M. Nicole van Dam

Nicole, a California native born of Dutch immigrant parents, was educated on the East Coast (including Harvard, Cornell and University of Pennsylvania, as well as USC) and is now living by California’s Central Coast with her much-loved husband and their mischievous pets – a Leonberger dog, a rescue Chihuahua-Papillion-Pomeranian dog mix, and two Bourke’s Parrot birds. Nicole writes about her artistic endeavors, pets and vegetable garden at her news blog, www.Our1Earth.com, and you can learn more about her inspirations at www.Inspirations.bz.

Career Overview: M. Nicole van Dam’s art has been exhibited publicly many times at various venues, and has been on exhibit at a gallery/business/public venue continuously for more than a decade, which is an unusual accomplishment for most artists. Since approximately 2008, Nicole’s fine artwork has been on display at Santa Barbara, California City Hall. Similarly, commencing public exhibition in February 2011, Community Memorial Hospital acquired a large collection of M. Nicole van Dam works, following a display of Nicole’s artwork and poetry for the hospital in 2010. A 2006 M. Nicole van Dam solo exhibition was recorded by the Montecito, California History Committee, and Nicole has been named an artist to watch by the “Montecito Journal.” A retrospective of M. Nicole van Dam works has also been published, entitled “M. Nicole van Dam, A Retrospective 2010.” (See also Nicole’s Portfolio at www.NicolevanDam.com). Current gallery exhibitions often include recitations of her poetry and writings combined with her art, in large part taken from her book “Tempo – The Rhythm and Rhyme of the Artist.”

In addition to fine art exhibitions, M. Nicole van Dam is also an internationally licensed artist and author. As an international artist, Nicole’s work is licensed by international manufacturers for many products, such as glass plates, footwear, tile wall murals, collectibles, etc., and as a result people around the world have purchased Nicole’s work. Nicole has been written up in collector newsletters, including international newsletters that published Nicole’s poetry as well as her other creations. M. Nicole van Dam has also authored books which combine her art with her poetry, humor and philosophy, and current gallery exhibitions often include recitations of her poetry and writings combined with her art, in large part taken from her book “Tempo – The Rhythm and Rhyme of the Artist.” M. Nicole van Dam also authors and illustrates children’s books, including “Inca Dink, The Great Houndini” ™ (licensed for the iPhone/iPad and narrated by BBC personality Dominic Byrne) and “Rosie and Emma Plant a Seed“™ and “This Little Puppy.”™ Nicole has also authored a set of how-to books for creatives and entrepreneurs under the SuperQuick™ brand.

More recently, Nicole has also enjoyed teaming up with other talented creatives and writing music lyrics and doing a bit of voice over narration – you can learn more about this at www.TuneSmith.bz. Nicole is also collaborating on a cell phone app.

Early Career: Nicole’s first public recognition as an artist rather inadvertently began when she won a Newport Beach, California city logo contest, shortly followed by her solo creation in approximately 1978 of a mural of the constellations on the curved surfaces of the Harvard-Smithsonian Observatory dome (the long-standing Harvard-Smithsonian observatory relationship is now referred to as the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics). In her younger career, she also served as Art Director for a small local high school magazine (“Flotsam & Jetsam”), where her flowery style arguably first emerged, and where she stood out for her magazine cover that opened with a gate fold, like magical gates for the reader to enter; After high school, while in college, she served as Art Director of University Television at the University of Pennsylvania, and as a cartoonist for the school newspaper. Nicole’s writing career also began with early recognition, including her winning first prize in an Orange County, California poetry contest in 1974, for a poem that began, “A cat prances on the wall, After the flakes he chases, Hop-pounce-tumble-and-fall, Silly winter races.” In terms of her writing, after graduating, in addition to publishing non-fiction writing pertaining to business matters such as “Multimedia and Software Agreements” published by the The Daily Journal Corporation in connection with the Digital World 95 Conference, Nicole combined her love of art and business in the “Art Avenue” column (which was published in both the “Equine Image” and “Canine Image” magazines).