Artist’s work recalls beauty embraced by Lubec woman

LUBEC – People in this coastal town associated Jackie Norton with her flowers. Earlier this month hostas and poppies from her garden became part of the Sept. 11 memorial garden on Portland’s Eastern Promenade. Now a rendering of her garden graces the town’s library.

Jackie and Robert Norton were killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11 when it crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. But the couple’s spirit lives on in their small hometown community.

As visitors entered the art exhibit Wednesday night at the Lubec Memorial Library, the first thing they saw was Kimberly Ashby’s oil pastel titled “This is for Jackie.”

“I just wanted to give her a little bit of beauty back … something she always seemed to give,” Ashby wrote in an explanation of the painting. “Jackie put a smile on my heart.”

A great-niece of the Nortons, Ashby recalls having been struck by the beauty of her relative’s garden. “She was known for her hollyhocks,” one of the subjects of the garden painting, Ashby said Wednesday night.

“They touched everyone in the community,” said Ashby, who lived across Johnson Street from the couple and remembered looking forward to seeing them drive by with a wave and a smile.

“They always made it seem like everything was safe when I saw them,” she said.

The oil pastel was started as a gift for Jackie Norton “a few weeks before that horrible day.”

“After that happened, I just never continued to work on it,” Ashby said. “It was something I never got back to.”

About a week ago, Ashby was inspired to finish the work.

“I picked it up and just said ‘I’ve got to do this,'” she said. She completed it before the exhibit and decided it should be included in the show.

“I didn’t even realize the time of year,” she said. “It just all came together.”

The painting is one that Ashby had thought about doing ever since she returned to Lubec from Massachusetts in 1995.

“I’ve always seen those flowers and always wanted to do it,” she said.

As she painted, Ashby could feel Jackie Norton’s presence.

“It just seemed magic when I was doing it,” she said. “It was like [Jackie] was there telling me where the lines were.”

Ashby plans to have the work matted and framed and then will donate it to the Lubec Congregational Christian Church where the Nortons were active.

The art exhibit, “A Series of Songs,” will be on display through Sept. 30 and contains work by local artists Ashby and Peter DeVeber.