Reason Not understood by the press and many visitors
non fiction expression of my life written by self what happened in the past my point of view
outline
Develop a central theme brief introduction Highlight the reason for writing
what I want the reader to learn. Create subheadings Under each subheading add several vital points
chronological order starting with your birth, infancy, and terminating in your adulthood.
under each subheading add several vital points Add some flesh to your points i.e., include dates, places, individuals, etc. significant contribution in a particular field
non fiction expression of my life written by self what happened in the past my point of view
outline
Develop a central theme brief introduction Highlight the reason for writing
what I want the reader to learn. Create subheadings Under each subheading add several vital points
chronological order starting with your birth, infancy, and terminating in your adulthood.
under each subheading add several vital points Add some flesh to your points i.e., include dates, places, individuals, etc. significant contribution in a particular field
visualize my audience think abouyt who would read it puy myself in the readers place purpose of the autibio be honet and positive. set a tone that shows confidence but not arrogance sinserity not stiffness connect sentences wit expression like then in addition finally in contrast so ideas move logically to the next what acedemic accomplishments are you proud off. Philosophy requires good definitions of concepts like love respect, freedom evil, good justice philosophy is a discipline as it core logic esthetics ethics metaphysics and epistemology
GRADES 9 thru 10
GRADES 11 thru 12
COLLEDGE U of M Penn State
MARRIGE
montclair
nighland
larry murray
I was born beside the beautiful wide Susquehanna River in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania
March My sister Dorothy Anne was born eight years later. A newborn with red hair had red hair
I was an only child for a long time.
As a child I played by myself in a beautiful region scarred by early
indiscriminate logging and strip mining.
I lived on a farm called Orchard Hill located in
Bald Eagle Valley in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania. My earliest recollection
and puzzlement as a child was not being allowed to go near or swim in the shallow gentle
water of the wide river that so magnificently defined the area. "It's unsafe" my mother warned me.
"It is because the banks of the river are leaking raw sewage from nearby homes and the closed coal mines
upstream are flooded and leaching acids into the river" Pollution undetectable to my eye and descriptions of microscopic toxins were a strange wonderment to me as small child as I peered into the barren watery landscape, too perfectly crystal clear looking for signs of life, water plants, turtles, beetles, snails and water striders. They were non existent because the water was to acidic
In my back yard I looked for the diminished quail, pheasant, wood ducks and red fox that my parents remembered being so prevalent, it was easier to find lichen, arrow heads, fossilized shells, than the once abundant trailing arbutus, ground orchids and watercress in springs. I became gravely aware of endangered plants and animals in the overlogged sparse felled woods, abandoned fields, in the atrophic green algae blooms in nearby Fishing Creek from fertilizer farm runoff. I learned at an early age from my mother the necessity of healthy BIO-systems. She taught me and to respect and protect all of nature including the invisible life and the maligned animals like bats, rats, skunks, possums, snakes and spiders.
.
. We spent a lot of outdoor time
together. She was always observing with awe and wonder and teaching from a scientific point of view. We explored flora and fauna in the Pennsylvania woods, meadows, creeks and river in the 40' s and then in the early 50's in the Florida Keys, islands, hammocks and flats and reefs of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
11th and 12th grades in PA. My senior year I was awarded the math prize. I was accepted by U of M and spent four years in Ann Arbor, Michigan
I graduated from the very sexist School of Architecture and Design in 1961, with a B.S. in Design
from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. I majored in painting at a time when
abstract expressionism was being taught and all my instructors were male. I minored
in ceramics. During those four years I also attended summer school at Penn State University taking art history and painting classes from famed art teacher Hobson Pitman on loan each summer from the
Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts.
After graduation I got married a Michigan man and fellow U of M student
My first marriage was to Jerry Raymond occured on Dec 22 1961. It was the beginning of a series of three marriages which stopped at age 50 when I realized I was not good at picking partners for life.
