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Barbara's a fanatic for fine detail
One of Sandra's whimsical women |
Contact us for a free consultation Nancy Grossman found her way to tile painting entirely by accident. Moving to California in 1981 and finding herself adrift in a sea of strangers, she signed up for an adult ed class. The subject didn't matter - she just wanted to meet people. A couple of weeks into "Tile Painting for Beginners" and she was hooked. With virtually no training in art, armed only with a sense of what she liked, she graduated quickly from trivets to table tops to patios. Her big breakthrough came with the Victorian Mansion annex to the Union Hotel in Los Alamos, California. The owner was looking for someone who'd be willing to design and execute tile for his six fantasy, Hollywood set style guest rooms' baths - for free. He'd cover materials. With no time constraints - the renovation of the mansion took ten years to complete - she jumped at the chance to do really big work. The projects just kept getting bigger - but compensation stayed about the same. Before long, she was organizing twenty friends (tile painting turned out to be a great way to make friends!) to help paint a 43-foot map of Catalina Island for their airport, a mountaintop aerie known as the Airport in the Sky. In this case, the project sponsor provided materials, space to work in and an extra kiln to handle the load. (See for a cockpit visit to one of America's scariest airports!) All the donated jobs finally paid off. Private commissions soon became the bulk of her work. Today, Nancy's tile can be found in homes and businesses on both coasts. She also teaches, passing along twenty years of experiential learning. Barbara Hilton was introduced to tile painting by Nancy after decades of other artistic work in graphic design, art direction and photography. In the early seventies, after getting a degree at New York University, she took graphics courses for commercial art at the American Art School in New York. She spent many years working as a graphic artist in publishing before coming to New Hampshire, where she continued that work, eventually becoming the Assistant Art Director for Maine Post and Beam, a home-building company with 14 offices on the East coast. She later started Good Looking Graphics -- her own graphic design company. When her daughter was born, she turned her attention to adapting children's stories for the stage and designing and making princess hats. She also designed posters and fliers for theatrical productions. In the nineties, she started working in photography where her work was exhibited in group shows throughout the country. Besides tile painting, she has most recently been working on a series of fabric banners. It seems Barbara has always been doing some kind of artistic work. Tile painting became a natural extension of her interest in graphic design and color. Sandra Cohen-Holmes also is a student of Nancy Grossman's decorative tile classes. Having doodled her way through elementary, high school, college and graduate school, Sandra found in tile her ultimate white shiny surface. In 1979 when her son Jacob was born, she cut out the extra shiny poster board from diaper boxes to illustrate books she wrote for her son. In all, she illustrated and wrote 23 children's books. Sandra designs for one-of-a-kind single tiles, wall plaques, trivets, trays, table tops and walls. Her specialties are women and flowers. Sandra is also a licensed mental health counselor in the state of New Hampshire and had a private psychotherapy practice for 19 years in Dover. For many years, she taught courses at the college level on alcoholism and addiction and their effects on families. Currently, she lives in Dover with her husband Stan 
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Contact the Artists Nancy Grossman is available for private instruction at a rate of $50/hr. Learn the basics with 6 hours of hands-on teaching, then take advantage of her kilns for firing your own projects.
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Nancy sharing time as artist in residence at
A boathouse studio with a view provides plenty of inspiration.
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