Nancy Erwin

Take a deep breath. That’s what it takes when recounting the life of Nancy Erwin.

This 56-year-old Joplin woman’s love for art is evidenced by her preservation of Joplin-area history on canvas after canvas. However, in between her demands as an artist, she serves as co-pastor of her church and works as a part-time librarian.

Don’t breathe yet.
It wasn’t long ago that she had to give up her own cake-decorating business since she was also busy attending Missouri Southern State University. Add to that the duties of a full-time mom with three children to raise and put through the same university where she received her fine-arts degree.

Despite all the many facets of her life, though, painting has been her passion since it first captured her imagination as a Joplin High School student.

“I painted in high school but kept my paintings at home,” said Erwin, whose husband, Phil, is the other co-pastor at First Gospel Workers Church. “I did them for gifts, kind of like a crafts thing.”

The Erwins were married in the same church they were to later pastor a month before Nancy Erwin graduated from JHS. As a result, her painting was put on hold, with more of her time to be devoted to her husband and raising a family.

“I raised two daughters and a son, and I kind of stopped painting during this time,” she said. “I started cake decorating and did this out of my home for quite a while.”

Then came the college years.

“Both my daughters were in college, so I thought I would go to college, too,” she said. “I took a couple of art classes, picked the painting back up in college and have been painting ever since.”
Erwin went on to get her degree in 1997 with an emphasis in graphic design.

“By the time I got my bachelor’s degree, I had a big show and I had done just about everything in art,” she said. “Since in college you mainly do what they like you to do in art, I decided afterward that I would do what I like.

“I like history, particularly old buildings, and photography, so I painted from photos I took. I had to stop all the cake decorating because that was such a big job.”

Finding inspiration

About two years ago, Erwin took a job one day a week in the Post Memorial Art section of the Joplin Public Library.

“Everything is all art and I sometimes do my paintings there,” she said. “I see pictures all the time of old buildings and sometimes somebody will bring in an old picture and I will remember it. I am pretty old so I remember a lot of this stuff and the way it used to be.
“When I do some of these paintings, people get so excited because maybe they have been there or maybe they have worked there.”
Erwin said she has three files of nothing but old photos.

“I still today take a lot of photos before I do paintings,” she said. “I try to take photos of buildings before they are torn down to preserve history. I do abstract drawings, too.

“Whenever I do something with Route 66 on it, people think that is great. When I do a show in Joplin, a lot of people want that Route 66 decor.”

Erwin said her library research is the basis for many of her paintings.

“I also go to museums and get old pictures and papers,” she said.
There is also another source for her paintings.

“I have people call me and they will come to my house, bringing pictures that they have and I will custom paint them to how they want them,” she said. “I had some people bring a picture of an old house they lived in in Arkansas, so they gave it to me and wanted me to do the painting in watercolor and ink.”

Not only that, but Erwin said she also got a response from a painting hung in a Joplin banker’s office.

“(The banker) said he has people come in all the time who notice my painting, and they will often call me on the phone and say they like that kind of old picture,” she said. “I will tell them if they want to give me a photo, I can paint it for them.”

Layer after layer

For the time being, Erwin said she has stopped doing oil paintings.
“I am just doing watercolors and just recently turned back to acrylics,” she said. “All are historical things from the Joplin area.”
Erwin said she has a couple of her paintings displayed at her church.

“A lot of times people from our church come to our house to look at my paintings,” she said. “They always like to see because they feel like they are a part of them. I have gotten into religion a little but no major stuff yet.”

Erwin said she has even done a few sports paintings with a lot of people interested in baseball.

She also uses her artistic talents to create her own Christmas cards.

“I paint the picture, then I take it and copy it as a card for Christmas,” she said.

In addition to her many paintings created from photos, Erwin said she creates on her own, particularly with abstracts.

“Sometimes I throw paint (onto the canvas),” she said. “Watercolor is a build-up where you have to do layer after layer after layer and sometimes it takes me five months to do one painting.”

Erwin said her children, whose growing up necessitated a majority of her time and less on art, now have her paintings in their homes. And now that they are out on their own, their mother should be freed up to paint to her heart’s desire. Right?

Not exactly. She still has a plethora of duties at church, her library work and, now, a few grandchildren, too.

“I want to paint every day, but I don’t have the time,” she said. “I try to get one painting done a month if possible. Once I start I can do it night and day, but I have to stop because there are too many other things to do.

“If I had my choice, I would just paint all the time.”

Art display
During the month of December, Nancy Erwin will display historical paintings that feature the Neosho area at Hometown Bank, 1285 S. Neosho Blvd., Neosho.