MEET THE FOUNDER

 About Nancy Catherine Rump

Nancy Catherine Rump's life as an artist began in the Hudson Valley, where her childhood neighbor, the legendary glass innovator Maurice Heaton, first opened her eyes to the discipline and devotion required to make art. Childhood afternoons were also spent writing poetry and creating pen-and-ink drawings with her dear friend Mark Oursler in Nyack, New York. Downstairs in the basement of the Oursler family's Victorian home on the banks of the Hudson River, Nancy even lent a hand to brother Tony Oursler-now a renowned video installation artist-helping with his earliest creative experiments. These moments planted the seed for a life rooted in imagination, collaboration, and artistic expression.
At Skidmore College, she studied under sculptor John Cunningham, whose mentorship brought her into the orbit of modern masters like George Rickey and Isamu Noguchi. Her junior year was spent in Florence, Italy, walking daily among the treasures of Donatello, Ghiberti, Botticelli, and Michelangelo. She later moved to Paris, where she studied at the Sorbonne, sketched in the Louvre, and taught English at the Institut Pasteur.