eMail: [email protected]     website:  http://nancydubro.com

My Path to Painting 

I didn’t go to art school.  I started painting after I retired from a career with the U.S. Department of State and Peace Corps.  I loved learning to paint and had amazing, inspiring artist teachers.  In college I majored in microbiology and biochemistry earning undergraduate and graduate degrees.  I earned a second master’s degree and my doctorate at the University of Southern California. I was also a visiting scholar at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.

My public service career gave me the extraordinary opportunity to live, work, and travel in more than 75 countries.  I was the Refugee Officer at the American Embassy in India working on Afghan refugee resettlement.  My husband was also assigned to the American Embassy and when he died in an car accident in India while accompanying Secretary of State George Shultz, I returned to the State Department in Washington DC where my career then focused on global crisis management.

Among the positions I held at State include the Deputy Director of the Gulf War Task Force dealing with American hostage issues in Iraq, the Americans in hiding in Kuwait, and their eventual evacuation for which I was awarded an Honorary Medal “for serving the United States of America with unusual dedication and distinction during the recent evacuation of American citizen hostages from Kuwait and Iraq.”  I held positions in Anti-Terrorism Assistance to foreign governments, the Cuban Political Prisoner Exchange initiative, and in the Office of the Under Secretary for Management working on continuity of government contingency planning.  I was also the State Department representative to the  U.S. President’s Council on Management Improvement.

My first art teacher after I retired was the Santa Fe watercolorist Jan Hart with whom I studied impression art for several years.  Eventually I began to explore abstraction looking to intuitive artists Gerhard Richter, Katherine Chang Liu, Joan Fullerton, and Louise Fletcher for inspiration.  

Non-objective abstraction best describes my current work.  I paint with acrylic and multi media in a layering process applying paint with my fingers, torn t-shirts, hotel key cards, paper towels, chop sticks, and occasionally even a paint brush. My color palette is often limited. I  sometimes incorporate collage images including those from my earlier work into new paintings.

My art has been exhibited at the Museum of Texas Tech University, Peoria City Hall, the West Valley Arts Gallery, the Desert Foothills Gallery, the Terravita Art Exhibit, and the International Society of Experimental Artists.  Some of my paintings are donated to the Foothills Animal Shelter Resale Shop to raise money to care for the shelter animals. 

I am remarried.  I met my husband, a NASA engineer, when we were both working in Washington D.C. and we have been together 40 years!  40 years! After we both retired from government service  we started an international stamp business selling rare stamps at stamp collector conventions around the world so we are still traveling and using those opportunities to expand our understanding of cultural and artistic influences by visiting museums, art galleries and art exhibits at every opportunity.

Memberships

Mairangi Art Center, New Zealand

International Society of Experimental Artists

International Society of Acrylic Painters

Arizona Art Alliance

Arizona Art Guild

Terravita Art League