Jody Nash – Listening to the Trees
Interview by Vidabeth Bensen and Forrest Greenslade, May 2023
Jody Nash moved to her home and her Jody Nash Studio in Chatham County from California in 2020. She grew up in San Rafael, California, her family’s home tucked away in a eucalyptus forest. “My parents encouraged me in the arts from early childhood, recognizing my passion. However, despite my desire to be an artist, I followed my second interest to become a nurse to solidify a good income.” Her father, a physician, and her mother, a nurse, influenced Jody’s decision. In 1978 she earned a nursing degree at the College of Marin and later went on to earn an MSN (masters of science in nursing) at the University of Phoenix in Sacramento, Ca.
While she pursued a rigorous nursing career, she continued to explore various art mediums such as acrylic painting, drawing, and silk painting. In the mid-90s she went back to school and earned a BFA in Studio Arts at UC Davis, where her grandfather had been a professor of agriculture, concentrating on printmaking, photography, and oil painting. For the last decade, Jody has been weaving long leaf pine needle baskets. “The baskets I make are inspired by the Pomo Indians in Northern California where I learned to coil in 2012, and the Low Country basket weavers in Charleston, South Carolina, where I first learned about sweet grass.”
The current focus of Jody Nash Studio – soft pastel on paper – resulted from an epiphany that Jody experienced upon moving to North Carolina from California. “I was in the process of unwinding from my long career in nursing. Arriving here, I was overwhelmed by the lush landscape and quickly began searching for a medium to describe it. I saw some new pastel techniques people were posting on Instagram and became fascinated. I started watching you tube video tutorials to learn more about it.”
Jody has perfected a uniquely refined approach to pastel painting. In her well-appointed studio, she usually works standing before an easel, but at times she works on site, or ‘en plein air’, sketching from life. She then takes photos to capture the rapidly shifting light and completes the painting in the studio. Her pastels have several stages: initial free-hand sketch, value underpainting with hard pastels washed over with 90% alcohol to stain the paper. She follows with soft pastels (pan pastels or soft pastel sticks). “I am inspired by reflections, shadows, water, sky, clouds, the moodiest moments. I choose subjects that combine those elements, when possible, with distant vistas and awesome light.” The strong design elements in her work are punctuated by the unusual use of line she employs with her pastels.
Jody’s work can be seen on Instagram, Facebook, on her website https://www.jodynashstudio.com and on her presence on the Chatham Artists Guild website https://chathamartistsguild.org/artists/jody-nash/. She will make her Chatham Studio Tour debut the first two weekends of December 2023.
“I hope my paintings evoke strong memories of place. Our earth is at a serious juncture with global warming and pollution impacting us NOW, not in some distant time. We are the present stewards of that future. My paintings serve to record the awesome beauty with which we, as humans, have been gifted. When I was little, I talked to those eucalyptus trees outside my window. The trees spoke volumes, then as now. I am still listening.”
