Hilltown Families 
Rootsongs: An Art Exhibit in the Hilltowns
Rootsongs: Art Exhibit by Hilltown Artist, Nancy Mahoney
at the Neil F. Hammer Gallery in Williamsburg
Yesterday while visiting the Meekins Library in Williamsburg, their new art exhibit was all the buzz. Hilltown artist Nancy Mahoney’s art show Rootsongs is on exhibit in the Neil F. Hammer Gallery during the month of January, and it’s bewitching! I had noticed the poster up for her show with an image of what looked simply like the displayed root of a sapling. What I didn’t see in the poster that amazed me and my 7yo daughter when we saw the exhibit was the female images she extracts from these roots. I could see on my bedazzled daughter’s little face her mind trying to wrap itself around what she was seeing – a nature spirit, a fairy, sprung to life and form?
Each tree root is unique, rhythmic and beautiful. It often taking Nancy decades to see the female figures singing to be released into form. She shares in her artist statement, “I look at the roots for weeks, even months. I listen to music. Without warning, a song melds with the root and the root comes to life. The music is the starting point. Sometimes it feels completely out of my control… I just let them happen. – It is all about the roots and the music.”
The sculptures are made with polymer clay baked onto sapling roots and finished with mixed media. The proportions all accommodate themselves to the roots and each figure is flawed. “It has to be,” writes Nancy.
ARTIST RECEPTION: 01/09/10 from 2-4pm
There will be an artist reception at the library on Saturday, January 9th from 2-4pm. A great opportunity to have Nancy share with families her process of releasing the magic of female form in the roots she has gathered.
Thank you, Sarah. At this time my work is not for sale. Possibly by fall or next winter it will be.
Nice web site! I love Nancy,s work, is it for sale?