Jerry got a high school teaching job in Montclair NJ.
I was married to Jerry for 5 years. I worked Nighlands. I sold artist supplies and framing to the artists of the region. I loved the job.
We Divorced. We did not remain friends.
I lived in sin as my father called it with wildlife artist George L. Schelling
We lived in New York City where we lived on the lower east side
with other fellow artists and I sold my work in several Greenwich Village Art Galleries.
While in New York, I won the coveted National Academy of Design Purchase award in late sixties for the Henry Ward Ranger Fund for watercolor "Black Organic Form"
When we left New York in the late 60's. George and I and opened a wildlife gallery in Clinton, N.J.
From there we moved to a 90 acre farm with barn and farmhouse on top of a mountain with its own 10 acre lake just outside of Lacyville, Pa. I loved the place.
I ended our our marriage in the early 70's. George was really good man. We remained friends
I moved to Key West, Florida in 1969 where I remain today I opened an art
gallery of Botanical and Zoological Paintings in 1975 which continues to this day. I sold my art, contemporary natural history themed art and environmental art by others and original antique botanical and zoological prints.
At that time I made and sold objects to people, tangible things that you physically pick up, that take up space like paintings, prints, sculpture, pottery.
Meanwhile Earth was being degraded by over development, pollution, habitat destruction, fossil fuel use, landfills maxed with discarded stuff in a throwaway society mass extinction of plants and animals and headed toward drinking water scarcity and climate crisis.
Married Writer Sean Connally. Bad decision. Divorced one year later.
In my 50's as an environmental artist my thinking matured. Making objects to sell to people made no sense to me. Things were cluttering up my life and deterring me from the real focus of my work. Save what is left of our natural world. Save life from extinction
As an environment artist I was searching for a different medium. I was influenced by Ratchel Carsens "Silent Spring" Joseph Campbell writings "The Power of the Myth", and by Bill McKibbon"s book "The End of Nature" and David Abrams "The Spell of the Sensuous" Performance Art and Site Specific Art Installation, "Places with a Past" created in Charleston, South Carolina in Land Art, Earth Art, HappeningsArt as Dialog, Fusing Art and Life, Soapbox Orators at Hyde Park, Happenings, Conceptual Art, Art with Animals
In search of a medium that allows reflexion my feelings towards money modern society, politics sexism I introduse ffound object in my artworks, among them live animals but also fire, earth, plants ,rock money . I replaced the canvas and the gallery with plants, consisted and performances using unusual materials,
I had the perfect subject and theme for my new project, I owned three adjoining lots in Key West. Together they made up the last undeveloped wooded acre of land in the heart of old town Key West. I had vowed to keep them that way. Rapidly rising property values, taxes, insurances premiums and the cost of living in Key West was becoming a financial problem for me. I began working on a site specific art project using my property. The mission save it from developement. At the time Florida was losing 450 acres of land daily
Unshure of what to name my project I called it "A Visionary Enviroment" or "The Temple of Flora" To create a big green living biomass with overwhelming feeling of being in a rainforest My goal was to hide all the neighbors buildings with dense folige, to create paths and little openings that were private from one another. I planted 100s and 100's of trees, I added arroids, orchids, bromliads ferns, cycads. To give it horticultural value I specialized in palm trees and added rare and endangered species
In 1993 I opened my site specific art installation to the public for an interactive experience in which I educated and performed. It came to be known as Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden. Dec 1993 - Dec 2012
By way of co-creative input, it took on its official name by Dennis Reeves Cooper editor of Key West The Newspaper.
Performance art, teaching and storytelling happened,
Humans visited. Wedding, memorials services, barmitph, spiritual ceremonies, cronings, writing and poetry workshops, life drawing class, gallery exhibits annual rare plant show
Charles Kuralt called me saying. "Nancy, I heard you have a beautiful garden Id like to come visit you." After interviewing me and the garden was included in his book Charles Kuralts America in the Feb. section called Key West.
