[00:00:48.760] 
[music]

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The following program is produced

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by Community Video Services
of Durham Technical Institute.

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[music]

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Good evening.

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Welcome to the Arts in Durham. 

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I'm Cynthia Watts and
this evening I am in the home

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and studio of Nancy Tuttle May,
a local artist and a participant

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in the North Carolina
Visiting Artist Program 

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at Durham Technical Institute.

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I will be talking with Nancy about
the struggles and awards 

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of a local artist,

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the accomplishments that she
has made in her career as an artist.

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We'll be back to talk with Nancy
after this word from DTI.

[00:02:28.800] 
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The work of a pharmacy
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preparing and dispensing drugs under
the supervision of a pharmacist.

[00:02:39.120] 
Durham Technical Institute's program

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for pharmacy technicians
includes clinical training

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in local hospitals and pharmacies.

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Open the door to greater opportunity.

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Enroll in the pharmacy
technology program at Durham Tech.

[00:02:50.600] 
Contact the admissions office today

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at 596-9311.

[00:02:54.706] 
Plan your future now.

[00:02:56.200] 
Start with Durham Tech.

[00:03:01.160] 
And now I would like to
introduce you to an artist that says

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artists can survive.

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A lady who is very,
very talented in her field—

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Ms. Nancy Tuttle May. 

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Nancy I want to welcome
you to the Arts in Durham.

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Before I start to talk
with you this evening

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I want to let the audience
know several things.

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First of all, is that you currently have

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an exhibition hanging
at the West Gallery

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of Page on Duke's campus.

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The second thing is that during the course

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of our conversation,

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 the audience will get a
chance to see you

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 actually hanging this exhibition

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and also preparing
some work for an exhibition.

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And my first
question to you, Nancy, is

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is what do you as an artist 

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hope to communicate in
your artistic works?

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I hope to communicate
in my work a sense of freedom

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and a joy of life and
also involve the viewer

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with the work of art.

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I think that's primarily the 

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sense of fulfillment I get out of 

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doing abstract work at this point—

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that I don't tell all of it and
the viewer gets a chance to see

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something in it and each
viewer sees a different thing.

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So I feel they're more
involved in my work.

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- [Cynthia] How did you
become interested in art?

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I primarily became
interested in art as a child

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because my aunt's
an artist in Charlotte.

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She would bring clay

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clay and paint and
paper to family reunions.

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While the adults talked and visited

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the children would do something
with the clay or paint a picture.

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That would be
her Christmas gift to us

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and I remember

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feeling that she was
really giving us a lot.

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I also watched her life.


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She did a lot of teaching

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in Charlotte at the
Mint Museum and in her home.

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And I saw that she was a surviving,

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 financially successful artist.

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But I didn't pursue it til much later 

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in my life.

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- [Cynthia] How did you
change professions?

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Doing research for this
show, reading about 

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Nancy Tuttle May, her
struggles, her awards

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to become one of the
great artists of our times

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I saw a self-sufficient,
independent lady first of all.

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An artist struggling,
a lady who went from biology to art.

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What brought about the
change in your profession, 

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who inspired it, what happened?

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The key thing that
brought about the change

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was working as a volunteer
with the Durham Arts Council.

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There are always a lot of 

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aspirations and hopes and
dreams in everybody's life

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but you have to have a catalyst,

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or the situation has to be right,

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and a lot of things involved
in order for it to happen.

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The main factor that
helped me to change was 

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the Durham Arts Council

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and I was working there as a volunteer.

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In the years working there I 

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helped organize the North Gate shows.

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And one year I was
co-chairman of the [?] show.

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And as I worked through the

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different organizations in
the Arts Council I noticed a

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a passion that kept coming back

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that I wanted to be
on the other side of

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the exhibiting tables

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at the street fairs.

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So I began taking lessons.

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My first teacher
was Nadine Vartanian

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who was still teaching some

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off and on the Arts Council.

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She really gave me the love of 

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the painting medium, watercolor.

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- [Cynthia] When did you
sell your first painting?

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I know that

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from the time Nancy Tuttle May

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decided "I'm going to get
out of the biology field

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and I'm going into art,"

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that she has done
nothing but climb

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the ladder of success
artistically in her career.

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How does it feel to know
that your first painting

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 sold for four dollars and now

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your paintings sell
for hundreds of dollars?

