After
graduating high school, Nancy Kirschbaum moved from Oklahoma
to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she studied graphic arts
and printmaking at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. She married
and moved to Asheville, North Carolina. While remodeling an
old farm house, she discovered new skills, caning primitive
chairs, painting and quilting. She sold her black and white
prints locally and was a charter member of the Asheville Arts
Guild. She became interested in furniture upholstery and took
upholstery classes for 3 years at Haywood Technical College
in Clyde, North Carolina.
She reupholstered all of her neighbors furniture before opening
her own upholstery business in 1982. Her first client was recommended
by the sales woman at Sherwin Williams in Asheville, where Nancy
often shopped for wallpaper and paint. The saleswoman didn't
tell Nancy until the job was completed that her first client
owned houses all over the world. She told Nancy her client was
very happy with the artwork and upholstery she had done, and
that Nancy would do well in business.
In 1985 Nancy moved to Dallas with her two children. She modeled
locally before working for a major airline. She managed travel
for various agencies before purchasing her own, Texas Travel
Link, in 1992. She discovered a new passion - traveling to new
places, and explored Europe, Australia, South American, Canada
and Mexico.
A family tragedy caused Nancy to merge her agency with another
in 1998. During this time, she went back to her roots: art.
She began doing pastel drawings, creating dramatic rooms, making
comforters, pillows and experimenting with fabric on walls and
furniture.
A fire in February 2001, in which she suffered third degree
burns, destroyed Nancy's home. While healing at her parents
house in Oklahoma City, she began making decorative boxes. "I
figured I didn't have any furniture, maybe I would be living
out of boxes. And if I was, then they were going to be nice."
She began covering boxes, cans and trunks with fabric, adding
fringe and cording. She kept trying out new ideas. A friend
gave her tapestry fabric from Morocco. She liked the way it
looked, combined it with different trims creating a bright colored
trunk with East Indian overtones. Then she got the idea to upholster
a table, tried it and was extremely happy with the result. When
she took the table to be custom-fit for a glass top, the owner
of the glass company asked, "Where did you get this? From
India?" Nancy, delighted, told the owner, "No,
I made it myself, thank you. And that's exactly the effect I
was looking for." Accents by Nancy was born.
Nancy traveled to Europe and Mexico in the summer of 2001.
She did marketing research in Venice, Milan, Rome, Frankfurt
and Mexico City, finding that no one was doing what she does.
Her designs are unique. Each piece is signed and dated by Nancy.
Her boxes, trunks and tables are "one of a kind".
Tables are solid wood. Fabrics are heavily scotch-guarded. Nancy
is combining years of art training with her upholstery experience
to create fun, beautiful, functional art.
"I hope you enjoy my designs as much as I enjoy making
them."
- Nancy Kirschbaum
Links to outlets where Nancy's creations
are on display and on sale...
