Nancy Lee Worden (November 29, 1954 – February 17, 2021) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

artist and

metalsmith A metalsmith or simply smith is a craftsperson fashioning useful items (for example, tools, kitchenware, tableware, jewelry, armor and weapons) out of various metals. Smithing is one of the oldest list of metalworking occupations, metalworking o ...

. Her jewelry art is known for weaving together personal narratives with current politics. She received many awards and honors. Worden exhibited internationally, and her work is represented in collections around the world, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

Education and early life

Worden was born in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

on November 29, 1954. She was raised in

Ellensburg Ellensburg is a city in and the county seat of Kittitas County, Washington, United States. It is located just east of the Cascade Range near the junction of Interstate 90 and Interstate 82. The population was 18,666 at the 2020 census. and was ...

, Washington. Her parents were both academics. The family lived near Worden's grandparents, who lived on a small farm. There Worden learned to use hand tools to express her creativity. While in high school, she studied art under Kay Crimp, and in her junior year took her first jewelry class. During her senior year she enrolled in undergraduate metalsmithing classes at Central Washington University.LeBaron, Michelle and Platt, Susan Noyes, Loud Bones: The Jewelry of Nancy Worden. Tacoma Art Museum, 2009. Worden started making jewelry when she was in high school. After high school, Worden enrolled in a degree program at Central Washington, earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1977. There she studied with Ken Cory, who taught her jewelry fundamentals and encouraged her to develop her own personal artistic style. In 1980 Worden enrolled in the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

to study jewelry and

metalsmithing A metalsmith or simply smith is a craftsperson fashioning useful items (for example, tools, kitchenware, tableware, jewelry, armor and weapons) out of various metals. Smithing is one of the oldest metalworking occupations. Shaping metal with a ...

under Gary Nofke. He encouraged her to develop a unique creative voice that was expressed through technique and materials. Worden received her Master of Fine Arts later in 1980.

Career

After graduate school, Worden worked in retail jewelry and art galleries. This provided her training in the business aspects of jewelry as an art. During the 1980s, Worden organized shows for other artists, and refined her own style. In the 1990s, she developed a regional reputation. She began teaching herself to electroform in 1995. By the late 1990s, she won national notoriety for her distinctive style that merged personal and political themes. In 2014 the

Renwick Gallery The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum located in Washington, D.C. that displays American craft and decorative arts from the 19th to 21st century. The gallery is housed in a National Historic Landmark building that ...

of the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

(SAAM) acquired her necklace "The Family Reunion 2012." Several more of her pieces were acquired by (SAAM) as part of the Renwick Gallery's 50th Anniversary Campaign. TheFamilyReunion.jpg, The Family Reunion by Nancy Worden SevenDeadlySins.jpg, Seven Deadly Sins by Nancy Worden RepairingTheNest.jpg, Repairing the Nest by Nancy Worden

Exhibitions

From June through September, 2009, the

Tacoma Art Museum The Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) is an art museum in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It focuses primarily on the art and artists from the Pacific Northwest and broader western region of the U.S. Founded in 1935, the museum has strong roots in the c ...

presented a major retrospective of Worden's work, titled ''Loud Bones: The Jewelry of Nancy Worden''. The exhibit featured 41 pieces from throughout Worden's 30-year career. It was accompanied by a book of the same title. The show was then presented at the

Hallie Ford Museum of Art The Hallie Ford Museum of Art (HFMA) is the museum of Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, United States. It is the third largest art museum in Oregon. Opened in 1998, the facility is across the street from the Oregon State Capital in downtow ...

at Willamette University from November 2009 to January 2010.

Collections

Her work in the collection of the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

, the Museum of Arts and Design,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

the

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...

, the Seattle Art Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the

Death

She died February 17, 2021, in Seattle, Washington as a result of

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

References

External links

Nancy Worden In Conversation
Art Jewelry Forum interview, July 2009
Nancy Worden: Smiling Faces
Art Jewelry Forum interview, December 2012 {{DEFAULTSORT:Worden, Nancy 1954 births 2021 deaths American jewelry designers Artists from Boston American women jewellers 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists 20th-century American jewellers 21st-century American jewellers People from Ellensburg, Washington Artists from Washington (state) Central Washington University alumni University of Georgia alumni Deaths from motor neuron disease in the United States