Emily Nash Smith painting donated to OHS

A small piece of Omena history returned to Leelanau last week and will be on display for the public to view at the Omena Historical Society (OHS).

A watercolor painting by the late Emily Nash Smith, one of many created by the Omenabased self-taught artist, was donated to the museum by Janice Jones Schoulz on April 17. Community members, including Smiths’ descendants Tom Van Pelt, his wife, Deb, and daughter, Rebecca Carlson, gathered at the Putnam-Cloud Tower House for coffee hour last Thursday to talk about the piece and its long journey back home to Leelanau.

“I’m just delighted that it’s been brought back to the community to be shared with the people that live in Omena and visit Omena,” Van Pelt said. “I think it’s a great addition to the museum here…. It was very pleasant and very unexpected, but I think it’s great for everyone here.”

Schoulz, who made the special trip to the region with her husband from North Carolina, grew up in Michigan and explained that her mother originally bought the watercolor piece depicting the Omena Presbyterian Church when they visited a Detroit art show together in 1959 or 1960. At the time, Schoulz was about 9 or 10-years-old, and said she actually found much of her interest directed to the back of the canvas, which showed charcoal lines and sketching of the scene before it was painted on the other side using watercolor. For years, Schoulz said the painting hung in her mother’s house in Bellaire until she passed away and Schoulz kept it in safe keeping at her own home.

“My mother fell in love with it though, she had very good eyes and was very artistic… I’m very grateful with my husband’s help that we were able to make this the time to bring Emily back to Omena,” Schoulz said. “I just felt for a very long time that it needed to be here, and I was just a holder of what should be back where it belongs. I’m very glad to bring it back to its home… I thought, ‘I’m 74-yearsold’ — there weren’t going to be a whole lot more opportunities to bring this, so we put this in our back seat and 1,200 miles later, here it is.”

In December, Schoulz reached out to Marsha Buehler at OHS about the idea of donating the painting, with Buehler noting that they were interested in the piece right away. Emily Nash Smith also happens to be the first artist to be featured in an exhibit at OHS in 2007.

Nash Smith lived on the same farm and land on Overlook Road that her family members live on today, first purchasing the property with her husband, Thearl, in 1922. A practical entrepreneur, she utilized her talents with art and other mediums to supplement farm income. In addition to being a natural artist, she was a teacher at the old Bass Lake School, as well as an avid baker and creative business woman. Her paintings can be found in homes, churches, and businesses throughout the region today, but the highlight of her career was reportedly at a one-person show in her late 70s at the Galerie Mouffe in Paris, France. Nash Smith died in 1983 at age 86.

Carlson said her and the family still have plenty of paintings at the farm from her greatgrandmother that have been passed down and will continue to be treasured. They sold quite a few paintings in 2018 in Northport at a show displaying her art, however, they still have many pieces that will never leave the farm.

“Today is pretty neat because I’ve never seen this piece before. She did a lot of amazing work, and she did a lot of mixed media work… It’s amazing the generosity of them donating it to the history of the town,” Carlson said. “I appreciate her work more than anything, even as her grandchild, I know that there’s a lot of people in Leelanau County that appreciate her artwork, too.”

“It’s a continuation of the big circle of life in northern Michigan,” Van Pelt said. “Her use of color in all of her paintings was just phenomenal, and the way she blended things with watercolors… I’m just so grateful for them to donate this to the area.”