Thousands of northwest suburban homes are equipped with sheds filled with lawnmowers, rakes, shovels, hedge clippers and other stuff. Nancy Fortunato has a shed, too, in the back yard of her Palatine home. But Fortunato’s shed is filled with other things, such as inspiration and creativity.
Fortunato is a watercolor artist, and sometimes she’ll set up an easel in her shed, wait for some of her beloved birds to hang out in her back yard and then bring the canvas to life.
“An artist will look anywhere for inspiration, and sometimes I find it right in my back yard,” Fortunato said laughing.
Fortunato, 54, is an internationally known watercolor artist specializing in birds, landscapes, lighthouses and portraits of unusual people (“people with character,” she says).
Fortunato’s work has been exhibited in Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History and in 47 states, Canada, China, London and Paris. She has won dozens of awards during the last 20 to 25 years. She has been featured in publications ranging from the Wausau (Wis.) Herald to the Greek Post in Athens. Her work has been included in a number of art books. She’s a commissioned artist for the U.S. Coast Guard, thanks to her lighthouse paintings. And when she’s not creating art, she promotes art in a variety of capacities. Fortunato has made her art her career.
“I’m tuned in to paint for myself, and the goal is to make each painting better than the one before,” she said. “Since I started, I’d say I’ve done about 10,000 paintings. Sometimes I sell a painting for a large amount of money, or it will get in a book, or I’ll see it in a show. Or maybe it will just end up in a pile in my studio, and thousands of my paintings have done just that over the years. It just depends. But even paintings that just don’t work–and as I said I’ve done a lot of them–I still learn something.”
How did she do it? Fortunato’s story begins when she was a sometimes lonely teenager growing up in Highland Park. She would pull out a sketch pad and doodle when she was sitting alone in her room, maybe look out the window and draw the birds or animals in her large back yard. But she wouldn’t dare call herself an artist, not back then.
“I always knew I wanted to, but people told me I couldn’t,” she said. “People don’t make money as a painter, they’d tell me.”
After high school, Fortunato went to work as a secretary and played accordion at nightclubs and weddings in her spare time. But her yearning to create art wouldn’t fade, so she took a few classes at what became the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was living in Highwood with her parents, and she set up an art room in an extra room, where she’d draw for hours at a time.
Fortunato received her first big break when she met the person who gave her the inspiration to bring her artwork out of her private room: Donald Anstedt, an electronics engineer, whom she met on a blind date and married in 1972.
“Don could see how interested I was in art,” she said. “He encouraged me and helped me cultivate my talent. So I started going to art shows with my pen-and-ink drawings. And I’d hear people comment: `Why doesn’t she add color?’ I thought that maybe there was something to their comments, and I evolved into watercolor.”
Fortunato’s second break came in 1982 at a “Birds in Art” show, when she met Roger Tory Peterson, internationally known originator of a variety of birding field guides. “Roger called me `the fuzzy bird painter,’ and his encouragement helped me in so many ways,” she said. Two years later her painting of a ruby-throated hummingbird appeared on the cover of Bird Watcher’s Digest; she was the first female artist to be so honored.
Fortunato’s reputation began to grow, and she received her third big break in 1984. That’s when she was one of 24 noted artists invited by Chinese artist Cheng-Khee Chee to study watercolor art at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, China. Along with eating lots of tree-fungus soup, yogurt, eggs, chicken and fish and being awakened in the morning by the marching song of the People’s Liberation Army blaring over tinny loudspeakers, Fortunato and her fellow students spent eight weeks painting and then painting some more. When they weren’t creating art, they were talking about it.
“I had been in a lot of watercolor shows, and Cheng-Khee Chee started seeing an Oriental influence in my work I never knew I had until he pointed it out,” she said. “That’s why I was invited, and it was a marvelous experience. It opened up a whole new world for me in how I view art. It brought my work into focus for me.”
“Nancy finds innovative ways to always bring a new perspective to her work,” said Chee, who is now retired and lives in Minneapolis. “She brings sensitivity to the watercolor medium. She’s very precise, very calculating in her work. She has a lot of integrity, and that shows in her work.”
Recent efforts have included “Park Bench Entertainer,” “Cape Hattie” and “New Beginnings.” “Sometimes the painting names itself,” she said. “Otherwise, I try to come up with names that make people smile.”
Birds, landscapes and lighthouses are main inspirations for a simple reason: “You never run out of material with those subjects,” she said. “I went on a recent trip to the Atlantic coast with my husband, and we saw 69 lighthouses. That will provide me with enough material to last the rest of my life.”
Fortunato’s paintings take anywhere from 20 minutes to several months to complete. One of her 4-by-6-inch paintings sells for about $25. A larger lighthouse is in the $250 range, her birds are priced between $150 and $400, and one of her major watercolors sells for as much as $4,000.
Fortunato used to do lots of art shows–she did 39 of them in 1982 alone. Now she sells mostly through word of mouth or through art galleries, such as One Touch of Nature in Chicago. And stores such as Kindred Spirits in Palatine and the Illinois Artisans Shop in Chicago carry her limited-edition prints.
Fortunato’s creativity extends to making her own paints. “They’re my own colors,” she said. “I can’t buy a tube of what I can create.”
Of course, there’s more to being a professional artist than mixing paints and making pretty pictures. There’s also the business side, such as matting and framing her paintings, delivering her artwork to shows all over the country, publicizing her work and coordinating sales.
“That’s not what I enjoy, but it allows me to do what I love,” she said. “I try to schedule my day as much as possible. When I’m not painting, I’m doing research or business work. No matter what, it all relates to my artwork.”
Fortunato’s office/studio is bursting with books, magazines, paints and brushes, finished pieces, filing cabinets and a computer. The sign on the door says: “Wild women don’t get the blues.”
When she’s not working for herself, Fortunato gets involved with art in other ways. For instance, she’s currently the vice president of the Midwest Watercolor Society, and she coordinated the recently completed 20th annual exhibition for the society at the Neville Public Museum of Brown County in Green Bay, Wis.
“She’s very dedicated to her art and promoting the arts,” said Marilyn Ferch of Des Plaines, secretary of the Midwest Watercolor Society. “She goes far above what most people would do for a volunteer organization. Nancy organized our annual watercolor exhibition this year, which is a huge job. And after nine years in Green Bay, we lost our site for next year, which could have been the end of our show after 20 years. But Nancy came to the rescue and lined up museums for us through 2002. Sometimes I don’t know how she finds time to paint.”
Fortunato is a continuing education instructor for Palatine-based High School District 211 and Arlington Heights-based High School District 214. She also makes presentations at grade schools throughout the Chicago area. Kay Woelfel of Palatine, assistant superintendent of Community Consolidated School District 15, has known Fortunato since she visited Marion Jordan School in Palatine, where Woelfel was working at the time about 10 years ago.
“Nancy came to our school for an artist-in-residence workshop, and she was fantastic, Woelfel said. “She works with watercolors, and each student does their own artwork. She shows techniques, then lets students jump in and work on their own. Nancy takes on new challenges all the time to contribute to the arts. I think it helps keep her artwork fresh.”
After 25 years, Fortunato shows no signs of slowing down.
“It’s heartfelt; I have to paint,” she said. “For me, the more I paint, the more I love it. I’m not as prolific as I used to be, but I am more quality conscious. I try to make every painting the best one I’ve ever done. I want to leave a legacy of something different. Art is important to every person, whether they know it or not.”
