A Change of Address With an Artful Outcome
by Sophie Scheps
When Marci Nadler lived in Washington, her paintings focused primarily on still life pieces, garden portraits and other views readily available in an urban environment. A change of scenery in 2008 led to new inspiration.
“We were looking for a new place to live in D.C. and a friend of ours suggested that we could live on his mother’s farm in Upperville,” Nadler said. “We fell in love with it. I was pinching myself everyday saying ‘is this real’ because it is so incredibly beautiful. When I was in D.C. I never would have considered myself a landscape painter. I did some more close- up garden pieces but out here the sky and scenery is so amazing.”
Nadler attended American University and has a degree in both fine art and graphic design.
“I love making art,” she said. “I’ve done it pretty much my whole life. Because
I’ve been encouraged along the way by teachers and friends, it’s made a huge difference.”
Nadler paints outdoors to capture an image in its entirety. She said she uses all five senses to bring life into her pieces. She doesn’t find the changing light and
conditions challenging, but instead draws her creativity from them.
“I prefer to paint outside because then everything gets into the
painting,” she said. “You hear the peeper frogs and leaves and smell things.
That all gets into the final piece. That’s part of what I like. If you work from a photograph it’s a static image. Working with the changing light gives a piece life. I want the painting to be different than a photograph.”
Nadler took part in the Land Trust of Virginia land conservation and preserving the landscape through artwork is obvious to her.
“It took a while to acclimate when we moved here,” she said. “I now have favorite trees that I know and love to draw. It took about a year to finally digest what I was seeing.”.
She often paints the same scenes around her home at different times of day or during different seasons. On the farm where she lives, there’s a path of daffodils in the spring. Each year Nadler paints a scene or still life
of the flowers. One year, she attempted to paint one of every variety, of which there are a hundred.
“I like to take a subject matter like a flower and make a very realistic study of it,” she said. “Then the more I work with it, the more the abstract side starts to come out after I have looked at it for a long time.
I work with whatever the subject is telling me.”
Since coming to Middleburg, Nadler’s focus on quintessential views has included scenes of Rokeby Road, crumbling dry- stacked stone walls and Goose Creek.
“Right now I’ve been working with reflections a lot,” she said. “Goose Creek is incredibly beautiful. What I really try to get is the underlying energies and the rhythms in a place.”
Not only has Nadler grown to love the landscape of the Middleburg area, but also the community.
“That’s one of the things I like about this area,” she said. “This community and its support is a lot closer knit than D.C. What I would stress for any artist is the support of friends and family and patrons. I feel blessed to have landed here.”
Nadler is a member of the Middleburg Arts Council and Artists in Middleburg. Her work hangs in the AIM Gallery on Washington Street.