A brush with age does not stop inspiration

Painting with oils has been one of Mildred Shockey’s greatest pleasures. Shockey was 60 years old when she told her friend and former neighbor, artist Joe Kiffmeyer after receiving one of his watercolors as a gift, that she would do anything to be able to create art like he did. “’If you want to do it you can do it,’ he told me” said Shockey. “He said, ‘You have to want to do it. It has to be your priority.’” Kiffmeyer agreed to give her a lesson. “We got started and after he left I haven’t stopped.” Each time the Kiffmeyers came to visit they would have a lesson.

Thirty years later and turning 90 next month, Shockey, mostly self-taught, has produced hundreds of paintings. Many of them adorn the walls in her home while many of them rest up against the walls and in boxes.

“You have got to love it and I love every bit of it.” she said. “I have walked miles with them and have sat all day long painting them.”

Walking miles with her painting meant pacing while looking at the detail and adding more finepoints to her paintings. “The details are the most important thing in a painting,” said Shockey.

This Saturday, Shockey will showcase and have a sale of her work. “It’s going to be hard,” she said. “I don’t want to let any of them go.” Shockey is preparing to move in with her daughter and she can’t take all of her paintings with her, so she is inviting folks who appreciate art; folks who might be looking for a special gift and those who have a need to fill a space on their wall to come to her sale. There will be framed and unframed paintings.

Her passion shows in her paintings of flowers, but each one, each scene, is unique and painted on small to large canvases. “I love painting flowers,” she said. “But I have many different scenes; wildlife, still life, landscapes, many different ones that would interest people.”

Shockey invites you to meet her and her paintings on Saturday, Oct. 10 from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. at the Fellowship Baptist Church located at 2154 Coxendale Rd., Chester.