NINA
A Celebration of
Her Life
This is a collection of Her Paintings and Photographs and a
place of remembrance for Nina A. Stewart and the love she bestowed on us.
This is Nina's exhibition of the work she created during her lifetime spanning the early 1950s to around 2016. The pieces shown here represent only a small collection of all the work she produced. A number of her paintings were gifts to friends and family.
1937 - 2020
NINA
An artist for life and friend to everyone.
This site was created to remember and recall the
joyful times and memories she left us.
Those who knew Nina knew her gentle
soul, sweet spirit and wonderful smile
that would light up the room.
Her spirit and energy touched many hearts
over the years.
Many knew her for her painting talents which were endless but she devoted much of her time and energy to helping people. She loved helping family and friends and anybody who asked. She loved doing numerous projects for her church over the years.
Her spirit can be seen and lives on through
her paintings
She was a blessing to us all.
Artists, Mystics, and Clowns
I think this painting describes Nina's spirit and personality well. It is unfinished but you can see and feel her playful light heartedness in this painting. She painted this from an inspiration she got from an article she had read. The title of the article was
Artists, Mystics and Clowns.
A gallery of her paintings and drawings she created throughout her life
Her Gallery / Back in the day / Art Center School in the 50s
Back in the day...
A span of time with family between the 60's to the 90's more or less.
Nina's Paintings
From around 1960 to 2016
This is a collection of some of Nina's paintings from class projects, (College of Marin) studio paintings,and various out door field trips.
Color has taken hold of me; no longer do I have to chase after it. I know it has hold of me for ever. That is the significance of this blessed moment. Color and I are one.
I am a painter.
Paul Klee (1879-1940)
ART CENTER 1954
...
ART CENTER SCHOOL OF DESIGN
1954
This is the place where I first met Nina in 1954. I just was discharged from the navy and traveled to Hollywood from Denver with the high hopes and intentions
of learning to be an art director / ad man.
Art Center was a very prestigious professional art school with a great reputation and I was beside myself they even accepted my scrappy portfolio.
Anyway, I was in and that's all that counted.
Art Center had very high standards and high expectations and
expected all students to act and dress like professionals. It was not an "artsy"
school but a professional art school.
I can clearly remember the day I met Nina for first time. She was having lunch at a picnic table in the atrium. We were introduced by a friend and I was stunned by her beauty. She was so petite and cute with a very thick southern accent. At first, I thought she might be a movie star or maybe the daughter of a movie star like Audrey Hepburn or someome similar.
The black and white photos below were taken before 1954. I think they were taken when she was still in high school when the school accepted high school students for summer programs. She was around 14 or 15.
The Illustrations below are samples her work while attending Art Center. Most of it is painted with Designer's Colors or "Gouach", an opaque water color used by many professional illustrators at the time. A beautiful paint to work with that dried quickly with a flat finish.
Some people also call it Tempera.
A Trip to Point Rayes Station and other Places.
Sometimes we used to run out to nearby locations and set up our gear to paint outdoors called Plein-Air (A French term for outdoor painting)
or as we call it, "Plane Air."
Some of our favorite locations were
China Camp, St. Vincents School,
and Point Rayes Station.
We were so fortunate to have so many locations nearby.
We both liked Point Rayes Station because we could get
some dinner after a day of painting.
Painting outdoors means one needs to paint fairly quickly because of the changing light. We rarely finished a complete painting in a day.
The impressionists considered that a "genuine" Plein-Air painting
must be painted and completed on site.
One of the challenges to plein-air painting is the bugs. Sometimes lots of bugs, mostly gnats or stinging horse flys. Often the gnats would get stuck in the painting and you would have to stop and scrape the little bugger off.
Nina would meticulously pick off the bothersome bugs.
I would simply paint over the little devils and they would become
part of the painting. Added texture.
Below, are some of Nina's paintings from some of our outings.
THIS PAINTING OF NINA'S IS VERY SPECIAL TO ME.
We were vacationing on Orchas Island, WA.
It was our first outing together since we were married in 1959.
When we arrived, we were disappointed to find it was completely enveloped by thick
fog. There were only shades of grey with no color at all.
Since we we brought all of painting gear, we
decided to give it a try in spite the fog.
(What would Vincent do?)
Nina found color where I could find none... And that's how she lived her life.
She found color in places where others could not.
It just came naturally to her...
She was a colorist
The Pasture
At Saint Vincents School
Saint Vincent's School is near our house and we would go there to paint sometimes. We loaded up our gear with the intentions of painting some of the beautiful old architecture found there. We saw the pasture next to the school and chose to set up there instead. Nina saw a farm house at one end of the field. There were no animals in the field so it was perfect timing and hopefully no one would run us off. So we went to work. Both of us were soon in the zone and in deep concentration of painting. After several hours of painting, Nina said look behind you! I turned around to find about 10 or 15 cows had formed a perfect half circle behind us. They were fascinated
with what we were doing.
They were so polite and very quiet
as if they didn't want to interupt us.
It was like a cow painting class.
They stayed around for about a half hour and then got bored and slowly wandered off.
Her Thoughts and Journals
Gallery Subtitle
Nina was strong woman of faith. She would write daily prayers and thoughts in her journals. she was extremely disciplined in doing so. Nina had filled many journals over the years.
A Work in Progress
As most know, Nina's Memorial service was cancelled and was put on hold due to the virus epidemic. This site is devoted to her memorial and hopefully give people
a little insight into Nina's life and spirit.
Nina had many friends in the church and in the arts, some dating back 40 years.
Many of those people had the chance to say good-bye and pray with her.
She was so grateful to see them all.
There's more to come. Nina has hundreds of drawings and sketches to go through and photograph. So I'll be working on this site for quite a while.
Also, none of her commercial work is shown as yet. That is another segment of her life and career. Perhaps I'll add some at a later date.
This site also has a blog but it is not activated yet as I've never done a blog before. If I can get it going, it would be a good place for anyone to leave comments if they wished.
Bill Stewart