Hobbies and Interests

Tom has always had a well-rounded enthusiasm for life. While never wavering from his fascination with drawing and painting, he also has enjoyed music, swimming, writing, and as with most little boys growing up in the Detroit area, a love of automobiles.

He studied piano but really preferred playing by ear or making up his own songs rather than reading music. Later, during college he briefly played organ in a couple rock bands all the while making his living doing portraits. He has still hung onto his Hammond B-3 and Leslie but mostly plays the baby grand inherited from his Grandpa Guy Lancaster.

In recent years Tom has written numerous songs about everything from tennis to art to life in general. When asked to perform one at the Art of the Portrait Conference in 2005, he decided he would also go into the recording studio and make a CD. In May of 2005, Nash released "Portrit" Paintin’ Blues, a short music CD with three art related songs.

As a young boy at summer camp he had answered President’ John F. Kennedy’s challenge to “swim and stay fit” and was proud to display the badge he earned for swimming fifty miles. Later, in school, although taller than average, he would join the swim team rather than the basketball team.

Between the time Tom graduated from high school and when he began supporting himself as a portrait painter full time there were only fourteen weeks in which he worked at anything not portrait related. Eight of those were as a lifeguard at a local pool in Michigan and the other six were spent sweeping and taking out the trash at the Gatlinburg Ski Lodge in Tennessee.

Nash’s love of automobiles was stimulated by the fact that he grew up in Dearborn within walking distance of the Ford Motor proving grounds and the Henry Ford Museum. All his childhood business ventures were geared towards affording a go-kart; which eventually came about. At twenty-four years old, as soon as he tasted some success as an artist, he quickly acquired a deTomaso Pantera, to drive to the mall, to do his pastel portraits, even while still living in his van at the campground. This Italian bodied sports car with Ford power was the absolutely perfect big boy’s version of a go-kart for someone with an eye for things both fast and beautiful. He later graduated to a more refined Italian purebred, the Lamborghini Jalpa before one day succumbing to the more practical uses of mini vans and SUV’s. Today his need for speed is satisfied vicariously by following NASCAR on T.V. while painting in the studio on Sunday’s.

At age fifty Nash decided it would be fun to take up tennis and join in with his neighbors who seemed to be having a good time. It has been a tough learning curve, but by the luck of joining good teams, Nash has already acquired a couple City Championship pewter plates as a member of ALTA in the tennis crazy town of Atlanta.