BY BONNIE BRECHBILL Franklin Co. Correspondent CHAMBERSBURG Daisy Knepper appears to be the average wife of a retired farmer. She keeps an immaculate house, talks about her grandchildren, and wins prizes at the county fair for her jams, jell ies and afghans. A visitor to the farmhouse where she lives with her husband Jaye notices many excellent oil paintings on the walls. Most depict old, local buildings such as spring houses and bams. Several are of fruit arrangements. Daisy does not call the visitor’s attention to the paintings; instead, she talks about her bell collection or her husband’s woodworking. If a visitor looks closely at these paintings—and their beauty tends to encourage close inspection the viewer will realize that Daisy herself is the artist If pressed, Daisy, 67, will talk about her work, but only with extreme modesty. All the paintings of buildings were done from snapshots. “It takes me too long to sketch it to sit out there,” she explained. Build- Retired Couple Blend Artistic Talents ings take a long time to capture in oils she can do about three dur ing a winter, in her spare time. The still-life paintings were assign ments for an art class she took. Daisy was Artist of the Month at Chambersburg Hospital in 1977. She has taken lessons from three local artists over a period of ten or fifteen years. One of her still-lifes won a prize at Godfrey Diehl's yearly exhibit at St. John’s Church in Chambersburg. Daisy has painted about one hundred pictures in her career. Earlier, she had taken orders and sold some paintings, but is not cur rently doing so. An interesting aspect of Daisy’s paintings is that they help to prc- Jaye Knepper enjoys working with his lathe. serve local history. Many of the Daisy and Jaye married in 1939. buildings she has depicted in her In 1953, they bought the farm artwork are no longer standing. (Turn to Pag* B 12)
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