Born and raised in Seattle, Nancy Sterling earned her BFA from the University of Washington before beginning a successful career in advertising. She became an accomplished, ADDY Award–winning art director and later left agency life to open her own award-winning graphic design studio. After more than two decades in the design world, stepping away from deadlines and client demands allowed Nancy to return fully to her fine art practice. Now retired from commercial design, Nancy devotes as much time as possible to working in her studio. She has long believed that the most compelling forms, structures, colors, and textures are found in nature, and these elements remain the foundation of her work. Her assemblages incorporate natural materials such as pods, seeds, dried flowers, leaves, twisted branches, and bleached driftwood, blended with clay, fabric, wire, beads, and carefully selected found objects. The strong principles of composition, balance, and visual harmony that guided her graphic design career continue to inform her sculptural work today. Each piece is thoughtfully constructed, richly layered, and meticulously composed. Nancy’s three-dimensional assemblages are truly one of a kind—sophisticated, imaginative, and often surprising—what she calls her own “unexpected re-creations.”