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How does the success feel
to know that I gave up this

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career that was a stable one

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to go into one where I have
to struggle for survival?

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How does Nancy Tuttle May
feel about this?

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Feels really good.

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The first paintings that I did 

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were watercolor

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and they were
mushrooms and flowers

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 and they were more
artsy craftsy than fine art.

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But people

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 that read about me
don't see the struggles.

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They see my climbing up.

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And during those years I worked

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part-time at Duke in neurosurgery

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 and part-time painting

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and I would do the

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sidewalk shows for some income.

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So for a number of years,
I was doing both careers 

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and it was rather fragmented

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 feeling at times because

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I'd put on a uniform one day of the week

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white uniform,

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and work in a lab without any windows.

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And the next day I would be out

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at the beach painting

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or a sidewalk show.

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- [Cynthia] I want to talk about the
visiting artist program next.

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What is your responsibility as

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a participant in that program

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and how does that
participation relate to DTI?

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The program is a
really unique one.

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It was started in '71.

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Dallas Herring was the
originator of the program

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who was the chairman of
the State Board of Education.

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And his idea of putting it
with the community colleges 

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was an excellent one

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in that most of the technical
institutes and community colleges

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don't have an art program.

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So the idea was to give 

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an artist a chance to have a salary

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and have time to work
and develop their career.

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It's very community involved.

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My responsibilities are
working in the community

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and bringing art to the community.

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I work in the schools some

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and do programs for Kiwanis clubs,

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rotary, women's groups,

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that kind of thing.

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The other part of the day
and part of the week

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work at my art—

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developing it, painting, framing.

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- [Cynthia] I want to
talk about that award.

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I want to talk about your move to Pamlico,


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a small town on the eastern coast.

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The winter of 1976


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was a terrible winter.

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I want to know how that
winter affected you personally

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and how it affected you as an artist.

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Everything that
affects me personally, 

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ends up affecting my art.

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The paintings that I did
that winter were very profound.

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I had a serious wreck 

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in January of '77

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and I did 

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some in-depth series of paintings.

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And I had not done any 

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heavy abstract painting
at all up until that point.

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The winter of '76, my girls and I


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rented a house on the water

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in a little town called Vandermeer.

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Was the only house I could
find that was on the water.

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And when I went down there,

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I felt that if I lived in a brick home,

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I might as well stay in Durham.

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I wanted to live in a
house typical of the county

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and the county was fairly poor—

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fishermen and cabbage
and potato farmers.

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 And they lived off
the land and out of 

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the water for survival.

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And so we did rent this house.

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It was of course my
doings, not my daughters.

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They like to turn on a button
and have the heat come on.

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But we chopped wood and had water,

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rainwater system.

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So we got very
involved in the weather.

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And you just felt very—

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I felt very connected

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to the land 

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because I was needing the
rain for our bath water.

[00:11:32.040] 
You felt a real connectedness,
but I didn't have much time to paint.

[00:11:36.320] 
I was so busy chopping
wood and surviving.

[00:11:39.320] 
So something had to give.

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And we lasted seven months
in that house and went to a

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modern house.

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- [Cynthia] Reading their critiques on you,

[00:11:52.400] 
you made a statement
that Pearl Bailey made.

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What is that statement?

[00:11:58.360] 
She said,

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"I've been poor and I've been
rich and I like rich better."

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- [Cynthia] And Pamlico taught you that.
- [Nancy] Yes, yes.

[00:12:05.793] 
I know that 

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after this year you'll be
leaving the visiting artist program.

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Yes.

[00:12:13.260] 
I know that Nancy Tuttle May

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definitely has some plans after
she finishes this program.

[00:12:17.360] 
I want to know what Nancy plans
to do after she finishes

[00:12:21.280] 
the visiting artist program?

[00:12:22.480] 
Well, what I plan to do is survive 

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as well as I can as a

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professional artist.

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And part of the idea of the program 

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is to give an artist

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four years to develop this plan.

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And it's a beautiful opportunity
if you take advantage of it.

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And I'm sailing through

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about twelve galleries at this point.

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Some sell better than others,

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but that's my affiliations right now.

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And I have two representatives,
one in Italy and one in Fayetteville,

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who sell to corporations and banks and

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businesses and personal contacts for me.

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And I plan to do some teaching in my home.

[00:13:09.920] 
- [Cynthia] I want to talk now
about Nancy Tuttle May's

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feelings about the essence
of watercolor painting. 

