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Nancy Teague

By Asha Timperley

When Nancy Teague paints she comes to life. Her hand moves quickly, then slowly, intentionally and then spontaneously.

She smiles, steps back to get a better view and then moves back toward her painting.

Nancy is an abstract artist. She describes her work as emotional and free but also ordered and on-purpose.

But Nancy’s expressive abstracts are somewhat new to her – she’s only been painting in this style for three years – and yet her career as an artist started long before she ever painted an abstract.

Nancy’s style shifted to accommodate her physical and emotional changes over the past few years, and it’s a shift that’s impacted more than just her art.

Nancy said she never dreamed of being a ‘professional’ artist. Sure, she was an artistic kid who loved sketching, building and tinkering, but how could that ever be a career, she thought.

In college, Nancy graduated with a degree in education and found a job in Lincoln as an art teacher. She loved watching her students learn and create, it was the perfect fit for her.

But it was only after she quit teaching, due to budget cuts, that Nancy started to pursue her own art. She used her colors and technique to bring photographed images to life with light and texture. As a realism artist her paintings were exact, every stroke had a place and there was little room for error.

Nancy would often drive to small towns and then walk around with her camera in-hand, looking for objects to photograph and then paint in her studio. She loved the way she could bring a painting to life with shading, layers and shadows, this was her art and she was proud of it.

Over time Nancy competed in nationally ranked art fairs. She won a few notable awards and her career seemed to be off and running.

But in the late ‘90s Nancy developed a tremor in her left hand – the hand she paints with. She could no longer write her name and even something as simple as drinking water became an annoyance. Her work as a realist painter was intricate, and working with a tremor was impossible.

So, she closed up shop. She sold her materials, packed up her canvases and gave up painting.

The next ten years of Nancy’s life were quiet but impactful. They were full of thinking and evaluating, figuring out what she believed, and why her beliefs mattered. It was also frustrating. Nancy taught herself how to write with her right hand and she felt like a first-grader as she practiced rows and rows of single letters. It was hard, but Nancy was managing.

In 2008 an artist friend encouraged Nancy to explore painting again. They discussed making prints of Nancy’s former work and that got Nancy thinking… ‘I wonder if I can paint at all…’

Late one night she picked up a paintbrush and started in – she was doing it. Her tremor was there but she was painting like she used to, and to her surprise she was noticing finer details than before.

For the next five years, Nancy delighted in her realism painting and began to slowly experiment with painting styles beyond realism.

She said she felt like a child again, playing with paint, enjoying the fluid movement and testing out new methods. She found that she could paint with her left hand and right hand together, it didn’t matter, because there was so much less structure.

But something else was happening too. As Nancy shifted her art from realism to abstract, a similar shift happened inside of her, she said.

She found joy, a deep, deep inner joy that suddenly spilled out onto her canvas.

It’s a joy that came from her long-time faith in God, and a new realization of different truths about God and her own identity and purpose. Nancy said it was this inner freedom that propelled her shift to abstract painting.

“It’s hard to not do something that brings you joy,” she said.

So that’s what she’s done.

Not many artists can switch from one style to another, but to Nancy, her shift was unexpected but intentional. It was an outpouring of what she longed to experience, while still factoring in her limitations.

Nancy’s story is about learning from her doing, and growing from her learning. It’s about finding joy in a place that seemed unwanted and but turned out to be more rewarding than she could have imagined.

Her story is about realizing that there’s more to her story than she ever expected, and that was the real surprise.

May 18, 2016

Love2

Dan Sloan

By Asha Timperley

Dan Sloan’s world revolves around coffee, but he’s not an addict or snob.

He has a Milano in the morning and maybe another in the afternoon, but that’s about it. If he happens to have a cup of coffee that’s not great when he is traveling, it’s no big deal. Actually, it’s kind of a good thing, he said, it just reaffirms that what his team is doing at The Mill is as good as he thinks.

Dan has been part of The Mill since his early 20s. He’s gone from doing the books, to roasting the coffee and managing the staff to being an owner. He’s seen the coffee shop expand from a coffee corner to two full-scale shops.

A lot of his story has been shaped by the growth and expansion of The Mill, but Dan’s story has also shaped the organic and eclectic feel that’s present at The Mill today.

Let’s start at the beginning.

It was the late ‘70s and Dan was finishing his accounting degree at Union College. He was a numbers guy looking for his first job and a professor told him that the bike shop down the street needed someone to help with their books, so Dan applied and got the job.

At the time, the bike shop owner had a small coffee area in a corner of the shop. Nothing fancy, just basic coffee for the people who shopped. Over time, the shop owner fell in love with coffee and wanted to sell gourmet imported coffee to customers.

“That was the genesis of The Mill,” Dan said.

Now, The Mill has become a Lincoln staple. It’s a go-to spot for studying, newspaper reading or even a first date. Dan looked around The Haymarket Mill, scoping out his patrons for the day, as he described how he enjoys watching different crowds of people filter in and out of the coffee shop.

There’s a certain group that shows up at The Mill on Sunday mornings and another that occupies the late-night, weekday hours. So many people have integrated The Mill into their routine, and to Dan that’s special.

When it comes to running the shop, Dan described his approach as more evolutionary than revolutionary, meaning he didn’t necessarily set out to do anything other than roast and sell great coffee, but they’ve catered their services and aesthetic to what customers have wanted.

“We’re about community as much as coffee … we’re a melting pot, a meeting place, a safe haven … and we hear people’s stories,” he said as he waved to someone across the shop.

The Mill has done well, Dan said. Are there ways they could be more profitable? Sure, but he’s not willing to compromise his community-focused shop just to be slightly more profitable, that’s not Dan.

And while running a local coffee shop might seem like a simple task, it’s not. Dan takes it personally. His employees are like his kids, his two locations are an extension of his home and every paycheck he writes is going toward important things like college tuition, gas, groceries, student debt or rent.

It’s heavy and even lonely at times, because running a popular coffee shop is a 24/7 job. But it’s a load he shares with his wife, and it’s also one Dan takes pride in. It’s a pride and work ethic that he connects to his dad who owned a bakery in a small Michigan town.

Dan can remember washing dishes in the bakery and pulling all-nighters with his dad to make sure the shop was stocked for the next day. He knows it wasn’t easy to raise four boys on a bakery, but it was what his dad loved and passionately pursued until he retired.

He’d often say to Dan, ‘If you don’t have pride in what you do, you have no business doing it.’ That’s why Dan has stayed tethered to The Mill after all this time, it’s the combination of his passion, the people, the ownership and the community – it’s satisfying work.

And while his accountant-turned-coffee-shop-owner title cues looks of confusion, Dan likes that his work is a nerdy-hippie hybrid. He knows his experience in the corporate accounting world has shaped him as an employer and given him the tools to properly build and expand The Mill. In the same way, his people-driven coffee shop has brought out his extroverted side.

When Dan takes time to zoom out and look at the broader picture of his life, he’s not shocked that The Mill has been a consistent theme. He said he always hoped he’d be his own boss. He was never a traditionalist who played it safe. Dan likes risks and he values making his own mistakes.

His story is about building community, watching community grow and staying true to his values. He’s thankful for the stress, chaos and culture that a coffee shop has brought into his life and his story.

He’s Dan Sloan largely because of The Mill, so if you want to know Dan, just stop by The Mill.

April 13, 2016

Love6