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One last masterpiece

Tue, 02/12/2019 - 9:01 am
Veila Jo Guinn hosts final art show
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    Veila Jo Guinn, 93, poses next to her painting at her final art show at Graham Savings and Loan on Thursday, Feb. 7. Guinn is a talented artist who has entered over 30 art shows and galleries with many 1st place finishes including five solo art shows. (Leader photo by Nathan Lawson)
news@grahamleader.com

Veila Jo Guinn turned 93 on Thursday and celebrated the occasion by hosting her last art show at Graham Savings and Loan.

Guinn is a talented artist who has entered over 30 art shows and galleries with many 1st place finishes including five solo art shows. Guinn works in many different media including oil, acrylic, sculpture and watercolor and many different art styles including impressionistic, non-objective and realism.

“What happened to me was I had that polio and I was always as a child looking at things and meditating on things and drew a lot,” she said. “When I was in the hospital and they operated on both legs, a teacher came and somebody told her about my drawings and she borrowed them and took them to the big art museum in Houston. She came back and told me I had won a scholarship. But, I was just a kid she should have told my mother.”

Guinn said she grew up in Houston and got married during WWII when her husband saw her drawings he bought her paint so she became a painter.

“In Sunday school we learned not to bury your talents,” Guinn said. “So, I decided I don’t  want to bury my talents and I went to Lamar and got a degree in art. When I started at Lamar I was in a senior class of art and I imagine if I had gone into that freshman class I wouldn’t have gone back. Because, while I was in the senior class I was asked to teach at the museum. So, my story is different, my talent a whole a lot of it just came from God.”

For more from this story see the Wednesday, Feb. 13 edition of The Graham Leader.