Nancy Chandler

American artist Nancy Chandler began creating unique maps, cards and gifts celebrating life in Thailand in the early 1970s.

A native of San Francisco, her unique style was influenced by her family, her early years in the design business in the US, and a year she spent in Nepal before moving to Thailand in 1969. In Thailand, her work took many forms, from t-shirt and logo design to the maps and cards she is recognized for today. 

In her later years, Nancy spent much of each year in the US with her youngest daughter Kim, a high functioning Down Syndrome young lady who has won many Special Olympics medals and is an artist as well. Nancy returned to Thailand annually on research trips and to visit friends and family, including her two other daughters, Nima (now her business partner) and Siri (a mindfulness trainer and former international school kindergarten teacher).

Childhood Influences

Nancy inherited much of her sense of style and whimsy from her parents, interior designers Maurice and Winona Sands. She recalls them flipping through magazines with her, discussing not the stories or pictures, but good layout, colors and fonts. The family was also known for its witty, hand-lettered holiday cards, often incorporating personal touches in unusual ways. One year, for example, the family holiday card showed a traditional Christmas tree, with photos of each family member hung as tree ornaments.

Nancy also had an unusual favorite childhood pastime - studying cartoons in the New Yorker and trying to copy them. Today, she still describes cartoonists Saul Steinberg and Charles Addams as “the real masters”.
PictureNancy's one-of-a-kind graduation photo.
University

When Nancy entered the University of California at Berkeley’s art history major, she was somewhat disappointed as a result. While the great masters of art history may have been “creative”, they were never known as masters of humor.

She found an outlet for her whimsy in her first jobs. At the Student Art Bureau, she produced posters for student activities, and at a small print shop, Ed Kerwin Graphics, she learned the basics of printing. 

On-the-Job Training

In 1963, Nancy married Harvard Law School student Al Chandler. She moved with him to Massachusetts and later Washington DC, taking on art assignments along the way, including a stint with Art Designers of Virginia working on catalog design. 

While she got on-the-job training and Al put in long hours at his first job as a lawyer, many of their law school friends were in Africa, having opted for international fellowships as their first work assignments. The postcards they sent the young couple planted a seed. Nancy and Al soon signed up for the same opportunity.

When the Maxwell Foundation-Syracuse University Public Fellowship Program took them on in 1966, however, it assigned the young couple to a year not in Africa, but to Kathmandu, Nepal.
PictureNepal, 1968.
Nepalese Influences

After moving into a charming Nepali farmhouse with mud floors, Nancy realized several of her art supplies had gone 'missing' enroute. Turning to the local market for replacements, she discovered the bright hues of the puja powders, colors which influenced her work for years to come.

While not officially working, Nancy’s sketches of Nepalese characters and scenery caught the eye of other expatriates. This led to commissioned work, which was the young couple’s only income during the six months after Al’s assignment was completed. (They had decided to stay on longer for the birth of their first daughter before moving back to the US.)

When the couple left Nepal in 1968, two months after the birth of their daughter, they chose to travel home via India, Tanzania, Uganda, Thailand, Indonesia, and Japan. Once back in the Washington DC area, they realized something was missing in their lives.
Picture1970 visit to Bangkok's Grand Palace
Life in Thailand

Only eleven months after returning to the US, Al and Nancy moved back to Asia. Al had landed a job with a young law firm in Bangkok. In June 1969, with their second daughter well on the way, the family relocated to Thailand. Little did they know Al would decide to establish his own firm in Bangkok in partnership with a Thai colleague only a few years later, making Thailand the family home.

Upon her arrival, Nancy began illustrating for the American Women’s Club Sawaddi magazine as a volunteer. Her work was subsequently published in Living magazine and the Bangkok Post. In the early 1970’s, at the suggestion of a friend, Nancy began designing Thai greeting cards for expatriates. In 1974, she established Nancy Chandler Graphics Ltd. Her first map of Bangkok was published that same year and her map of Chiang Mai followed in 1981. While researching her maps was great fun (see photo at right), at the same time, Nancy was working on a variety of projects.

For the Royal Varuna Yacht Club, she produced t-shirts, brochures and humorous certificates for graduates of the junior sailing program. A job for the International School of Bangkok led to her signature series of murals depicting Thai temples and river scenes, which she would personalize for friends on special occasions - adding buildings, banners and silly comments representative of their time in Thailand. For others, Nancy created area maps, moving and birth announcements, anniversary cards, advertising art, logo and package designs. 

