Interview with Gallery Artist: Nancy Noel May

This week I had the pleasure to interview artist, Nancy Noel May. Many of you may not know that Nancy wears many hats. She is the gallery manager here at Spectrum, is a painter, a jewelry designer, our resident pearl-knotter, kayaker, ballroom dancer, enjoys water aerobics, is a member of the Wrightsville Beach United Methodist Church, walks the 'loop' weekly with a friend, loves photography, is a member of a book club and loves to cook. I asked her when she slept and she laughed! Believe it or not Nancy has to get in at least 8 hrs of sleep each night. She doesn't watch much television, listens to books on tape, and is always very socially active.

Nancy has been painting since she was 8 years old. She says she feels there is an images inside of her that have to get out. There are paintings in her mind that are completed and she transfers them to canvas. Traveling gives Nancy the most inspiration. She is drawn to Mediterranean countries and those hot vibrant colors that go with them! Wrightsville Beach and Italy have been her favorite places to capture in a composition.

This year, Nancy will be traveling to Palm Springs, CA with a fellow Spectrum artist , Mandy Johnson. There they will take a 1 week painting workshop. Nancy is always growing, constantly learning and expanding her horizons. Recently, she has been working on gessoed 300 lb watercolor paper which is easy to travel with to inspirational locations. This way she can paint a la prima, or "in one sitting" in plein aire. Nancy will also travel with Star this year on their annual trips to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show as well as to Paris and Basel, Switzerland where they will be attending an international jewelry show. With Nancy's current studies of color, texture, unique canvas materials, and with her history with warm, rich colors; what will come out of her images of Paris, I can only imagine.

Pearls and Global Warming

(Taken from Modern Jeweler Magazine Online)

Thursday, May 31st, 2007
Pearl farmers live in some of the world’s most beautiful places: sheltered lagoons with pristine clean waters and some of the world’s highest biodiversity. But this closeness to nature also means that they are also one of the most vulnerable industries to climate change. At this year’s GIA Gemfest in Basel, which featured leading pearl producers from all over the world, the topic of the threat of global warming to the quantity and quality of pearl production was one of the interesting topics raised. I talked to Jacques Branellec of Jewelmer, the leading producer of South Sea cultured pearls in the Philippines, and Martin Coeroli, the managing director of Perles de Tahiti, about climate change and the possible impact on pearls. As you can see in my video on Pearls and Global Warming, South Sea pearls and Tahitian pearls may be even rarer in the years to come. The threat is most acute in the tropical producing regions near the equator, where even a one or two degree rise in sea temperature can result in oyster mortality. Typhoons, always a threat to pearl farms, may cause additional damage. It really brings home how pearl farming is an amazing organic industry: a clean and sustainable source of employment in some of the world’s most beautiful places that actually improves the habitat for marine life in the surrounding areas.