Native and exotic animals visited. Parrots were abandoned in the garden.
I struggled for money to support the place and my modest lifestyle
Friends suggested a non profit could save the garden.
I became Co creator and President of Mana Project 501(c)(3) Mana is a Polynesian word
meaning positive creative force. Mana's mission was to preserve the place, my Land Art
known as Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden for the benefit of the earth, the arts, and the
artist. To serve the community and visiting public as site dedicated to environmental
educational in order to create eco-activists. Mana had three education programs, Greensong program was dedicated to protecting the land from development, preserving its plants and animals, teaching rainforest ecology to the visiting public Artist in Residence Program for environment artists to produce, exhibit present or exhibit their work and I Love Parrots Program was formed support the parrots educate the public to stop parrot, provide a home for the abandoned parrots left in my garden and teach Parrot 101 to the visiting public
I have been a mentor to creative people for 35 years. I have shared my lifestyle, my
philosophy, my art, my home, my guest cottage, my animals and my garden with creative people, visionary
thinkers, and naturalists and environmental artists. As an artist I have provided education and story telling to the visiting public. I have sought to elevate the role of artists in society especially environment artists and activate humans to save what is left of the natural world because extinction is forever, our planet is in crisis and time is running out.
I went into foreclosure in 2008 by 2012 I lost the two big lots which contained most of the garden. I was fortunate to receive life tenancy in my home/studio/gallery since 1969. I continue to teach, perform and provide storytelling to public on the subject of sustainability with the aid of my feathered teachers the parrots because they have survived so much abuse.
I currently live and work in my home/studio/gallery in Key West, Fl
I am presently working on a book called Beauty with a Purpose, Garden Games and
Extinction Jokes based on my interaction with the public at Nancy Forrester
Secret Garden for ten years.)
NANCY FORRESTER'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Nancy Forrester was born beside the Susquehanna River in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania
on July 29 1938. As a youth she played in a beautiful region scarred by early
indiscriminate logging and strip mining. She lived on a farm called Orchard Hill located in
Bald EagleValley in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania. Her earliest recollection
and puzzlement as a child was not being allowed to go near or swim in the shallow gentle
water of the wide River that so magnificently defined the area. "It's unsafe" she was told.
"It is because the banks of the river are leaking raw sewage and the closed coal mines
upstream are flooded and leaching acids into the river" her mother warned. Pollution
undetectable to the eye and descriptions of microscopic toxins were a strange
wonderment to the small child who peered into a barren watery landscape, too perfectly
crystal clear looking for signs of life, water plants, turtles, beetles, snails and strides.
They were non existent!
In her back yard she looked for diminished quail, pheasant, wood ducks, red fox, it was
easier to find lichen, arrow heads, fossilized shells, than the once abundant trailing
arbutus, and ground orchids. She became gravely aware of endangered plants and
animals in the sparse felled woods, abandoned fields, in the atrophic green algae blooms
in Fishing Creek from fertilizer and farm runoff. She learned at an early age the
necessity of healthy BIOS-systems and to respect and protect the inviable and maligned
bats, skunks, possums, snakes and spiders.
The family spent a lot of
time outdoors observing and teaching. They explored flora and fauna in the Pennsylvania
woods, meadows, creeks and river and in the early 50's the Florida Keys, islands,
hammocks and flats and reefs of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
She attended 7th and 8th grade in a one room school house in Marathon, Fl. The
principle Mr Guthrie focused lessons on the surrounding natural world rather than the
formal studies of sentence diagramming.
She attended summer school at Penn State University taking art history and painting
classes from famed art teacher Hobson Pitman on loan each summer from the
Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts.
She graduated from the School of Architecture and Design in 1961, with a B.S. in Design
from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. She majored in painting at a time when
abstract expressionism was being taught and all her instructors were male. She minored
in ceramics.
