Today we’d like to introduce you to Nona Hershey.
Nona, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I’ve always loved to make things with my hands. As a child I spent a lot of time at Greenwich House Pottery in NYC. I still remember my exhilaration when my legs were long enough to reach the potter’s wheel. I went to Music and Art High School (now called LaGuardia). My ceramics teachers there recommended me for Saturday Studios in sculpture at Pratt Institute. After high school I went to Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia intending to major in sculpture. In my junior year I took some printmaking courses and I soon was smitten and decided to major in printmaking. I loved all of the techniques: lithography, etching, woodcut, and silkscreen, and the infinite variety of prints I could make from my blocks and plates and stones. I was offered a very generous graduate teaching assistantship at Tyler’s new program in Rome. I went for a year, and more or less stayed for another 20 years. There were a number of short stints in the US during that time, working as Master Printer in NYC, and doing a few visiting teaching jobs and Artist Residencies. I taught art at an International High School and then taught printmaking at Temple Abroad for 12 years. I had my own printing press in my home studio in the center of Rome and was exhibiting my work all over the US and in Italy. It was a lovely life but for various personal and professional reasons I was beginning to feel that I needed to move back to the States. However, I was offered a teaching job in Tokyo and it was too good an opportunity to turn down, so I spent a year in Japan. When I finally moved back to the US I realized that as a NYC kid, I knew nothing of the US. I spent two years in various visiting teaching positions and at Artist Residencies across the country. At that point, I realized I wanted to be on the east coast; in a city; ideally near water; and at an art school rather than a liberal arts school. Fortunately I was offered a tenure track job at Massachusetts College of Art and Design which had just finished a long renovation of its printmaking studio and needed someone to head it up and build the department. I love being at MassArt. The students, facilities and faculty are extraordinary, the energy is electric and, as the only free-standing state art school in the country, its commitment to high quality, affordable education agrees with my outlook in every way.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It’s been a fairly smooth road. Surely there were times when I didn’t know what I would be doing next and how I would support myself. There were plenty of gambles but I feel very fortunate to have had the courage to jump in to a lot of big unknowns and find my way. Juggling full-time teaching jobs with my determined aspiration to always be also be a productive, exhibiting artist was sometimes quite a challenge. But I was lucky to have had the breaks I had.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I just retired from full-time teaching although I plan to continue to teach one course a semester at MassArt in the immediate future. I had a solo exhibition in May at Soprafina Gallery in Boston, I will be showing at Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown in August, and will continue to show work at art fairs through Dolan Maxwell in Philadelphia. My objective at this point is to spend the majority of my time in my studio making my own work. I cherish the studio hours and I am excited about the work I am making.
The subject matter of my works on paper is clouds. But I am interweaving in the clouds, my visualization of the techno-chatter filling the skies. In my artist statement I say that “Since the beginning of time, clouds have represented uncertainty; the wrath of gods; the beneficent containers of rain; the boundary between this world, and the mystery beyond. Clouds have caused and witnessed instability and power within and beyond their control.
We instantaneously analyze, pixelate, and quantify the components of our daily experiences, transforming occurrences into digital memory. Although we can’t see the proliferation of signals and techno-chatter that our devices emit, their energy is palpable. We don’t yet know the full extent to which that interference affects us, or our environment. In my work I am juxtaposing what I imagine to be the invisible activity of those signals, with naturalistic clouds. My hope is that despite our ever-increasing urge to connect immediately with things and places around us, we don’t forfeit time spent on the humble meditation of the sublime- those enigmatic sources larger than ourselves: wind, light, and air”.
What were you like growing up?
I don’t think I’m all that different now than I was growing up. I have always loved the quiet concentration of making something-the conversation that happens with a piece when it begins to tell me where it wants to go. I was lucky growing up in NYC, exposed to some of the best museums in the world. I love to travel to new places and especially to spend extended time in museums with my sketchbook. That said, I am also in the real world: I follow current news and I have always been concerned with the preservation of the natural world and humanity.
Contact Info:
- Website: nonahersheywork.com
- Email: nonahershey@verizon.net
- Other: soprafina.com
Image Credit:
Photos of artwork: Stewart Clements
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