93-Year-Old Artist’s Paintings Will Be in Bloom at Monument

Fay Kennedy, a 93-year-old, silver-haired, 5-foot pixieish artist with a marvelous smile between her wrinkles, is the answer to the rangers’ prayers at this Central California park.

Every year at this time, a multitude of wildflowers start popping out in a blaze of brilliant colors amid the towering spires and crags and all over the green rolling hills of Pinnacles National Monument.

“It’s the beginning of our busy season as people from miles around head this way to walk the trails to discover and enjoy the beauty and diversity of the wild spring flowers,” monument Supt. Jim Sleznick Jr., 55, said.

Chief ranger Ed Carlson, 52, said visitors ask him and other rangers time and time again throughout the day to help identify the various wildflowers.

A Brainstorm

This year the park superintendent had a brainstorm: “Let’s hang a bunch of Fay Kennedy’s watercolors on the walls of the Bear Gulch Visitors Center and let the visitors have the fun of finding and identifying the wildflowers on their own.”

So, at 10 a.m. today, an exhibit of 40 watercolors of the most common wildflowers in the park painted by Kennedy will be officially unveiled to the public followed by coffee, juice, cookies and cake served by Park Service employees.

Kennedy will be the guest of honor. Her latest painting, a bouquet of purple thistles, yellow mule ears, wild iris, lavender Chinese houses, California poppies, baby blue eyes and blue penstemon, the keystone of the exhibit, was completed just last week.

The artist was 13 when President Theodore Roosevelt established Pinnacles National Monument 80 years ago last month. “I lived close by at the time but I don’t remember it being created a national monument. I have been coming here, however, ever since I was a little girl,” said the sprightly nonagenarian.

Painting Since Grammar School

Kennedy has been painting flowers since she was in grammar school in Campbell, a San Jose suburb. She has painted more than 300 different kinds of local wildflowers and at least 1,000 paintings of garden flowers.

Kennedy, who lives in Hollister, 35 miles north of here, also teaches an art class in her dining room three hours every Tuesday morning. She charges $5 a lesson.

She still paints several hours every day in her studio in the home she has lived in since 1930. She has lived alone since her husband, Cecil, a prune and apricot grower, died 20 years ago.

At last year’s Hollister Fair, Kennedy won first, second and third prize in the art competition. “I have to keep painting because I have enough back orders to keep me busy several months. I can’t slow up. But I don’t care. I love to paint. I always have,” she confided with a twinkle in her bright eyes.

She said the most she ever charges for a painting is $200. One saying posted on her studio wall reads: “I paint for love, not for money.”

Her paintings are remarkable for their realism and accuracy. “I never add a petal. I paint with freshly picked flowers sitting in front of me in my studio,” she said.

Her favorite flower? “Well, I love pansies. They’re fun to paint with their little faces.”

Kennedy’s wildflower paintings will be on exhibit here through Memorial Day.