After graduation she moved to in New York City where she lived on the lower east side
with fellow artists and sold her work in several Greenwich Village Art Galleries.
Nancy and wildlife artist George L. Schelling opened an art gallery in Clinton, N.J. in the
late 60's.
Nancy paintings are of lessor known plants and animals and BIOS systems Nancy
describes herself as a patternist.
Nancy won the National Academy of Design Purchase award in late sixties for the Henry
Ward Ranger Fund for 24xtoday shelor "Black Organic Form"
Nancy moved to Key West, Florida in 1969 where she remains today she opened an art
gallery of Botanical and Zoological Paintings in 1975 which continues to this day. She
shows antique and contemporary environmental art.
`
Nancy Forrester was born beside the Susquehanna River in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania
on July 29 1938. As a youth she played in a beautiful region scarred by early
indiscriminate logging and strip mining. She lived on a farm called Orchard Hill located in
Bald EagleValley in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania. Her earliest recollection
and puzzlement as a child was not being allowed to go near or swim in the shallow gentle
water of the wide River that so magnificently defined the area. "It's unsafe" she was told.
"It is because the banks of the river are leaking raw sewage and the closed coal mines
upstream are flooded and leaching acids into the river" her mother warned. Pollution
undetectable to the eye and descriptions of microscopic toxins were a strange
wonderment to the small child who peered into a barren watery landscape, too perfectly
crystal clear looking for signs of life, water plants, turtles, beetles, snails and strides.
They were non existent!
In her back yard she looked for diminished quail, pheasant, wood ducks, red fox, it was
easier to find lichen, arrow heads, fossilized shells, than the once abundant trailing
arbutus, and ground orchids. She became gravely aware of endangered plants and
animals in the sparse felled woods, abandoned fields, in the atrophic green algae blooms
in Fishing Creek from fertilizer and farm runoff. She learned at an early age the
necessity of healthy BIOS-systems and to respect and protect the inviable and maligned
bats, skunks, possums, snakes and spiders.
The family spent a lot of
time outdoors observing and teaching. They explored flora and fauna in the Pennsylvania
woods, meadows, creeks and river and in the early 50's the Florida Keys, islands,
hammocks and flats and reefs of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
She attended 7th and 8th grade in a one room school house in Marathon, Fl. The
principle Mr Guthrie focused lessons on the surrounding natural world rather than the
formal studies of sentence diagramming.
She attended summer school at Penn State University taking art history and painting
classes from famed art teacher Hobson Pitman on loan each summer from the
Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts.
She graduated from the School of Architecture and Design in 1961, with a B.S. in Design
from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. She majored in painting at a time when
abstract expressionism was being taught and all her instructors were male. She minored
in ceramics.
After graduation she moved to in New York City where she lived on the lower east side
with fellow artists and sold her work in several Greenwich Village Art Galleries.
Nancy and wildlife artist George L. Schelling opened an art gallery in Clinton, N.J. in the
late 60's.
Nancy paintings are of lessor known plants and animals and BIOS systems Nancy
describes herself as a patternist.
Nancy won the National Academy of Design Purchase award in late sixties for the Henry
Ward Ranger Fund for 24xtoday shelor "Black Organic Form"
Nancy moved to Key West, Florida in 1969 where she remains today she opened an art
gallery of Botanical and Zoological Paintings in 1975 which continues to this day. She
shows antique and contemporary environmental art.
`
BORN 1938
Nancy Forrester Quigley Birth Date July 29 1938. Lock Haven, Pennsylvania Hospital
Mother, Nancy Forrester Clapp, Father Richard Shaw Quigley
Nancy Forrester Quigley Birth Date July 29 1938. Lock Haven, Pennsylvania Hospital
Mother, Nancy Forrester Clapp, Father Richard Shaw Quigley
PARENTS
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My mother graduated from Conn College for Woman. Before marrige she worked as a lab technician. She was a zoologist with a passionate interest in birds and American shells (mo and the microscopic. My mother was a zoologist with a passionate interest in birds, molluscology and
the microscopic. She collected American sea shells and land snails My father wanted to attend MIT. His mother made him go to Babson Business Institute. He was an outdoors man He persued fishing, hunting and racing cars and boats gun collector black powder. |
GRANDPARRENTS
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My grandparents on both sides had farms with enough land for livestock and vegetable and flower gardens. Quigley's were wicked Catholics. The Clapp's were gentle agnostics.
