Nancy Lunsford was born in 1950 in Greenville South Carolina. One of  thirteen children she is the daughter of a bluegrass fiddle player and a phenomenally resilient  mother. The artist's early years were shaped by  a rich Appalachian musical tradition, intense family drama and the peripatetic existence of a musician moving his growing family fifteen times in as many years.

Lunsford's precocious artistic skills helped  support her family financially with portraiture, courtroom sketching and mural painting.   After a stint as a singer and songwriter with her father and two sisters,  Lunsford moved to Park Slope in 1976, eventually earning a degree in art history and English literature from New York University.

Ten years spent in Indonesia and Turkey expanded  Lunsford's aesthetic  sensibility. Her fascination with traditional shadow theater in both countries was pivotal in her development as an artist.  In Turkey she wrote art reviews for a daily newspaper which introduced her to a vibrant artistic community.  She exhibited her paintings, installations and shadow theater performances while living in Ankara and continues to exhibit in Istanbul.

After returning to New York, Lunsford ran Wisteria Art Space in Brooklyn, curating exhibits, producing shadow theater, and exploring other performance venues in stand up comedy and poetry slams.  A weekly sketch group which met  in her studio  was the inspiration for a local group exhibition and eventually led to the co-founding with Shanee Epstein of the collective,  440 Gallery.

1969-70 Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tennessee

1976-77 The Art Students League of New York

1977 Brooklyn Museum Art School printmaking

1982 New York University BA (Art History and English, honors)

1983-85 Art Academy, Jakarta Indonesia

1992-93 Comedy Studies with Rob Weinstein

1996 Long Island University Certificate in computer graphics

2001-02 New York Academy of Art, painting and anatomy studies

2002-03 The Educational Alliance

2003 Sculpture with Paul Lucches, Lucca Italy