Nancy Rohan... Art/Work

At 16, I went to work for the summer in Ocean City, Md. The owner of the building I was staying in saw me sketching outside, and said he needed some signs for the building, and would trade for rent if I was interested. Of course I was interested, (even though I'd never painted any signs before). While I was doing that work, a friendly signpainter approached me and offered to teach me which brushes and type of paint would make the job easier. I spent the remainder of that summer painting signs, finding it an enjoyable way to make my living, through Art/Work. I decided to major in Art Education, and thought sign painting could provide a good additional income, so I took on an apprenticeship working at a sign shop through college. Training to teach Art required working in many different mediums, from fine arts like painting and sculpture to crafts including shop and woodwork. At the sign business, I learned traditional hand lettering and gold leaf techniques, and eventually learned to bend glass for neon signs, design steel and aluminum structures and fabricate the whole range of commercial types of signage. When my boss wanted to retire, he sold me the shop. After many years of owning the sign shop, I decided I'd had enough and wanted to go into painting murals, making stained glass, rustic furniture, sculpture, and commissioned works. Many of my previous sign customers were restaurant owners , who were remodeling interiors and wanting murals, so there was an easy transition into this new line of Art/Work. I also worked with a company that produced museum exhibits, as a designer, sculptor and mural painter. We created exhibits for the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., the Maritime Museum in Newport News, Va., a community museum in Muscatine, Iowa, the Visitors Center at Hoover Dam, projects for Zoo Atlanta, as well as many "themed environments" for commercial and residential settings, and projects with faux stone water features constructed of carved concrete. I moved to New York City in 2006, and had the opportunity to help set up school-based Skateparks in the East Village and on the rooftop of a school in the Lower East Side. I helped construct all sorts of ramps and skate obstacles, and of course painted signs for the sponsors of the program. While in New York, I worked for a company in Manhattan that made stained glass mosaic murals and wall treatments, both small and very large scale. I also was able to learn the process of casting bronze while in New York, a lifelong goal that was finally available to me there. After 5 years in the city, I missed having a yard and garden, and chose to relocate to the beautiful town of Asheville, N.C. with its very art oriented community, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains.