Raised in New York City from the age of five, Nancy graduated from Pratt Institute in 1971 with a B.A. in Visual Communications. After joining the NY Asian American Movement, she moved to San Francisco in 1974 and found her niche in cultural work, creating silkscreen posters and curating exhibitions that highlight the contributions of women and communities of color. From 1976-1979, she was hired by the Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) as curator-at-large for San Francisco’s neighborhood art centers in the Mission, South of Market, Chinatown, and as the main curator at the Sargent Johnson Gallery in the Western Addition. In 2010, she made a departure into 3-D installation work to continue the themes of identity, culture, and collective healing. Since 2012, she has created over two dozen mandalas, ranging in diameter from 2-ft. to 12-ft., that offer reflections on change, interdependence, and common purpose. Many of them involve community participation.

In addition to pushing artistic boundaries, Nancy has also nurtured the creative and organizational growth of over a dozen Bay Area arts organizations. She has served on several boards, including Heyday Books and Asian American Women Artists Association. In her long involvement with Kearny Street Workshop, the oldest running Asian American arts organization in the country, Nancy served as its Executive Director from 1995 to 2003. She was the visual arts advisor on the Community Arts Distribution Committee of the Zellerbach Family Foundation for 14 years.

Nancy’s art has been shown locally, nationally, and internationally, including the Smithsonian Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Art, and the Tate Modern in London. Her artistic and literary works are published in several anthologies and magazines. She is the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors grant (2012) plus two project grants from the San Francisco Arts Commission and the California Arts Council. For her leadership, she received the Gerbode Fellow Award (1998), the KQED Local Hero Award (2003), and The San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Award (2013). Currently she is reflecting and writing about her life and career with the aspiration that others will be inspired by her example to pursue a fulfilling path that is in line with their values. This website is an extension of that intention.