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You are a watercolor artist.

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What is the true essence of watercolor?

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The first word that would
come to mind is freedom.

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Watercolor just really

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can't stand to be boxed in.

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Anybody that has
painted with watercolor

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knows how frustrating it is
when they try to control it.

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The very essence of it
is movement, wetness, fluid.

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That's what I'm really involved
in right now is the liquid 

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watercolor techniques.

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- [Cynthia] That's what I want to
ask you about next.

[00:13:52.880] 
I know that you have 

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done a lot of in-depth
study on watercolor.

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What have these studies revealed to you?

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Mostly, that watercolor is very fascinating.

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I don't get tired of it.

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The longer I work with it, the more

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facets I find to

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study.

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And the last couple of
years I've been studying the

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pigments and how they granulate.

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There's a chemistry involved that I didn't
know when I first started painting.

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I would see these things happen

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and wonder why did that happen?

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And I began studying these pigments

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and certain ones 

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when they combine,
granulate more than others.

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And of course, this gives
a lot of texture to a painting.

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So in studying this,
I've learned to push this

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 to my own liking


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by using certain
pigments and then pouring

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maybe alcohol on it,

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which also clumps the granules more.

[00:14:50.520] 
- [Cynthia] And this technique is the
one that you've been developing 

[00:14:52.929] 
since January of 1979?
- [Nancy] Right.

[00:14:55.400] 
- [Cynthia] And this technique is shown
now in your present works.

[00:14:58.640] 
Am I correct?
- [Nancy] Mm-hmm.

[00:15:00.720] 
- [Cynthia] This new
technique will be the focus

[00:15:02.629] 
of the exhibition at the

[00:15:05.656] 
 West Gallery of Page.
- [Nancy] Yes.

[00:15:05.800] 
- [Cynthia] How do you
select which works

[00:15:08.360] 
you want to hang?

[00:15:08.720] 
How do you decide what
abstracts you want to do?

[00:15:14.480] 
Does Nancy Tuttle May lay awake at night 

[00:15:14.157] 
and look at the ceiling and all this 

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comes into focus or
does she sit in a tree?

[00:15:19.413] 
How does it happen?

[00:15:15.040] 
- [Nancy] As I work, sometimes,

[00:15:21.960] 
which really is what
an artist wants to happen,

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as soon as you do a painting,
you're sure about it.

[00:15:28.840] 
And so probably I
think I have thirteen hanging.

[00:15:33.120] 
It's good that thirteen
is my lucky number

[00:15:36.040] 
and probably six or
eight just immediately

[00:15:39.280] 
I knew they were
they were good for me.

[00:15:42.560] 
Now, whether the public
thinks they're good or not, 

[00:15:44.829] 
that's another thing.

[00:15:46.280] 
But I have to know first,

[00:15:48.157] 
I have to feel confident
that they're good.

[00:15:50.440] 
Others, they take a while. I may have

[00:15:53.040] 
to work a little more on them or

[00:15:55.029] 
I put them around my room.

[00:15:56.720] 
My kids are really getting involved 

[00:15:59.186] 
in this and they're
not really kids anymore.

[00:16:01.240] 
They're fourteen and fifteen

[00:16:03.314] 
and they are really good critics.

[00:16:05.720] 
I always put them around

[00:16:07.440] 
if I work late at night.


[00:16:09.514] 
And morning at breakfast

[00:16:10.600] 
they see my new stuff
and they'll say "Yuck."

[00:16:13.880] 
Or they'll say,
"That's really great, mom!"

[00:16:17.600] 
Or, "I see

[00:16:19.120] 
a mushroom in that, or some form,

[00:16:21.240] 
and I keeping seeing it again."

[00:16:23.986] 
They're really helpful.

[00:16:25.440] 
So it takes some time
of looking at them.

[00:16:28.880] 
In this exhibit,

[00:16:30.880] 
because of the flowing
colors and the flow of the 

[00:16:35.920] 
the way I'm painting them, 

[00:16:37.129] 
I kind of wanted a flow
feeling around the room.

[00:16:40.240] 
So that had 

[00:16:41.971] 
something to do
with which ones I hung.

[00:16:44.040] 
And now this word from
Durham Technical Institute.

[00:16:48.114] 
[music]

[00:16:54.240] 
Since 1961,

[00:16:56.360] 
Durham Technical Institute

[00:16:57.410] 
has been serving
the citizens of Durham

[00:16:58.143] 
and the State of North Carolina.

