Artist of the month Nancy Friedman
Melanie Douglas
Meet Nancy Friedman, our selected artist of the month. Nancy moved to Robson Ranch 10 years ago for pickleball, pottery, and a block home. Prior to her retirement, Nancy was a pharmacist with no art experience since grade school. While living in Grand Junction, Colo., she took a pottery class and became interested in throwing clay on the wheel. Just prior to retirement, Nancy bought all the basic necessities for her new hobby, including a wheel and kiln. She brought all of this to Robson and created a small pottery studio in her garage. During the first summer at Robson, knowing she needed more knowledge about art, Nancy took Drawing 1 at Central Arizona College. Other classes in drawing, design, and painting followed. As her interest in the arts grew, she joined the Fine Arts Guild.
Although hoping to gain knowledge in painting, Nancy soon learned there were no classes organized at the Fine Arts Guild. Nancy suggested to the board that she try to set up classes to increase membership and allow others to learn art skills through the Guild. Membership has grown over the past five years, from about 15 members to 57.
Nancy’s favorite medium is acrylic, but she also does watercolor, colored pencils, and mixed media. She considers herself a “Jack of all trades, but master of none.” However, she enjoys setting up classes and watching the artist come alive in others. Whether painting or drawing, she says “time flies, while cares and boredom vanish.”
Nancy has continued to take classes at the Mesa Art Center, the Art Institute of the Arizona, and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, to increase her abilities and to bring back information to the Guild for classes. Always up for a challenge, she just finished an online Art History class covering art from the 1300s to contemporary times.