Nanci Cook

Campbell River BC

My mother died when I was 17. After high school graduation, I put my finger on a map and pointed at Santa Cruz California as my next destination. Though I enrolled as an English Lit major, after a course in drawing I realized I had found real inspiration for a life path in the arts. University of Califonia Santa Cruz offered a major in Arts & Crafts & their History and I jumped in. Thanks especially to my instructors Al Johnsen and Beverly Cassell, I learned to make and paint things that mattered. Fifteen years of pottery on Hornby Island later, tendinitis and arthritis forced me to stop working with clay.

I have been painting and drawing from life since UCSC, hosting life drawing sessions and painting plein air (outdoors). As owner of Firesign Art & Design Studio and B&B, I hosted and attended workshops by other artists, including Perrin Sparks, Nancy O’Toole, Marjorie Turnbull,  Peter Shostak, Marilyn Timms, David Gallup, Suzanne Northcott, Janice Robertson, Dianne Bersea, Brian Simons,  John Stuart Pryce, and more. I was lucky during Covid in 2020 to meet Linda Richichi online through the International Plein Air Painters (I-P-A-P.com). She has since become my teacher and mentor and has taught me so much that I needed to learn mastery. (richichiart.com). For more information, see her website at nancicook.ca