Contemporary artist Nan Coffey wants to tell you a story. If you follow her on Facebook and tell her a little bit about yourself, what you love and what makes you happy, she may wind up telling your story, too.<\/p>\n
The Mission Valley artist is currently working on her second public participation, or \u201cinclusion art\u201d piece, as she calls them. Her intention is to use her artistic talents as a vehicle to show connectivity, inclusion and love in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I did my first public participation painting in 2015, it was a social experiment to see if people would respond if I asked them to participate in one of my works,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to see if I could take all this information from friends and total strangers and flow it into one unified piece.\u201d<\/p>\n The audience participation far exceeded expectation.<\/p>\n \u201cI initially started out with a 66-square-foot canvas but I realized it wasn\u2019t going to be big enough. I wound up scrapping the first one, pulled out something bigger and started redrawing,\u201d said Coffey, who has a bachelors in animation from the San Francisco Academy of the Arts.<\/p>\n By the time all was said and done, Coffey included the stories of 172 people in her 10-feet-by-13-feet masterpiece.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore I started that first project, I was in a place of frustration and boredom. Quite frankly, I was utterly, miserably unsure of my place in life. What ended up happening is that through that project, I started to find my purpose \u2014 not only as an artist, but in life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe response I received on my first public participation painting was amazing. People reacted in such a loving and joyous way and made me realize what my true purpose was.\u201d<\/p>\n Her current masterpiece measures 10 feet by 17 feet, and she hopes to include the stories of roughly 200 people by the time it\u2019s completed. Although Coffey notes the final tally could be slightly less, or slightly more, she hopes to include as many participants as possible.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more people I include, the happier I get,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve found that so many people are going through the same life experiences and one of the things that\u2019s most comforting to me, is I\u2019m creating a space for people to connect with one another through my art.\u201d<\/p>\n The final kinks of where this piece will be displayed are still being worked through, but the artist is hopeful the large-scale piece will be displayed publically. What she does know is that she\u2019d like a lot of people to be able to see it and the stories behind it.<\/p>\n \u201cMy art is now focused largely on inclusion,\u201d she said. \u201cWe should all work in this world to include, not exclude people. My art is about breaking down walls, not putting them up. It\u2019s about learning more about each other, listening to each other, connecting with each other, recognizing each other and in the end, simply loving one another.\u201d<\/p>\n Those interested in learning more about Nan Coffey\u2019s art can connect with her at Facebook.com\/ArtistNanCoffey or at Instagram.com\/nancoffey. She occasionally paints live at galleries or public events for people to view her process. Coffey has art hanging at the Bali Hai Restaurant and at Tender Greens in Liberty Station and Downtown.\u00a0Her artwork can also be seen at Skye Art Gallery in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n \u2014Margie M. Palmer es una escritora independiente con sede en San Diego que ha estado acumulando art\u00edculos en una gran cantidad de publicaciones de noticias durante los \u00faltimos 10 a\u00f1os. Puedes localizarla en <\/em>margiep@alumni.pitt.edu<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Por Margie M. Palmer<\/p>","protected":false},"author":746,"featured_media":233443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11557","_seopress_titles_title":"\u2018Inclusion art\u2019","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11557,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-mission-valley-news","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/746"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Nan](\"https:\/\/missionvalleynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/NanCoffey_WhenShesTenFeetTall_JohnSchulz_Portraitwebtop.jpg\")
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