Woman's life of art continues with mural

Nancy Enos believes her artistic talent has a generational tapestry.

"My father got his talent from his mother, and he passed it on to me. I passed it on to my son and now my granddaughter is showing a lot of artistic ability," said 69-year-old Enos, a Corning native who has been painting since she was 10 years old.

Her father, Austin Wilson, was a sign painter in Corning all through Enos's childhood years.

"I learned to paint in my dad's workshop behind our house on South Street," Enos said. "From him I gained a passion for art, and it is my life."

But her passion almost came to an end when she began to lose feeling in her right hand.

"As I was painting the 35-foot mural on the side of Flying Boat Chinese Restaurant here in Corning in February, my right hand started to swell up and I was losing use of it. That is my painting hand and that just wouldn't do," Enos stated.

Known for her artistic ability all over town, quite literally, Enos is responsible for many of the paintings on business windows up and down Solano Street during the holidays.

"I first started painting windows 43 years ago with the Red Bluff Round-Up. That is what really got me started on windows.

For 27 years, the Siskiyou County Golden Fair has hired me to paint their windows," she said.

Thinking back a little farther, Enos recalls the first windows she painted were on her family's home when she was a little girl.

"When I was 10, I painted my grandmother's big window on her house for Christmas and I won the town's decorated window contest," she said.

Today, after the numbing scare with her painting hand, a tricky surgery on her neck and three months in the hospital, Enos is once again able to paint.

"In the rehab hospital they found a paint brush that was normal size, but I couldn't grasp it so they padded it until it was the size I could hold it. Then they gave me watercolors and away I went painting flowers all over the place," Enos said with a grin.

The nearly-life threatening experience has painted Enos with a whole new attitude.

"I appreciate things so much more. I don't take things for granted anymore," she states.

With that new attitude she plans on taking up a new artistic endeavor — painting on canvas.

"I'll use my favorite mediums, watercolor and acrylics and see what I can do. I might not have any formal training like some artists ,but that doesn't stop me. Art is my life," she said.