Nan Sheets

...I started thinking about all the trips we had taken together over the years; all the valuable information it had stored for me and how it was always happily available every hour of every day. Telling myself that it was only a machine and it could be replaced with a new laptop with more amenities didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, I became acutely aware that I was grieving the loss of an inanimate object...

One day last week, I received a call from an attorney asking if he could bring by a Nan Sheets painting on behalf of one of his clients. I was beyond thrilled. Nan Sheets, one my personal heroes, is Oklahoma's most well-known early Oklahoma artist, teacher, pioneer and champion for the arts.

Born in 1885 in Illinois, the youngest of five children, Nan inherited her mother’s talent for painting and her father’s free spirit. She graduated from Valparaiso University with a degree in Pharmacy. She immediately obtained work in a neighboring town, but soon moved to Salt Lake City, studying art in the mornings and working afternoons and evenings as the Head Prescription Clerk in one of Salt Lake’s largest pharmacies.