Phoebe’s Story

I enrolled in an art class at Milford Area Senior High, fondly known as MASH to the locals. It was there that my Art Teacher recommended me for a scholarship to Phoebe Flory’s Watercolor School. I received 9 college credits painting with students from all over the country. Every week day in the summer of 1976, I painted portraits from live models in the barn where I now teach pottery in. When I was not taking classes, I was working for Phoebe or painting the actors, practicing in a mill building for Milford Stage Festival. We would also visit Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center and paint portraits there.

I left the area to pursue my passion for art in college as an art major, concentrating in ceramics and printing. After leaving college, I worked as an artist for the yellow page ads, taught art and math at Waterville Valley Academy, was owner of Shaughnessy Web Design (where many of my sites won several awards), and built a pottery studio in Holderness, NH. To make a long story short, 27 years later I was divorced and ready to embark on a new journey. My house in Holderness was under agreement and I needed a new place to live. I went online to look for a house, open to the possibility of settling anywhere in New Hampshire. Lo and behold, Phoebe’s house showed up for sale. When I saw her house, the warm feelings all came back to me.

I had made a business plan to expand my studio in Holderness, but circumstances changed and I was off on a new venture! I called a dear friend of mine, who was a real estate broker, and I asked her if she would represent me. She said yes, so we headed south to Mont Vernon to look at the house. While looking at the house I told the realtor that I was a student of Phoebe’s. The realtor relayed this to Phoebe’s niece Linda, who was very touched, as Phoebe had passed away several years earlier. I made an offer, and it was accepted. A week after I moved into the house I received a package from Ohio. Enclosed was a letter from Linda. I’ve copied her letter below, to share with you this very special story…

Dear Janice Shaughnessy,

I hope you will find great joy in your new house. Here is a painting we found that Phoebe did of you years ago. We’d like you to have it to remember her by.

There’s a story about how we came to find this painting. As Phoebe’s niece and joint executor of her will, I had a lot of her possessions to go through after her death, both in her rooms in Florida and in her New Hampshire house. I think it was in Florida that I came across a card and letter you had sent her. She had kept them, and I was so touched by them that I put them aside, not wanting to throw them away. I wanted to let you know personally that she had passed away, but there was no address with them.

Last week when I was making calls to turn off the phone, electricity and all in the New Hampshire house, I was working with a big, three ring binder where I kept a lot of papers relating to the house. I remembered our realtor had said you had been a student of Phoebe’s. Although Phoebe had had hundreds and hundreds of students over the years, something led me to look in the pocket at the back of the binder to see if you could possibly be the student who had sent her the one card and letter I had saved there. and, of course you were.

Delighted by this, I thought it would be wonderful if Phoebe had painted your picture when you were working with her and we could send it to you. I had cataloged all the portraits she’d named. I looked through my file for “Janice Shaughnessy” and was disappointed to find nothing. It didn’t seem right to come up with a dead end just when everything was working out so amazingly.

When I woke up the next morning, however, it was with the thought that Phoebe wouldn’t have known your married name at that point. You had thoughtfully signed “Janice (Warn) Shaughnessy ” to your letter so I looked you up by your maiden name, and sure enough there you were.

We have Phoebe’s pictures here in Ohio now, and I managed to find the one matching that card. I am so pleased.

So here it is. And I hope it means to you as strongly as it does to us that you are the one meant to be in that house– with Phoebe’s blessing.

Sincerely,
Linda

PS My friends & I are struck by the similarity of the colors Phoebes used in her painting and the colors in the card you sent to her.