Mary Ellen Shipnes

 

In Memoriam Mrs. Mary Ellen Shipnes 1908 - 2001 Mrs. Shipnes' many friends and admirers of her wonderful art, which brought great pleasure to those fortunate to view her work, regret her death on May 9, 2001. She lived a long, good life, bringing joy to all who knew her. The staff of the Huffington Center on Aging extends sympathies to her family and friends, and wishes them to know that the video clip of her at her beloved Paintbrush Hill Farm was well received by those attending the American Society of Aging's meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana in March 2001. We will present her wonderful world of art to an international audience at the World Congress of Gerontology in Vancouver, British Columbia on July 2, 2001.Thus, her works and her example will continue to teach. Even though the artist is gone, her works live on, still delighting the eye and the spirit. Some of Mrs. Shipnes' bright, cheery pieces may be seen below.

In 1911, when the then Miss McNamee was 3 years old, her father built a summer home on a point overlooking the confluence of the Great Lakes just north of Traverse City, Michigan: this was Northport Point, and was to influence the future artist in many ways that we enjoy even today. Mary Ellen grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana in a very artistic home. Her father was an architect who always insisted on her learning fine sketching techniques; her mother was a ceramist creating wonderful vases and beautiful objects to observe. In about 1925, Mary Ellen was admitted to the Boston School of Fine Arts and lived on the Fenway, from which she walked to school and still remembers those brisk winter days.

Back in Indianapolis, where young ladies of the day wore hats and gloves to the marketplace, one of her girlfriends introduced her to the college roommate "sweetheart" of Psi Upsilon, her fiancée’s fraternity, and love led her ultimately to Houston, Texas in 1946 but not before she and Mr. Shipnes, who was an executive with Sears and Roebuck, sailed the Caribbean, adding even more scenes to those from Northport Point she would paint for countless persons to enjoy.
She recalls invitational showings of her work at the Worth Avenue Gallery in Palm Beach, Florida, and subsequently how people would write her and tell her where they had hung her paintings.

Mr. And Mrs. Shipnes raised a family in Houston in a new subdivision called West Oaks out on San Felipe and Post Oak, which is where Houston’s fabulous Galleria shopping center and Tanglewood residential areas are located.

But in those days, some of the then country lanes where crushed shell roads, and a long way from downtown. From her studio at her West Oaks home, Mary Ellen continued to produce wonderful bright paintings that always depict scenes full of color, flowers, houses, and which evoke happy feelings. The Shipneses also built a lovely country home in Brenham, Texas where the rolling hills are covered with Texas Bluebonnets each spring. Mrs. Shipnes lived there until her death; each summer she travelled to her childhood summer home in Michigan. The photos show her seated on a bench seat in her back yard in Brenham this past Easter and at work in her studio in Northport Point

Click on a thumbnail to view a larger image of a painting

Back to the Texas connection in a minute. So how did we (at the Huffington Center on Aging) find out about this wonderful artist’s works and about the very interesting life she led. Well, finally she lived long enough to need the skills of an interdisciplinary geriatrics team, Geriatric Medicine Associates, headed by HCOA director, Robert J. Luchi, M.D. In the course of Dr. Luchi and his team conducting a comprehensive geriatric examination, they learned about Mrs. Shipness’ artistic interests and how she still paints even with her macular degeneration, a point I’ll come back to.

Well that’s part of the Texas connection, but, as Paul Harvey says, "here’s the rest of the story." Back in that West Oaks subdivision lived a Houston oilman, the future CIA Director, Ambassador to China, Vice President and President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush. Mr. And Mrs. Bush wanted a Texas scene to be in the Ambassador’s residence in Beijing, so Mrs. Shipnes painted one. When the Bushes moved into the Vice President’s house in Washington, D.C., they wanted another Texas scene for that residence, and, again, Mrs. Shipnes painted one. The Bushes took that painting with them to the White House; today it hangs in their summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine. Next, of course came us. When Dr. Luchi learned about this, he asked me (Dr. Bob Roush, Webmaster) to contact Mrs. Shipnes, and she provided us with a contact sheet of some photographs of some of her work. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

We also hope that you appreciate the fact that this lady, who would have turned 93 years old this summer, painted all of her life. That’s the important point. She maintained a lifelong love of art, even through the trauma of losing her husband of 63 years and subsequently losing her central vision due to rapid onset of macular degeneration. Coupled with this she had some severe low-back pain due to osteoporosis. She learned how to continue to enjoy life and paint, and that’s the lesson those of us learn from our "teachers" who’ve already "traveled " the road of life a lot farther than most. She exemplified what we at the Huffington Center on Aging believe is so wonderful about the painting Francisco de Goya painted at age 80: crippled with kyphosis and arthritis he entitled this work, "Aun Aprendo," which translates to "I am still learning." Mrs. Shipnes learned all of her long life; hopefully, all of us will, too.

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