Nancy Carrigan

1933 - 2014

Nancy Jean Carrigan (nee Bohn), age 81 of Warrenville, passed away peacefully July 18 at Arden Courts, Geneva. She was born February 24, 1933 in Champaign to the late Dr. Adolph Bohn, formerly the pastor of Edgewater Beach Presbyterian Church in Chicago, and Edith Bohn. Nancy was preceded in death by her brother Ralph Bohn. She is survived by her husband of 60 years, Dick Carrigan, her daughter, Caroline Carrigan, Caroline's husband Steve Levy and his son Jake of Los Angeles, her son Steve Carrigan and his wife Lisa Carrigan and their daughter Brooke of Oswego. Nancy Carrigan was a Chicago area artist and poet. Carrigan's art work spanned many media including painting, sculpture, and engraving. A large mixed medium sculpture of a rider on a horse from her Choreographer's Dreams series received an award of excellence in the New Horizons in Art show at the Chicago Cultural Center in 1984. A familiar piece by Carrigan was a sculpture Great Balls of Fire commissioned by Disney for the former ESPN Zone. It depicted skewered basketballs representing the NCAA Sweet Sixteen tournament. More recently Carrigan has done a set of large Women in Shakespeare paintings. Some of these have been exhibited in a recent roving exhibit Chicago Artists Interpret Shakespeare. Nancy also worked extensively in poetry and writing. She saw a deep relation between the activities. She and other artists incorporated some of her poems in their paintings. In the last decades she has composed a number of prize-winning poems. One, Notes on an Ancient Chinese Flute, won a grand prize in the Dancing Poetry Competition in San Francisco. The prize resulted in Carrigan going to China as a guest of the Chinese government. With her husband, Carrigan wrote two science fiction adventure novels. One, The Siren Stars, was translated into French and also cited as a great of cyber fiction. Carrigan was also involved in stage production and presentation. In the eighties she merged her interests in art with stage sets and costumes for several Chicago ballet troupes. When her husband joined Fermilab, she became involved in the nascent Fermilab arts program, leading it for several years. Through the efforts of many, that program has become one of the important cultural venue in the Chicago. Carrigan graduated from the University of Illinois in 1954 in journalism with a minor in art. At Illinois she was a 1952 inductee into Torch for her work on Star Course and Club Commons. In her senior year she attended Northwestern. She also did advanced work at Carnegie-Mellon and College of DuPage. Before devoting herself full-time to art and writing she was an editor for the University of Illinois College of Agriculture, the Water Well Journal in Urbana, and an early editor of the New Mexico State alumni magazine. Growing up in Chicago, she attended Swift School and Senn High School. Carrigan was a member of the Chicago Artist Coalition, the Poet's Club of Chicago, and the Illinois State Poetry Society and a founding member of the Mythopian Artist Group. A memorial service will be held at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 29W260 Batavia Rd., Warrenville, Illinois, August 2, 2014 at 4:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers contributions may be made to Willowbrook Wildlife Center, 525 S. Park Blvd., Glen Ellyn, IL, 60137. Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home & Cremation Services, Naperville entrusted with arrangements. For info 630-355-0213 or http://www.friedrich-jones.com/