Your Neighbor
Nancy Lamb Portrait of the artist as a Westsider Article Matt Smith | Photography Provided
F
ort Worth artist Nancy Lamb jokes she doesn’t really have a name for them--her high angle, downward focused close-in paintings of stylishly attired attendees of elegant soirees. “I like your name: The Helicopter Shot,” Lamb says to me after I offer one. “I’ve just heard people call them the ‘overhead shots,’ or the ‘Nancy Lamb.’” The paintings represent but one of Lamb’s trademarks, the iconic jackalope keeping watch over Camp Bowie Boulevard being another. Lamb credits her late husband, Robert Powell, for inspiring the “helicopter” paintings. “We were out on the dance floor and he, like everyone does, holds his arm way out and takes a picture,” Lamb says. “This was a film camera, back before digital and cell phones, like an early selfie. I like the idea of examining, looking down deep into something. Not in a condescending way, but like studying, like I’m looking into a microscope.” Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Brueghel, Alfred Hitchcock and film noir also influenced the perspectives of her paintings, Lamb says.
12 West FW Lifestyle | July 2014
“I grew up in the 1950s and 60s and watched those old 30s and 40s movies with my mom, where everyone was so elegant,” Lamb says. “You can still go to those elegant parties, but they’re few and far between. People think I’m a real party person, but what I really like is the energy of it, the palpable happiness in the room. I don’t actually stay that long or get too involved. It’s a lot of work to take the pictures.” Lamb’s repertoire is hardly limited to painting, or jackalopes. “I’ve done ceramics, drawing, lots of different mediums,” Lamb says. “Don’t want to be pigeonholed.” Longtime friend and Artspace 111 Co-founder Dan Blagg agrees, calling Lamb a muti-faceted artist. Although he also quipped that the “helicopter” painting’s radical croppings and angles makes for fascinating art. “Nancy’s fabulous,” Blagg says. “Seems to know everybody and so gregarious with a really good heart. I think of her as the Andy Warhol of Fort Worth.” Interest in art brewed early for the Arlington Heights High School grad. “My parents were always supportive, but I always say it was because I was trying to get attention,” Lamb jokes. “I come from a family of musicians, three brothers and a sister, but I painted and drew instead. I used to play guitar but it never came easy so I gave it up. I just wanted to pick it up and play, that’s how art was for me.” Lamb, in fourth grade, won a scholarship to study art at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. She began teaching at 14 and remained there 34 years. Despite that, Lamb favors the self-taught approach. “It’s hard to teach art,” Lamb says. “Oh you can teach the tricks, shading and how to mix paint. But it’s better to learn your own style. That’s what’s remembered. If you’re in a painting class, you learn to paint like the teacher and don’t develop your own style.” Nevertheless, Lamb says the museum became her home away from home. Lamb also worked at Artspace 111 and has exhibited there and other places. The ever-upbeat Lamb turns somber when broaching the subject of Powell, who died May 3, 2013. “We were married 12 years, knew each other 15 years,” Lamb says. “I owe tons to him. I didn’t get married until I was 45 and didn’t think I ever would. I don’t recommend losing a spouse, but I’m hanging in there.”