“The joy of working in Thailand was the huge variety of jobs I was able to do,” said Nancy. “If I had been in America, I would have had to have been specialized.”
Picture
In the late 1980s, Nancy began experimenting with new styles and methods, including etchings, watercolors and collage. She teamed up with other artists to establish the Inky Fingers Inc. collective, exhibiting locally.  

Associations she was actively involved in, besides the American Women’s Club, were the International Women’s Club, the Bangkok Women’s Forum, Soroptimists International Bangkok, the National Museum Volunteers, the Neilson Hays Library and the International School of Bangkok board.
PictureThe Chandler family, 2015.
After Thailand

Since returning to spend more time in the US in 1987, her work has been exhibited at the College of Marin and the Bay Model. In 1993, Nancy was chosen to design the official Sausalito Art Festival t-shirt. In the new millenium, however she spent most of her time working on her collection of Thai designs, new map artwork as needed, and lots of special personal projects.

While Nancy and Al divorced, they remained friends. Al’s law firm, Chandler & Thong-ek, continues to represent Nancy Chandler Graphics in Thailand and provides invaluable assistance.

Nancy’s two eldest daughters made Thailand their homes, Siri a mindfulness teacher, Nima managing Nancy’s business since the late 1990s.

Thailand is, as a result, home to the family and a continuing source of inspiration for the team that will continue Nancy's legacy.

Update: June 2015

Nancy Chandler passed away after a  brief illness. Please see her memorium on this website for more details.

Update: June 2019

The team that kept Nancy's business going in Bangkok opted to close the business. See the End of An Era post on this website

Update: November 2021

Nancy Chandler Graphics and its sales and marketing arm are in the process of officially closing the company. Nancy's daughters will be keeping an eye out for any copyright infringement that ensues though!

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Nancy Chandler's 
First Map of Bangkok

In early 1974, the American Women’s Club of Thailand (AWC) asked Nancy to draw a small map showing the location of all major markets in Bangkok to accompany an article in the club’s Sawaddi magazine.

Fascinated by Chinatown, Nancy and the article's writers began to talk of drafting a more detailed map, taking notes on each little shop and the best noodle stands for 'snack breaks'. When they got to the Weekend Market (then at Sanam Luang), Nancy began sketching a second map in an attempt to make some sense out of the chaos that was the market.

The result: Instead of a quarter-page map of the city, Sawaddi published a fold-out centerfold map covering the Weekend Market, Chinatown and Central Bangkok in extensive detail.

Demand for the map was such that the AWC had to reprint the issue twice, after which the club suggested Nancy begin publishing the map independently. In mid-1974, after forming her own company, Nancy released her first edition, pictured above. 

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Map research on the river, children in tow, early 1970s. Gotta love the TWA bag!

Nancy Chandler's
First Map of Chiang Mai

First published in 1981, Nancy Chandler’s Map of Chiang Mai  was borne out of a combination of frustration and opportunity.

In 1980, the artist visited Chiang Mai with her two young children. She bought the only map and guide available, but found out the hard way that what looked like a pleasant four-block stroll for the family was actually a mile long trek. 

By coincidence, the AWC was about to devote an entire issue of Sawaddi to Chiang Mai and asked Nancy to do a simple map of the city. Nancy used this excuse to meet Roy Hudson, the author of the one and only guidebook of Chiang Mai at that time. She asked if he would mind if she did her own map, and if he would act as her collaborator. Surprisingly, he agreed.

Roy subsequently introduced her to other “colorful local characters, each with their own favorite noodle stand” as Nancy puts it. They became her eyes and ears in Chiang Mai, contributing much to the first edition of her northern map, which she also personally researched on foot and by bicycle (see photo below with 'volunteer' assistant researchers - what are friends for?).

Times may have since changed (you can no longer safely research the inner city by bicycle) but Chiang Mai remains a favorite getaway of Nancy’s, a city she visits each year without exception.

Nancy Chandler's
Thai Greeting Card Collection

Back in the late 1960’s, American artist Judy Sponaugle founded a batik factory in central Bangkok. Attracting a regular expatriate clientele, she heard the same complaint every holiday season: There was no place in Bangkok one could buy Christmas cards.

That changed when Judy met Nancy. In 1970, Judy’s House of Jute (later Jutik)  became the exclusive outlet for Nancy’s first greeting card designs, black line-drawings printed on colored paper such as the one above.

Each design was originally a simple line drawing available on three colors of paper, printed at the local “Insty Prints. 

While many of Nancy’s original cards are no longer in print, some have been redrawn and reprinted in color in recent years such as the design below. Visit our holiday greeting cards page to see if you can identify it in its current version.