Verda MacNamee (1892-1976)

 Verda MacNamee (nee Caldwell) grew up in a logging camp in the northern woods of Michigan. After she married, she studied art at the Univerity of Michigan and won awards for her watercolors. When she moved to Ithaca, the flowers of upland meadows and her husband's extensive gardens (35,000 tulips bloomed in 1950) inspired her, as did the leaning barns and rolling farms that characterized the Ithaca hills of the mid-twentieth century.

As these samplings of her work attest, Verda was a versatile artist, comfortable creating in a variety of media. A keen observer, she loved to sketch, and as the drawings above and below demonstrate, she was as adept at capturing movement as she was the subtleties of texture and color.

In 1944, Verda left the Finger Lakes for Florida, where she taught art at a girls' school in Miami. She died in 1976.

Written and compiled by Verda's grand-daughter, Chandler Lyons, Verda and Me is a delightful, professionally hand-printed book full of Verda's sketches, paintings, drawings, and pictures of dolls. The 43-page book is a memoir of their times drawing and creating together, as well as a guide to observing and drawing in the field. Just published by Wilde Press in Illinois (IBSN 0-9625879-1-5), the book is available from the author. Contact her at: CLyons10@compuserve.com.