DOVER-FOXCROFT – Despite her failing eyesight and her sometimes crippled hands, Mary Stuart can still work her magic on canvas.

Stuart, who will turn 100 today, has an eye for detail whether it be the beloved flowers that grow around her Winter Street home or the mountain scenes she observes on trips and paints on canvas.

“Painting is very satisfying,” the longtime artist said during an interview Wednesday.

Asked what she attributed her longevity and good health to, Stuart shrugged and with a laugh replied, “Beats me.”

Actually, family members say it is her love of family, her artwork, good genes, hard work, crossword puzzles, and her love of weaving and jewelry-making that has helped keep her mind active and her body healthy for most of her life.

While Stuart admits hard work has helped her stay young, she also has never let anything fester in her mind. “I try to forget the things that gripe me, I don’t get myself het up about things that other people do. Now that’s pretty provincial.”

In recent years, however, emphysema and lung problems have made it necessary for Stuart to rely on an oxygen tank coupled with a thin tube that snakes from the tank to her nostrils. A wheeled cart she calls her “go buddy,” helps her unsteady gait.

“My life has been satisfying mostly,” Stuart said.

Stuart, who shares her childhood home with family members, took her first art lessons at about age 9 from an elderly woman in her neighborhood.

“If you had a little talent, your parents sent you to Miss Greeley for lessons,” Stuart recalled.

After graduation from Foxcroft Academy, Stuart said she enrolled in the School of Practical Art in Boston and spent a winter studying art in Paris, France.

“At the end of my third year, I decided I was ready for a job,” Stuart recalled. For the next several years, she worked as a fashion illustrator for a handful of companies.

Returning to Maine, Stuart started a family and found her time pretty much consumed by her five children and farm life.

It was in the 1970’s when she resumed her painting full tilt. She has tried all mediums but especially enjoys watercolors, even today.

At age 70, Stuart said she wanted to try something different so she enrolled in the weaving program at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle. Her weaving was so good it was later displayed in the Farnsworth Museum.

Learning is part of life, according to Stuart, and “my life has been pretty full.”