Nancie Merritt, a Swedesboro resident since 2007, moved from north Jersey where she resided for over 30 years.

Nancie moved to Swedesboro from Maplewood in north Jersey in 2007 after retiring from a career in Human Resources Management. Her formal education is far afield from art: Anthropology and Human Resources. However, she has been painting in oil most of her life, and began using pastels since 2008. Currently, she paints in both oil and pastel. She has been a student with various artists in places where she lived over the years, from Washington, D.C, Indianapolis, Indiana, northern New Jersey, and most recently with Joseph Sweeney at the PAFA (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.)
She recalls an artist she was taking painting classes with long ago in Washington, DC. Among his words of wisdom about painting, was that becoming an artist opens ones eyes to the world around us in ways that the non-artist can never imagine. Then combine the idea of seeing things around us from a different, more perceptive way with another artist teacher’s directive to just, “Paint what you see, not what you think you see…” and that pretty much sums up her whole artistic approach—learning to see through an artist’s eyes and painting what she truly sees.
It takes some practice to see objects or scenes then translate them onto paper or canvas. She likes to do portraits. Aside from portraits, she enjoys working on landscapes or seascapes. In her words, “I love driving in the countryside just looking around at the scenery. I can see paintings everywhere: a barn, a grouping of trees, the sky reflected in a pond, the play of sunlight on just about anything be it a building, road, boulders, trees or grass. Sunlight is magical and has the power to transform the mundane into the spectacular. I can find inspiration from many subjects and I use my own photos as my reference for developing my artwork.”