Nancy Blum
Birth Date: 1963

Artist Gallery
With an academic background in psychology and women's studies and experience in the making of ceramic sculptures, Nancy Blum's diverse body of work has included wall-mounted objects, manhole covers and public art projects in such cities as Minneapolis and Philadelphia.  After Blum graduated from the Cranbrook Academy of Art she went to the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, and created a body of work that was based upon the ‘common object’.  "I crafted many oversized, known items and mostly placed them in boxes where they could be taken out and handled and rearranged.  In this work I was interested in the tactility of the object, in ideas of repetition and accessibility and how to work as a sculptor in a ‘craft medium’ without being someone who made functional items. At the very core I was thinking about how the objects around us hold memories, stir associations and engage us in relationship regardless of their low or high stature.  Ultimately, before I left the Archie Bray, I made what I think to be my first ‘public’ art piece and it is still on the grounds of the foundation.  In it you will find a hammer head!"