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TRAMA
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I was born into a dysfunctional family with mental illness and addiction problems
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TRAMA
Life and death situation |
I was a breach baby, my mother almost died giving birth to me. During her days of long painful life threatening labor a horrible a family drama occurred in the halls of the Hospital Nurse
Irene Packer was hired to take care of me as a newborn because my mother was so damaged from birthing me she could hardly get of of bed. |
INFANCY 1938 -1940
CHILDHOOD TRAMA Scarey person
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Home for mother and baby me was in an isolated farmhouse far from town and neighbors. My mother lived in constant fear because there was a serial killer in the area. That was the era when Hobos came knocking on your door and marked your door with an X if you provided them with a meal. She was terrified to answer the door. Her vibe permated me as a baby. I became a fearful child. Father out of town most of the time in Canada hunting and fishing or fulfilling wartime jobs. Scared of men
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SEXISM
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RELIGION
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CHILDHOOD TRAMA
Scary animal |
Rutting bull escapes pen terrified of the dark
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TODDLER
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Old stone building with small windows small rooms cramped dark inside, floors were cold and drafty, field mice ran inside
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DOG "Bobby Cow"
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WORLD WAR TWO
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Harrisberg, PA Westport. CONN bob cat Wisterea Vine
|
Water Street
Lock Haven |
Polio flood train brick factory milk bottle delivery refill cartridges hunting birds hanging after shot, lied and had my mouth washed out with soap
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CRYBABY
SPANKING |
DOG "JACKIE"
Black Cocker Spanial |
DIVORCE RICHARD
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SISTER BORN
DOROTHY ANNE QUIGLEY |
I had both mumps and measles at the same time she was born I hahad to stay quarentined in my grandfathers shell room.
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ROOSEVELT SCHOOL
Lock Haven, Pa GRADES 1 thu 6 |
First day of school I broke my collar bone. Scary teacher Mrs. Baird used switch and ruler to discipline. I was painfully shy.
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THE HAPPIEST YEARS
OF MY LFE. GRASSEY KEY FLORIDA |
When I was 11 our famiIy of four moved to Grassy Key Florida. I attended 7th and 8th grade in a one room school house in Marathon, Fl. The principle Mr. Guthrie focused lessons on the surrounding natural world rather than the usual studies happening in the US like sentence diagramming. We had field trips to Miami to visit the Parrot Jungle, The Monkey Jungle and the Hass Serpentarium. Coral Castle. I loved this.
My parents wanted me to go to college. They felt education in the Keys was lacking so I was sent away to a girls boarding school, 9th and 10th grades Miami. |
ONE ROOM SCHOOL HOUSE
MARATHON, FLORIDA GRADES 7 & 8 |
First Boyfriend Bob Stromburg
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REBELLED CHURCH
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PLAYMATES
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GRADES 9 thru 10
Miss Harris Florida School For Girls BrickallAve Miami, Florida |
1985 Stopped Painting Paradym shift
|
search of a medium that allows reflexion my feelings towards money modern society, politics sexism I introduse ffound object in my artworks, among them live animals but also fire, earth, plants ,rock money . I replaced the canvas and the gallery with plants, consisted and performances using unusual materials,
|
I Would Love to Have You Visit Soon!
Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden
Home of Key West Parrots
518 Elizabeth Street, Key West, Florida 33040
HoursEveryday: Including Holidays 10 am - 3 pm
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Telephone305-294-0015
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