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Healing arts: Overcoming cancer with watercolors

Mary Spires is a colorful character who enjoys teaching others to paint with watercolors.

Mary Spires is a colorful character who enjoys teaching others to paint with watercolors.

“She knows what she’s doing,” said Roberta Romeo. “She’s got it down. She should, after this many years of teaching.”

For the last two decades, Spires has been teaching novice painters at the Beach Art Center in Indian Rocks Beach. She learned all her techniques by taking classes while living in Ohio.

“I never thought about teaching,” she said.

Spires took up painting as a distraction. At 40, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Painting provided her an escape.

“When you hear the word 'cancer,' you automatically think you’re going to die,” she said.

Five years ago, art center employee Irene Zafferes lost two younger sisters to breast cancer within six months of each other. She found comfort in sharing conversations about cancer with Spires.

“When I heard her story, it really meant a lot to me,” she said.

Linda Hansen had a similar connection to Spires.

“Twenty-seven years ago, my husband had a life-threatening injury,” she explained. “I understood needing to have something to make one’s life worth living.”

Spires teaches every Wednesday from 9 a.m. to noon. The love she found from watercolors is something she hopes she can pass along to students.

“She’s giving back because she understands what that brought to her life, the serenity, what you feel when you paint,” said Karen VanVyve. “Sharing that with other people is a gift.”

The Beach Art Center is located at 1515 Bay Palm Blvd.

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