Forest Reflections

Lucille Procter Nawara was born into a family of musicians but always knew she would be an artist. While growing up she spent much of her time surrounded by nature where she explored forest pools and brooks filled with rapids or climbed the granite boulders of the White Mountains in New Hampshire with her siblings. These memories of wild and remote landscapes, waterfalls and the ocean still influence her work today. When not exploring the outdoors, she enthusiastically studied drawing and music. As the daughter of two composers and music teachers, she followed their lead and trained on the violin for many years and played in a number of chamber groups.

Artist in her studio

In college Nawara focused on the visual arts. She studied at Smith College, Boston University and the University of Illinois, where she received her MFA.  She taught at Wayne State University and at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, as well as at other Michigan colleges for twenty years.

Although art was and continues to be her mainstay, Nawara ventured into new professional explorations. She directed the Nawara Gallery in Walled Lake, Michigan; started a landscape design business; and served in art politics in the Detroit area.

Fillmore Glen, 2013-14, oil on linen

Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, Johannes Vermeer, Odilon Redon, Gustave Courbet, Vincent Van Gogh, Pierre Bonnard, Hans Holbein, Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt van Rijn, John Ruskin have been her main sources of inspiration. She considers her work a long meditation on nature in solitary, primeval places of great beauty.