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Ron Erickson, husband of the late artist Nancy Erickson, and her longtime close friend Leslie Van Stavern Millar stand in the Ericksons' studio with some of Nancy's figure drawings on the wall. A sale of Nancy Erickson's drawings and art materials she used for paintings and large-scale fabric works is scheduled for Saturday.
Nancy Erickson kept meticulous journals of her work, including pieces of fabric used and other notes about her process. Husband Ron Erickson is donating the journals to the Mansfield Archives at the University of Montana.
Nancy Erickson's friend Leslie Van Stavern Millar goes through a stack of Erickson's drawings that will be for sale.
Thread, fabric and other supplies that Nancy Erickson used for her fabric works will be offered for sale.
Hats, lace and sewing supplies used by Nancy Erickson will be offered for sale.
When Nancy Erickson died in February at age 86, she left behind decades of shelves and portfolios filled with figure drawings and art materials, including fabrics, brushes, paints and more.
She and her husband, Ron Erickson, lived at their Pattee Canyon home for 50 years, where she worked out of a custom-designed studio with windows facing the hills. She once spotted a mountain lion out back.
On Saturday will be a sale of her figure drawings, made during sessions with her longtime group, the Pattee Canyon Ladies Salon, as well as materials she used for paintings and her large-scale fabric works of animals and figures that were exhibited around Montana, the U.S. and abroad.
It’s a fascinating way to look at an artist’s legacy in the room she worked in, said Leslie Van Stavern Millar, a longtime close friend and salon member.
“This is what she worked with, and what she made,” Millar said.
Ron went through all of the drawings culled from the years’ worth that she produced, with Millar's help, over the course of months.
They picked roughly 50 to 70 with Nancy in mind, asking themselves whether she would approve if she saw a particular work hanging in someone else’s living room. The larger drawings will be priced at $75-$100, the smaller ones at $25-$35.
Looking at the works arranged on the wall, Ron said there’s a visible consistency over time.
“It's difficult, for example, to look at a piece and say, ‘Oh, that's from 1970, and this one over here is from 2020,’” he said.
The sale will take place at 3250 Pattee Canyon Drive on Saturday, Aug. 13, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. The drawings will be set up in the studio and the materials outside. Face coverings are required indoors. Parking is limited and folks should carpool if they can.
Artists are “material heavy” workers, Millar said. The studio shows it. It has shelves filled with fabrics of all colors and patterns that Nancy used in her fabric wall sculptures, plus thread, a sewing machine, and more. (While going through the fabrics, they unearthed more of her journals, which will be donated to the Mansfield Archives in hopes a potential biographer can make use of them.)
There is studio furniture and storage shelves. Nancy photographed her own work with a camera that’s now for sale: a Calumet 4-by-5-inch view camera and heavy-duty tripod. Ron said they’re selling a selection from the many books they collected over the years, including volumes on individual artists and catalogs from museums.
The studio is where, since 1989, Erickson convened twice monthly for figure drawing sessions with the Pattee Canyon Ladies Salon, a group that met continuously for decades. She was the founder and “unnamed leader.”
Millar said working regularly from the figure was fundamental to Erickson’s practice, along with a sense of community and friendship. It never involved formal critiques or expectations that a piece might end up in a public show.
Drawing this way is an opportunity to set aside any sort of photographic reference and “look at a human body in real time, with light and shadow,” and a variety of body types depending on the model, she said.
Erickson was known for her drawings and paintings and quilted works, frequently of animals and humans, and often with a message of concern for the effects society has had on the environment. She worked in fabric art starting in the ‘70s when it was less widely accepted. In time, her work was shown not only in museums, it was celebrated in the quilting and textile world. She participated in more than 500 shows during her career.
Among her innovations were free-form cutouts of figures that broke out of the traditional form of the square. Looking at a selection of smaller drawings on the wall, Ron counted three that became large-scale fabric works.
Fans of her animal and fabric works take note: This sale is focused on figure drawings, not major works. There are a small handful of bears in the room, including one that shows the animal's bone structure, reflecting her original field of study, zoology.
The proceeds will go to the Montana Museum of Art and Culture and the Missoula Art Museum — Nancy Erickson donated a selection of her works to the latter’s permanent collection several years ago.
Later this fall, there will be numerous events marking her legacy. The MMAC is opening a show dedicated to the Ladies Salon on Oct 14. They’ve been working on an accompanying catalog and symposium.
Simultaneously, her longtime local exhibition space, Gallery 709 at Montana Art and Framing, will show a selection of her work.
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Friends and fellow artists said the late artist helped bring environmentally themed fabric art into galleries and museums around the U.S.
The Pattee Canyon Ladies' Salon sounds like it could be many things, but over the course of its nearly 30-year existence, it has been just one…
Ron Erickson, husband of the late artist Nancy Erickson, and her longtime close friend Leslie Van Stavern Millar stand in the Ericksons' studio with some of Nancy's figure drawings on the wall. A sale of Nancy Erickson's drawings and art materials she used for paintings and large-scale fabric works is scheduled for Saturday.
Nancy Erickson kept meticulous journals of her work, including pieces of fabric used and other notes about her process. Husband Ron Erickson is donating the journals to the Mansfield Archives at the University of Montana.
Nancy Erickson's friend Leslie Van Stavern Millar goes through a stack of Erickson's drawings that will be for sale.
Thread, fabric and other supplies that Nancy Erickson used for her fabric works will be offered for sale.
Hats, lace and sewing supplies used by Nancy Erickson will be offered for sale.
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