[00:17:01.200] 
As a member of the North Carolina
Community College System,

[00:17:03.720] 
Durham Tech provides educational

[00:17:05.440] 
opportunities for persons to continue
their education beyond high school.

[00:17:09.480] 
Accredited by the Southern Association
of Colleges and Schools

[00:17:12.720] 
and the North Carolina
State Board of Education,

[00:17:16.040] 
Durham Tech is where you find
quality education at affordable costs.

[00:17:19.280] 
Durham Tech is a comprehensive school

[00:17:21.843] 
with a wide range of
educational programs

[00:17:23.880] 
in allied health, business,

[00:17:25.614] 
industrial education, and public service.

[00:17:28.800] 
For practical skills or
personal enrichment

[00:17:31.280] 
Durham Tech has a course for you.

[00:17:33.400] 
From learning to read
to programing a computer

[00:17:36.586] 
from the detail work of accounting

[00:17:38.520] 
to automotive repair

[00:17:40.386] 
or nursing care or fitting eyeglasses.

[00:17:43.320] 
Durham Tech has
something for everyone.

[00:17:49.120] 
- [Cynthia] I want to talk
about the public's

[00:17:51.200] 
reception to Nancy's new technique.

[00:17:54.829] 
Nancy has been doing beach scenes.

[00:17:57.680] 
This is what she's noted for.

[00:17:59.840] 
Nancy does not have any beach
scenes in the press and exhibition.

[00:18:04.080] 
How has the public felt about this?

[00:18:05.880] 
What has been their response to you?

[00:18:08.520] 
For the most part really excited

[00:18:11.440] 
and the other artists I
know are really excited.

[00:18:15.600] 
- [Nancy] Some of the collectors of my

[00:18:17.657] 
beach paintings were kind of shocked.

[00:18:20.640] 
They want me to do more of
the realistic representational work.

[00:18:26.240] 
So it was a mixed response.

[00:18:28.160] 
I was excited that I had a lot of

[00:18:32.000] 
response to it.

[00:18:34.120] 
- [Cynthia] I know that on
Friday when I was looking at you

[00:18:38.000] 
hang the exhibition, you and [?],

[00:18:40.243] 
watching you select

[00:18:43.280] 
what should be hung next
to what, watching the flow, 

[00:18:46.757] 
watching you decide whether

[00:18:48.040] 
to do it in stair steps
or whether to do it 

[00:18:51.200] 
completely eye level.

[00:18:53.000] 
A lot is involved in a hanging.

[00:18:55.880] 
How long did it actually take you

[00:18:58.357] 
to hang that exhibition at Duke?

[00:19:00.560] 
- [Nancy] We worked from twelve noon


[00:19:03.614] 
until about three o'clock.

[00:19:06.200] 
And then it wasn't complete

[00:19:08.440] 
because there was a time

[00:19:08.640] 
 for me to get my titles together.

[00:19:13.320] 
And a lot of people think

[00:19:15.200] 
that as an artist paints
they have a title in their heads.

[00:19:19.720] 
I like to to title my abstract work 

[00:19:23.200] 
as elusive as I can so that 

[00:19:25.471] 
it doesn't give you any meaning.

[00:19:28.520] 
So you can put your own meaning.

[00:19:29.480] 
If I put a subject,

[00:19:31.657] 
an objective kind of title,
then you'll see that

[00:19:34.400] 
and I want you to say what
you want to see, what you 

[00:19:36.929] 
would like to see.

[00:19:38.240] 
So I took some time to
title and I went back twice

[00:19:42.200] 
and sat in the middle
of the room and I said,

[00:19:45.441] 
"Oh, wow, this is all of me."

[00:19:46.720] 
And I was very excited and very
nervous about the show,

[00:19:51.240] 
very anxious because it was the first
time I'd shown all these new things.

[00:19:55.920] 
- [Nancy] And so I felt very vulnerable.

[00:19:57.760] 
It's like a part of me

[00:20:00.400] 
being seen.

[00:20:04.000] 
- [Cynthia] I want to talk about

[00:20:05.543] 
your personal feelings
about some things now.

[00:20:08.186] 
Mr. Howell,

[00:20:10.880] 
who is chairman of the art
department at UNC in Wilmington,

[00:20:15.040] 
has stated that
the average painting life 

[00:20:19.000] 
of an artist is about two years.

