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 catapulted me into the field of art. The day after receiving an UW-Madison degree I married Rick Nass, and three years later birthed our illustration business, Ampersand, continuing forty-five+ years. Nass’ paintings are internationally published (Biology of Plants/W.H. Freeman Publishers; Today’s Botanical Artists/Schiffer Publishing; Vanishing Circles /Arizona Sonora Desert Museum Press, Following in the Bartram’s Footsteps/American Society of Botanical Artists, self-published books, Gifts from the Earth and Scratchings of a Madwoman and through the United Nations Postal Administration. Work appears in museum (e.g. Museum of Natural History in Zhejiang, China and Palais de la decouverte in Paris), corporate and private collections. Nass co-curates with Mary Dickey, River Arts on Water in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin.