Nancy Wait
Paintings
Brooklyn New York

I came to Park Slope in 1992 when I was pregnant because I wanted to be near the park. I could therefore say that my sojourn here was initiated by the new growth within me. I had been living in Carroll Gardens, and before that on the edge of Brooklyn Heights, inching my way deeper into Brooklyn. I had been here before in the late 80s, visiting friends, or taking my art work to the printer that used be somewhere just off Seventh Avenue. But it wasn’t until shortly before I became pregnant that I climbed up the stairs of the subway at the corner of 9^th Street and glanced around the intersection, that the feeling came over that I wanted to live here. That I had to live here.

I began painting pictures of Park Slope in 1994, when my son was two, and that fall I had a show at the Montauk Club. Many of the pictures currently displayed are from that show. It was also an opportunity to meet other local artists. We got together and formed a group called Brooklyn Visions, giving us the opportunity to have numerous group shows over the new few years. But by the time Howard Golden, then Brooklyn Boro President, issued a Proclamation declaring March 31^st, 1998, "Brooklyn Visions Day," most of us were already pursuing other interests. For my part, I had gone back to school to begin writing a memoir. That effort is now complete except for finding a publisher, and I’m back at the drawing board.

The theme of my new series will be wrought-iron and flowers. Very appropriate for this time of year when flower boxes are overflowing, steps of brownstones are decked with planters, and to walk along the side streets is to be treated to an array of bright color against a background of lush green. And stone, both carved and uncarved. And the lines and swirls and fleur-de-lis’ of wrought-iron, which is part of what makes this area so eminently liveable. As well as existing astride the park, the Slope has its own carefully thought out balance between Man and Nature. It is this aspect that I would like to emphasize.