[00:20:21.800] 
You have proven him wrong, of course.

[00:20:24.360] 
How do you feel about someone
making a statement like this?

[00:20:28.520] 
How do you feel a artist can
survive longer than two years?

[00:20:33.240] 
I have a lot of feelings about
people saying these things.

[00:20:37.000] 
I don't think it's terribly encouraging.

[00:20:40.560] 
I think that the arts
should be encouraged 

[00:20:44.786] 
like any other field.

[00:20:46.240] 
It takes a lot of work.

[00:20:48.400] 
A lot of people think that

[00:20:50.960] 
the only thing you need is talent,

[00:20:52.929] 
like it just drops out of the sky.

[00:20:56.080] 
Yes, you have to have

[00:20:58.480] 
an affinity for it.

[00:20:59.560] 
You have to have
something there, a creativity.

[00:21:03.680] 
But the real thing is the
determination and the hard work.

[00:21:08.400] 
And I put in more than
eight hours a day

[00:21:11.543] 
and lots of nights I paint or two
or three o'clock in the morning.

[00:21:15.240] 
And then framing and working.

[00:21:18.680] 
But then there are other
times when I take time off.

[00:21:21.360] 
So I don't complain about the work, 

[00:21:23.943] 
but I do

[00:21:26.200] 
feel very strongly that it's
a discipline involved.

[00:21:30.880] 
Just like playing the piano,
you have to practice.

[00:21:34.680] 
- [Cynthia] Is it feasible to say then that 

[00:21:38.100] 
an artist can make it
off of his work and why?

[00:21:43.560] 
I think so.

[00:21:44.520] 
If they're willing to work hard.


[00:21:46.629] 
- [Cynthia] The determination
that you were talking about.

[00:21:48.400] 
And part of the work is studying,
developing the tools, the skills.

[00:21:54.400] 
It's out of the sense of a
well-skilled background

[00:22:00.880] 

that an artist has the freedom to create.

[00:22:03.480] 
The frustration I had in my early career

[00:22:06.000] 
was that I didn't have
the technical expertise.

[00:22:09.440] 
I had visions in my mind
of what I'm going to paint.

[00:22:12.520] 
I knew what good paintings were like

[00:22:14.280] 
from going to museums
and reading books


[00:22:16.971] 
and looking at pictures.

[00:22:18.960] 
But I couldn't connect 

[00:22:20.643] 
because I didn't have
the technical expertise.

[00:22:23.000] 
So it does take a lot of study.

[00:22:26.800] 
- [Cynthia] Do you recommend the life


[00:22:28.943] 
of the struggling artist to others?

[00:22:31.200] 
Yes, yes, very definitely.

[00:22:34.520] 
Nancy, I want to talk now about Italy.

[00:22:36.960] 
You studied in Italy this summer.

[00:22:39.240] 
Some great things happened
while you were in Italy 

[00:22:42.391] 
to your career.

[00:22:43.600] 
You were contacted by an
agent to do a collective 

[00:22:46.343] 
on a one man showing.

[00:22:47.960] 
I want to talk about all those
things that happened to you

[00:22:50.230] 
this summer in Italy.

[00:22:51.200] 
And the first thing I want
to know is what did you study

[00:22:55.440] 
while you were there this summer?

[00:22:57.720] 
Well, first of all, 

[00:23:00.000] 
the first two weeks of the summer

[00:23:01.929] 
I was traveling

[00:23:03.680] 
and it was with a student group.

[00:23:05.143] 
We were all either painters
or art historians.

[00:23:08.040] 
So the whole

[00:23:10.280] 
tone of the trip was art history

[00:23:12.200] 
and museums and galleries.


[00:23:14.543] 
Very exciting time.

[00:23:17.280] 
The first place we were in was London

[00:23:20.520] 
and I spent a lot of time
in the Tate Gallery in London.

[00:23:24.320] 
So that was a

[00:23:25.743] 
exciting time for me
because I'm a real fan

[00:23:28.014] 
of Turner's work, the English painter.

[00:23:31.040] 
The Tate has rooms of his work

[00:23:33.640] 
and as you walk through the rooms,


[00:23:36.229] 
the last room

[00:23:37.386] 
were works of his Italian paintings.

[00:23:40.640] 
And you had a sense
of freedom and light.

[00:23:43.040] 
And he got much more abstract


[00:23:45.729] 
during this period of his life.

