Nancy Lee

Artist Nancy Lee creates one-of-a-kind wearable art in silver and gold, often embellished with cabochons and faceted colored stones. She is a self-taught metalsmith, goldsmith, and enamellist, who uses multiple techniques to produce her designs. Techniques include fabrication, in which an item is made from sheets of precious metals cut out with a jeweler’s saw, soldered, hammered, textured, etched with acids, or enameled, and sometimes created via lost wax casting. At Art-IN-Hand, Lee primarily offers fabricated sterling silver and gold jewelry.

 

Lee’s elegant designs, frequently inspired by her love of tiny things, reflect the natural world in designs that hint at flowers, the bark of a tree, an animal, or even the memory of a family event. Her intuitive approach is influenced by her small-town upbringing, her exposure to architecture during her career as a construction manager overlaid with inspiration from dreams, conversations, rust, and grit; the ancient combined with the modern. Lee’s hallmark — attention to detail — results in finely finished works of art personally significant to the wearer and intended to last a lifetime.

 

 

Lee is the Founder and President of Indy Metalsmith, an art guild hosted on Facebook. She is Past President of the Indianapolis Downtown Artists and Dealers Association (IDADA), and past Vice President of IDADA: TURF, an immersive art installation hosted during the 2012 Super Bowl in Indy. Lee is the author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Making Metal Jewelry,” 2013, Alpha Books. Her work has garnered multiple blue ribbons at the Indiana State Fair and two Individual Arts Grants from the Indiana Arts Commission. Most recently, five of her enameled wall art pieces (all of which sold) were exhibited at the TINY X show at Gallery 924. She runs a gallery in the Circle City Industrial Complex, which is open by appointment and during monthly First Friday open house events.