The artist in Nancy Gregory took awhile to come out.
Gregory, formerly of Easton and living at Linden Ponds in Hingham for the past five years, now counts painting as her prime passion, one she found later in life. In 1993, she took a painting class with artist Mary Good in Easton, igniting the urge.
Gregory was named Linden Ponds “Artist of the Month’’ in November, giving an exhibit that featured 45 of her paintings.
“I started oil painting with Mary and have been at it ever since,’’ said Gregory, 82, of her former teacher, also now a resident of Linden Ponds. “She’s not painting anymore; she does music now, but I keep after her to start again.’’
Gregory laughed when asked what she did for work in her life, calling it “a speckled career,’’ which in addition to raising two children included coaching girls’ tennis, volunteering at a hospital and nursing home, doing needlepoint design, and working for 10 years in Boston doing print design.
She attended Rhode Island School of Design in her youth, majoring in apparel design.
“I did sketching as a child, made paper dolls and such, and always liked designing clothes, but never went near a paint brush,’’ she said.
Most of her work, which includes landscapes, architecture, interiors, and people, is done from photographs she’s taken, notably of locations in Rhode Island, where her family summered for years, such as Wickford Village, Block Island, and Watch Hill. She paints in her apartment’s second bedroom, which she turned into a studio and gets a good deal of northern light, she said.
“I was painting every day, then got busy at Christmas,’’ she said. “I got the itch again, so I’m back at it.’’
Her other activities keep her busy as well, including ping pong, exercising, playing bridge, and singing. But she devotes most of her time to painting.
“It’s totally absorbing,’’ she said. “You’re by yourself, no music on, challenged, thinking all the time, experimenting with new ideas of color and composition. I love it and don’t know what I’d do without it.’’
PAUL KANDARIAN
Paul E. Kandarian can be reached at pkandarian@aol.com.