[00:23:48.400] 
At that point,
I just couldn't stand it.

[00:23:50.040] 
I couldn't wait to get to Italy.

[00:23:52.560] 
And we went through Amsterdam
and saw the Van Gogh's

[00:23:56.429] 
 and the Van Gogh Museum.

[00:23:58.200] 
And that was exciting to me to see

[00:23:59.880] 
the paintings that I have
read about all my life.

[00:24:05.840] 
The reproductions are nice,

[00:24:07.960] 
but to see the real thing is
just you have the sense of the

[00:24:11.829] 
presence of the artist.

[00:24:14.880] 
You know, so much has been said about

[00:24:16.320] 
Van Gogh and how crazy or
whatever he was and depressed

[00:24:19.960] 
and you walk in the museum
and it's joy and light and color.

[00:24:24.320] 
And all I could feel was that he had this

[00:24:27.680] 
feeling within himself.

[00:24:34.880] 
We spent some time in Paris

[00:24:38.680] 
and went to the Jeu de Paume.

[00:24:39.500] 
That was the most exciting one to me

[00:24:40.960] 
because that was impressionist
painters in their gallery.

[00:24:46.160] 
But the Italian experience
was exciting to me.

[00:24:49.440] 
We lived with an Italian family

[00:24:53.500] 
and that was fun.

[00:24:53.680] 
Fifteen of us would
be around the table

[00:24:56.000] 
eating lots and lots of pasta,
drinking lots of wine.

[00:25:00.000] 
And everything in Italy closes
down at one o'clock

[00:25:04.214] 
for everybody.

[00:25:06.200] 
You've eaten so much and you've
had so much wine, you can't move.

[00:25:10.200] 
And then I had classes
eight o'clock in the morning til

[00:25:15.000] 
12:00 and 1:00 and then starting back
and 4:30 til 8:00 at night.

[00:25:19.200] 
And I took preparatory Italian

[00:25:24.120] 
for survival,

[00:25:25.600] 
because no one spoke English, no one.

[00:25:29.400] 
Of course, I was with
some American students,

[00:25:31.320] 
but we also had
German students at our table

[00:25:34.640] 
and in our home. 

[00:25:36.057] 
And of course, our senora
who was our cook and

[00:25:40.080] 
the home we were in
spoke no English, not a word.

[00:25:43.560] 
She didn't even try to learn any at all.

[00:25:48.080] 
She was so busy cooking
for us three meals a day.

[00:25:51.400] 
So we had to speak
Italian to her when we 

[00:25:54.600] 
needed to tell her
we wouldn't be there

[00:25:55.880] 
for lunch, we were going to be
in Florence or somewhere.

[00:25:59.560] 
And then I also studied sculpture

[00:26:03.080] 
and painting, and the sculpture
was the most exciting.

[00:26:08.200] 
The professor was Italian
and I worked on a head

[00:26:13.400] 
in clay and then did it in plaster

[00:26:15.957] 
and brought it home with me.

[00:26:19.160] 
I lugged it all over
the place coming home.

[00:26:20.880] 
It got the ears chipped off,

[00:26:26.520] 
but I did get it home.

[00:26:28.600] 
I guess the exciting thing to me in Italy

[00:26:31.200] 
was being in Venice.

[00:26:33.280] 
And of course, I'm real involved
with the ocean and with water.

[00:26:36.960] 
And Venice, of course,
is sinking in the water.

[00:26:41.520] 
That was really
the highlight for me of the trip.

[00:26:46.080] 
We spent three days there and I got up

[00:26:49.080] 
at 4:30 in the morning while it
was dark because I was really

[00:26:54.600] 
involved in seeing the colors as
they came, as the sun came up.

[00:27:00.840] 
I took a lot of slides
during this time

[00:27:04.600] 
with a light flickering
on the water and the buildings.

[00:27:07.560] 
The buildings are so beautiful.

[00:27:10.200] 
That was the spice route
to the West Indies at one time

[00:27:16.360] 
and so it's a rich, rich place.

[00:27:18.640] 
There's gold everywhere and 

[00:27:21.214] 
the white and pink marble
and then the glassblowers.

[00:27:25.080] 
So it was an exciting time for me.

[00:27:28.529] 
- [Cynthia] How did its way come about?

[00:27:30.120] 
How did you get to go
to Italy to study the summer?

