BIOGRAPHY
Nancy Clearwater Herman born 1939 in Reading Pa. Moved to Glenside, Pa at the age of 4 and has been in the Philadelphia area ever since except for a year in England in 1965. She has been married for 65 years, has four children, 8 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.
She attended Cornell University for a year and finished her education with a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn she was influenced by the color course developed by Josef Albers THE INTERACTION OF COLOR, which led to an ongoing study of the relationship between color and music. The other influence from Penn was the emphasis on painting outside from life. These two ways of seeing have dominated her artistic career.
As a result she has been investigating the relationship between color and music for the past 50 years. In her book IF C IS RED she details her method of translating music to color in 2 dimensions. After painting several pieces of music she used what she learned from these color ‘translations’ to launch a successful career as a fiber artist while continuing to paint outside.
She continues her fascination with color and music by translating music to color in time, animating each note in FLASH. Several of her “color in time” works appeared on the PECO CROWN LIGHTS DISPLAY. She has written and illustrated six children’s books, OLIVE AND STICKY BEAR, JOE AND THE ADOBIANS, HOW I BECAME A RUG, A SHEEP'S TALE , MAYBE NEXT YEAR and THE HAUGHTY NAUGHTY CAT and published two books of paintings from her blog, POSTCARDS FROM MERION and POSTCARDS FROM BROOKLYN.
In 2022 after losing her studio space she opened NANCY HERMAN STUDIO GALLERY in Narberth, Pa. She shares the space with Ellie Herman Pilates. Here she is currently working on watercolors, finishing her States painting series while continuing to work on translating music to color and making needle felted pieces.
She exhibits her work and the work of others there.
She also makes videos. Her video, THE RED BIKE was shown at the NEW MEDIA FILM FESTIVAL in Los Angeles in 2014. She has a channel on YOUTUBE where her “songs’ created on ipad are featured along with many color music videos.
She has work in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Museum of the State of Pennsylvania, the Brevard Museum in Florida and the San Jose Museum of Textiles and Quilts in California as well as over 100 public and private collections.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0kTuj7G2coHnSXm8-pg-4g