on our health, our economy, our mental health, our families and our 

         perceptions of the world. 

Covid 19 Heroes hangs in the lobby of Intermountain Hospital in Park City, Utah.

Created in 2020 - NFS

Ma-ni-do Gee-zhi-Gance translates from Anishinaabe to Spirit Little Cedar and is a painting of a cedar tree known as the Witch Tree. This cedar is sacred to the Native peoples and stands on the northwest shore of Lake Superior near Grand Portage. For several years I traveled to spend time with the tree which was healing during a time of personal turmoil. I witnessed how tourists left trash and pulled pieces from the tree for souvenirs unaware of its sacredness. Then the tree was in jeopardy from developers and my response was to create this pastel painting in hopes it could be used to help generate funds to save the tree. That part of the story never came to fruition. Gratefully, this amazing tree is now under the protection of the Grand Portage Band of Ojibwe. Depicted in the painting are the four bands of Natives that lived on the land around the tree represented by Moose, Caribou, Pike and Pine Martin. 

Created in 1992 - NFS