[00:27:33.120] 
It came about through Blu Greenberg,

[00:27:36.386] 
who is a professor of art 

[00:27:37.871] 
history at Meredith.

[00:27:39.720] 

She was sponsoring this trip through

[00:27:43.240] 
the American Institute of Foreign Study,

[00:27:45.657] 
which is based in Connecticut.

[00:27:48.920] 
So I saw an article
in the paper about it.

[00:27:52.600] 
And I've always, of course,

[00:27:54.240] 
wanted to go to Europe and see the 

[00:27:56.271] 
things that I've read about all my life.

[00:27:58.680] 
So after I contacted her

[00:28:01.040] 
we worked through that

[00:28:02.686] 
and working to get time off and to leave.

[00:28:09.280] 
So it was really exciting that I

[00:28:11.814] 
would get to go.

[00:28:13.080] 
- [Cynthia] How did your
daughters feel about

[00:28:15.243] 
mother going over to Italy to study?
- [Nancy] Very jealous.

[00:28:17.286] 
[laughs]

[00:28:19.280] 
They were excited for me and they 

[00:28:20.971] 
figure they'll get there someday.

[00:28:24.760] 
I had to do some talking about it

[00:28:27.360] 
and they always want
to do everything I do.

[00:28:30.080] 
They think they should have it now.

[00:28:32.920] 
And I said well, I had to wait til I was

[00:28:36.000] 
in my late 30s to go, maybe
you can wait a few more years.

[00:28:40.440] 
They said, "Oh, OK."

[00:28:42.320] 
It worked out fine.

[00:28:43.920] 
- [Cynthia] You have been
contacted by an agent

[00:28:47.000] 
to do a collective and one man shows 

[00:28:50.486] 
in Italy starting in 1980.

[00:28:52.960] 
Tell me about that.

[00:28:54.520] 
What part of Italy?

[00:28:55.600] 
What will you be doing?

[00:28:57.160] 
Well,

[00:28:59.000] 
this came about through a small
gallery in San Marino, I believe it is

[00:29:06.160] 
near Perugia.

[00:29:07.360] 
And about two or
three days before I left,

[00:29:10.143] 
my friends and I went over to see

[00:29:12.640] 
some art exhibits 

[00:29:14.686] 
and met this person that
owns a gallery there.

[00:29:18.160] 
And I bought some silkscreen
prints from the gallery owner

[00:29:23.160] 
and we talked about the
fact that I was an artist.

[00:29:26.560] 
And she said that she would
like to work with me someday

[00:29:30.080] 
but she had never seen my work.

[00:29:33.520] 
Since being back,

[00:29:35.171] 
she's written me and
asked me to send slides 

[00:29:37.771] 
of my work

[00:29:40.171] 
And then following that
were some other contacts 

[00:29:42.871] 
through her.

[00:29:45.680] 
And asking if she could represent me.

[00:29:51.040] 
What she has in mind

[00:29:52.120] 
is starting in Sicily

[00:29:54.160] 
and doing some collective
and one man shows 

[00:29:57.400] 
and then moving up.

[00:29:59.240] 
And what it would mean would that

[00:30:01.829] 
I would be mailing the watercolors
to her and she would

[00:30:04.960] 
frame them
and exhibit them for me.

[00:30:08.240] 
- [Cynthia] Nancy, I want to
thank you for joining me.

[00:30:11.400] 
It's been a pleasure to talk with you.
- [Nancy] Thank you.

[00:30:13.840] 
- [Cynthia] I must admit
that I was really keyed up

[00:30:16.000] 
and all hyper about
this interview after reading

[00:30:18.871] 
all the critiques on you
and all the information

[00:30:21.040] 
I could get my hands on

[00:30:22.871] 
to find out about Nancy Tuttle May.

[00:30:24.960] 
You are a dynamite lady.

[00:30:26.800] 
I wish you the best in [?].

[00:30:28.840] 
Thank you.

[00:30:35.520] 
I want to thank you for watching.

[00:30:37.880] 
I invite you to join me next week

[00:30:40.014] 
and remember to
support our local artists.

[00:30:42.960] 
Without the citizens in this community

[00:30:45.400] 
artists cannot survive.

[00:30:46.960] 
Have a great night.

[00:30:50.960] 
The preceding program has been produced

[00:30:52.840] 
by Community Video Services
of Durham Technical Institute.

[00:30:56.586] 
[music]