Rhonda Nass
Prairie du Sac, WI

For approximately 30 years my husband and I camped with different friends on shore property we owned on Washington Island in Door County. We have since sold the land, however the calm and joy I feel every time I look at past photos of the island I wanted to replicate in a woven rug or a colored pencil drawing (based on photographs I had taken from a cliff 15 ft above the water). Over the years, I had also seen turkeys leisurely walking through cedars near the shore in another part of the island. So when I came across turkey feathers near our home in Prairie du Sac this year, I decided to merge the images for this ""Wings & Water"" entry. For me it captures the slow paced, tranquil and incredibly beautiful world of Washington Island, dear to my soul, thus I entitled it "Dear Washington Island."

“You could never be an artist.” (quote from my high school art teacher)

If you’ve ever been told you “can’t do” something, there swells an incredible motivation to reach for the unreachable, right? My teacher’s edict was just the impetus an immature, stubborn teenager needed to catapult her into the field of art. The day after receiving an UW-Madison Art Education degree I married a classmate, Rick Nass, and three years later we birthed Ampersand, our illustration business. After forty-nine years we continue to draw and paint, now from our home in Prairie du Sac.

Drawing and painting are non-verbal ways I express joy and gratitude to God for sharing His heart and creativity with me (partially seen through the natural world, which I suppose is why I’m so drawn to Nature as subject matter). My hope is that the joy permeating the process of creating the works will show itself in each piece and become contagious for you as you take it in and add His beauty to “your world.”