Nina de Creeft Ward facts for kids

Nina de Creeft Ward (born in 1933) is an American artist. She creates amazing art using different materials like bronze, soft sculptures, etchings, woodcuts, and monoprints. Her artwork has been shown in many art shows, called exhibitions, in places like the Philippines and the United States. In 2006, she won an award for her clay artwork from the Santa Barbara Arts Fund.

Nina Ward loves animals, and most of her art is about them. For example, in 1998, she had an exhibition that featured art looking like animals that are endangered (meaning they might disappear) or already extinct (meaning they no longer exist). She has also taught art to students, including at the University of Northern Iowa. She often makes her clay animal models using a special pottery technique called raku ware.

Nina Ward's Early Life and Education

Nina de Creeft Ward was born in 1933 in New York City. Her parents, Jose de Creeft and Alice Robertson Carr de Creeft, were both sculptors. Nina's mother loved caring for animals, which made Nina also grow to love them. After her parents divorced, Nina, her mother, and her brother moved to Santa Barbara, California. She spent her childhood in Santa Barbara and Ojai, California. Nina went to a school called Happy Valley School, which is now known as Besant Hill School.

While studying at Scripps College, Nina started drawing large draft horses for the Los Angeles County Fair. She earned her first college degree, a Bachelor of Arts, from Scripps College in 1956. Later, in 1964, she received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Claremont Graduate School. She also continued her art studies at the Massachusetts College of Art.

Nina learned from famous artists like Albert Stewart, Betty Davenport Ford, and Paul Soldner. Paul Soldner taught her how to create art using the raku ware method. After living in Iowa for 26 years with her husband and their five children, Nina moved back to Santa Barbara in 2001.

Nina Ward's Artistic Career

In 1975, Nina Ward moved to Cedar Falls, Iowa. There, she taught art at the University of Northern Iowa for nine years. She enjoyed teaching art to people of all ages, from young children to adults. Before that, she also taught at Girls Collegiate School in Claremont for a few years.

Nina Ward's art includes pieces made from bronze, soft sculptures (like fabric art), etchings, woodcuts, and monoprints. She is well-known for her clay animals, which are sold across the United States. Nina has said that she works "almost exclusively with animal themes." She even mixes her own "fairly sandy raku clay recipe." She explained that she sees each animal she creates as an individual. She tries to stop working on a piece once the animal's personality is clear. She also likes to leave hints of how the art was made, like the texture of the canvas she rolled the clay on, or small rough spots from her modeling.

In 1998, Nina Ward created a sculpture of two draft horses called Shoulders of Giants. This sculpture is located at the University of Northern Iowa's library and museum. In 1999, she made a bronze sculpture of a farm dog named Shep. You can find Shep at the Patty Jischke Children's Garden in Reiman Gardens. To create Shep, Nina first drew many pictures of her own dog. Then, she made small clay models. Once she was happy with the small models, she created a full-size clay model. This large clay model was then turned into a bronze statue in Kalona, Iowa.

In 2016, Nina Ward was a judge for the Tri-Cities Online Ceramics Show. This show was organized by the Student Art Fund of the Santa Barbara Art Association.

Art Exhibitions and Shows

Nina Ward's art has been shown in many exhibitions. Her 1998 exhibition, Rhino/Blaauwbock Project, was created to show how humans have harmed the balance of nature. In this exhibition, she used art that looked like the bodies of extinct and endangered animals. Nina said about this exhibition, "I want to make a statement about anti-complacency." She believes it's important to think about death, and seeing something physical can make you think about it.

In 2012, Nina Ward had an art exhibition at Young’s Gallery in Los Olivos, California. In 2015, she held another exhibition at the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, which featured her sculptures, prints, and drawings. In 2020, she displayed 28 of her animal sculptures at the South Willard gallery in Los Angeles, California. Also in 2020, her art was part of an exhibition called Santa Barbara Printmakers: Wild Places in Print at the Wildling Museum’s Barbara Goodall Education Center. In 2022, her work was included in an exhibition called An Encomium: Women in Art at the University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art. Nina Ward's exhibitions have been shown in many places, including the Philippines, California, Maryland, Iowa, Chicago, and Kansas City.