“Remembering Wally” An Art Show at Pemaquid Watershed Association Gallery

September 21 – Opening Reception 4:30- 7pm

Wally Margaret Huber Schweighauser (Switzerland, 1912-2016, Nobleboro). She would have been a mere 105 years old on the 3rd of this month. “A life well lived”, we all say. And it was indeed a life well lived. Not only well, but this very unique woman, despite the hardships endured, was a beacon of light that had shown through her contagious smile, twinkling eyes and sometimes if you said just the right thing or sang the right song, she would giggle. Wally loved oysters, whistling with the birds and rock gardening. She yodeled, spoke three languages and wrote stories. She passionately created art.

Wally’s artistic creations were a direct reflection of the life she lived. After emigrating from Switzerland to Canada in 1937 with her newlywed husband Hans, Wally, age 19, learned to forage and live off the wild land of the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal. Living with an artist father who painted the walls of their drab flat with lively brushstrokes of color and who was also a prolific artist, was an additional inspiration for her love of creating which Wally started dabbling in when she was 18 years old.

After their four children were raised and out of the home, Wally, well in her fifties, set up shop and began fulfilling the call to paint that had been yearning in her heart most of her life. Living in Duxbury, Mass, classes were started locally and she loved it. She was given a gift of a few night classes in 1966 at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Those two years worth of night classes turned into day courses and she attended enthusiastically for four years. She told me she met Andy Warhol once.

Once started, she couldn’t stop. Wally attended many workshops, Penland, and with all the superior teaching she received in Boston, she was expressing herself in oil, watercolor, stained glass, clay, and more, thus creating an eclectic repertoire spanning over 50 years.

Wally lived art every day until her passing. Whether it was gardening, watching fireflies in her backwoods, doodling, cooking fabulous meals, forming a figure in clay or slathering paint on a canvas, she lived art. Sometimes you don’t get to know a person and love them even more, until they are gone. Reading her many notes with artist advice, poems and stories of inspiration have helped me to gain a greater respect and insight into what a remarkable woman she was. Wally. My Grandmother.

Delly Schweighauser, Valerie Greene and Family cordially invite you to experience just a tiny bit of what Wally had expressed, in many ways, at the opening of her show at Pemaquid Watershed Association Gallery at 584 Main Street in Damariscotta, September 21, 2018, 4:30-7 pm. Show will continue until October 18.