Greensburg art exhibit features 101-year-old Penn Township artist

Nina Whitfield Stahlberg meandered among chairs, desks and bookcases at the Greensburg Hempfield Area Library last week, directing her son, Kevin, on where to hang 35 paintings featured in her latest art exhibit.

Those stopping in to check out books would hardly suspect that the Penn Township resident will celebrate her 102nd birthday in November.

She has taught a painting class at the Greensburg Art Center for about 20 years, carving out three hours every Thursday to work with her students, but Whitfield Stahlberg does not consider the group her students anymore.

“We’re like a family,” she said. “We just love to paint together. Now, occasionally, they will need some help, and if they ask me a question, I have to stop and think ‘How did I solve that problem?’

“They are actually teaching more than I’m teaching them.”

That’s why Whitfield Stahlberg’s exhibit at the downtown Greensburg library features not just her work, but the work of her five regular students — Georgetta Osorio, Charles Loughran, Mary Yeager, Jenny Helms and Scott Snozek.

Loughran has taken Whitfield Stahlberg’s class for about a decade.

“I’m color blind, and I need her help with the colors,” said Loughran, 91, of Greensburg. “She’s a very good teacher — a nice painter herself.”

Part of the art center’s regular “Picture This” series at the library, the exhibit will run until Oct. 6. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

Longtime art center volunteer

Whitfield Stahlberg joined the art center in 1962. Art always piqued her interest, but she began practicing it regularly after her children were born.

“I was always interested in painting, but I never thought I could do anything. One day, my son, Kevin, was a little boy and he was sitting on the couch watching television,” she said. “And I said, ‘Kevin, sit there for a while. I want to try something.’

“So I sketched him in pencil, and I took it next door and showed my neighbor. She said ‘Who did that picture of Kevin?’ I thought ‘Holy cow, if I could get a likeness, maybe I should start taking classes.’ ”

She devoted her free time to the art center, serving several terms as president and treasurer. During the 25 years she worked at Dollar Bank, she would still make time to support the center and paint on the weekends — landscapes, seascapes and scenes from her Greensburg home.

She has studied art with friends in Maine, Arizona and Bermuda.

“You learned a little bit of something different from each one,” she said. “It was really good experience for both of us.”

‘Your soul is in it’

But Whitfield Stahlberg is most proud of the years she painted portraits of children diagnosed with cancer.

It started out as an activity for Whitfield Stahlberg to do while visiting her youngest son at Children’s Hospital. She painted portraits with pastels while her son sketched with charcoal.

Whitfield Stahlberg later volunteered to paint portraits at an annual Christmas party for families facing a childhood cancer diagnosis.

“The most rewarding experience was doing those portraits of those kids. In fact, I recruited other artists because there were too many kids,” she said. “I couldn’t get them all done. All of the artists said, ‘Please, next year, let me know. I want to do this again.’

“We were giving those parents something that was priceless. And it was so good to see the same kid next year that we did last year. Then we knew they were still alive.”

Though the portrait painting initiative came to a close after about 20 years, Whitfield Stahlberg never lost her appreciation for art.

“You lose yourself in it when you’re working on a painting,” she said. “You get so involved. Every painting that you do, a part of you is in it, too. Your soul is in it.”