Nancy Y. Adams Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1957 - d. 2007

Nancy Y Adams - Clay Artist

In 1970, friends invited me to join them at the Rennaisance Pleasure Faire in Marin County, California, telling me it was a good place to sell pottery. It was great fun and started me on my way. I soon started doing other local shows including the Sausalito Art Festival,1978-2000 and the Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival 1979-1997, winning cash awards and serving as juror at both shows. Along the way I joined the San Francisco Potters Association (today know as the Association of California Clay and Glass Artists) and am now an Emeritus member of that wonderful group.

One thing leads to another! I started competing nationally when I began showing at the American Craft Council Show held annually at Ft Mason in San Francisco.It is one of my favorite shows and one that I still do every August.While there, friends suggested that I try going to the Baltimore Winter Market held every February by the same organization. That was a very big step for me but one that really launched my career. I did my first show there in 1987 and continued to do it until 2000.That show exposed me to a sophisticated national audience and led to many other good things, including making a living at doing my art.

During the years that I did that show I was invited to do museum exhibitions at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse NY, the Newark Museum of Art, the Renwick, the Charles A Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine WI. This was heady stuff for a lone studio potter, but that was not the end of it. I began competing to get into the Philadelphia Museum of Arts Show held annually every November in Philadelphia. I was privileged to do that show for 7 years, winning the Tuttleman Award of Excellence in Ceramics in 1992 and was commissioned to do the museums’s Benefactors Gift in 1993.

American Craft Magazine and Ceramics Monthly published many images of my work as well as articles concerning what it is like to be freelance in the world of artful craft. I went on to show at the American Craft Exposition in Evanston, Illinois. I traveled a lot during those years, adding the Smithsonian Craft Show in 1992, Crafts at the Castle in Boston, in 1996 and 1999.I also exhibited in many galleries including the Ferrin Gallery in NY, Del Mano Gallery in Los Angles and Alianza in Boston. My work is found in many collections including the Saks Fifth Avenue Private Corporate Collection, the Corporate Teapot Collection of Celestial Seasonings, the Stanford M Besser Collection of Teapots, the Newark Museum of Art Ceramic Collection as well as the private collections of Fleur Bressler of Rockville, Maryland and Jennifer Taggart of Los Angeles, California.

Nancy Yturriaga Adams currently lives and works at the Sweetwater Ranch in Applegate, Oregon. The studio is open only by appointment.