Discover Delmarva Arts: Winnie Pruitt

CRISFIELD, Md. — Crisfield local Winnie Pruitt isn’t your average art lover. She doesn’t just collect or make art… she lives inside of it. From paint and pencil to clay and mixed media, nearly every corner of her home is touched by her art.

When she bought the fixer-upper home, she saw more than broken windows and worn floors– to her, it was a blank canvas. Winnie had a vision for the home, and she painted it four times, one for each season.

“When I bought it, all the windows were broken, and it was deserted, but I liked it… It was a bad looking place inside,” Winnie said.

Winnie’s love for making art came about in the 40 years she worked at a nursing home– she says the pencil and paper kept her company during those long nightshifts. “I just sit down and get a pencil… I could draw at work because most of my patients were asleep; I was nightshift, and I’d get paperwork done and then draw.”

Living in Crisfield for most of her life– Winnie finds inspiration in the watermen way of life– and in her son, who works on the water. “I’ve always lived here. My husband was in the service for 20 years — I went with him, but when we came back, we came here [Crisfield]. My son’s a crabber and a fisherman and almost all the kids are.”

For Winnie, no medium of art is off-limits — even woodworking. “I’m not afraid of a saw. When I first got the saw, it was scary, but I sewed on a sewing machine — so with the saw, it’s just the saw blade instead of a needle on the sewing machine, and it worked good.”