Open Tuesday - Saturday from 10 am through 3 pm
Nancy Sanders
After teaching French and Spanish for 30 years, Nancy Sanders started her artistic journey in metal smithing and beading. She found that the creativity she used all her life was easily transferred to her newfound passion for creating jewelry with beads and then metals. After making jewelry with silver Precious Metal Clay, which she practiced for several years and became certified to teach, she began to expand her artistic range as she chose to enhance her jewelry making with glass and chain mail too. This lead to an expansion of her glass making and then to cards to allow the gift giver a card to accompany a piece of art made by Nancy.
Nancy's fascination with glass came about quite by accident when she was struck by the colorful, sparkling beauty of dichroic glass jewelry she saw someone wearing. The gorgeous colors and sparkle made her want to create in this medium and add to her jewelry making. She dove right into the creative process by taking many classes to learn the intricacies of the process which included precise cutting, grinding, arranging and mastering the skills of fusing and temperature control. From making dichroic jewelry, Nancy found a love of creating in glass and expanded her skills to include fusing of beautiful plates, crosses, ornaments, etc.
One day while doing a trunk show of her jewelry, Nancy was introduced to chain maille, an ancient art form of combining rings in intricate patterns which were originally used to make vests to protect soldiers and later for jewelry. Nancy saw those gorgeous types of weaves, especially Persian and Byzantine, as a way to enhance her jewelry and since then has made more than 25 different types of weaves using such metals as sterling silver, argentium, niobium, bronze, and enameled copper. Her lovely chain maille bracelets and earrings often incorporate color and/or movement such as sterling dangles she makes herself or colorful beads or crystals.
Noting that her customers often gave her work as gifts, Nancy decided that cards made by her would greatly enhance the gift and thus began her foray into designing a variety of original cards for all occasions. If you're looking for that perfect card for a certain occasion, it's quite probable that one of hers wll fit the bill!
What one notices first with Nancy's work, is her use of color, particularly the blues, purples, and greens of the water and the reds, oranges, and yellows of the sun. This is no accident as she absolutely loves color, whether blending, spotlighting, or recreating colors. One is also drawn by the themes in her work predominately of nature (flowers, the sea, scenery) and foreign travel. These are the things that make one feel happy.
If you love color and nature, be sure to check out Nancy's work in jewelry, glass, and cards at the Leaping Lizard Gallery. You'll be glad you did!
