'I feel peace': Wheeling woman discovers her talent for painting — at 73 and with only one arm

As Terri Lewis intently watches the paint swirl and settle, you can almost feel her breathing slow and the calm exuding from her.

When she looks up, she's smiling.

“Isn't it wonderful?”

Lewis, 73, took up painting about a year ago at the assisted living and memory care facility where she resides in Wheeling. It's not an easy feat for her, because she has only one arm and suffers from severe rheumatoid arthritis.

But Lewis has surprised everyone, herself included, with her unexpected talent. Painting has become a deep passion for her.

“This is going to sound corny, but I feel peace. I really become part of the art,” she said on a recent morning, explaining what painting feels like. “When I am done, I don't want to be done with that feeling.”

Lewis has painted about 100 works. Three are framed and hang in the library of The Landing on Dundee, where she's lived since November 2020.

Some of her art comes in vivid shocks of colors. Other work has more delicate, dreamy tones.

“I really like this one,” she said, pointing to a painting on the wall. “It looks like spring, summer and fall, all together.”

“You can see many different things (in the design),” she said. “That's the fun of it.”

Terri uses alcohol ink, a type of fluid, highly pigmented paint used on hard surfaces. She mostly paints on vellum paper, but she's also used creative mediums like a melted plastic plate and a soda can. Sometimes she uses a bath sponge to spread the paint and a small hand-held hair dryer to help it settle.

When Lewis is in too much physical pain, Fanny Kapusta, the facility's lifestyle assistant, steps in to help, always taking directions from Lewis.

Kapusta introduced Lewis to painting, which is among the activities available at the facility. Many of the residents like to paint, but the way Lewis took to it was breathtaking, Kapusta said.

“When she puts ink on these papers, they just come to life. Which is how you can tell a true artist — no matter what she puts down, it generally comes out wonderful.”

Her son, Karl Lewis of Algonquin, said it's been delightful to see how much pleasure his mother derives from making art.

“We talk frequently and this is usually one of the top things we talk about, her painting. We've all been really impressed by it, all three of us,” he said of him and his siblings.

“It's very cathartic and therapeutic for her. It just keeps coming through in conversation, over and over. She enjoys it so much. I don't know what she'd do without it.”

Lewis' three children were very young when she lost her right arm — her dominant one — in a car accident in 1982. Despite the enormous challenge, she carried on raising her family and having a career as an educator, including more than 10 years at St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights.

“The kids were a blessing,” said Lewis, who lived in Palatine for decades. “I had the help of my husband, and some of the neighbors would come in and stay for hours to help me. It was not easy, but we made it.”

Lewis had to relearn how to do things, like type one-handed and write with her left arm, said her daughter, Freyda Lewis of Palatine, who was a baby at the time of the accident.

“I learned from watching her, and I still type one-handed,” Freyda said. “My kids have learned a lot about how people can overcome obstacles despite physical limitations. ... To this day, if I post (on Facebook) anything about my mom, she gets more likes than I do.”

In the last few years, however, life had become more difficult for Terri Lewis.

Her husband of 48 years, Dean, died in 2018. In addition to rheumatoid arthritis, she has a pinched nerve in her spine and uses a wheelchair. Recently, her eyesight diminished from a secondary cataract, so she can't read books, her refuge since she was a little girl growing up in western Pennsylvania. Hopefully laser surgery in the next few weeks will fix that, she said.

Painting has helped her channel her feelings, including her enduring grief at the loss of her husband.

“You can't believe how much I miss him,” she said. “The painting has really helped me with all this. The painting has been tremendous.”

Lewis said she never knew she'd enjoy painting because her teachers in school discouraged her from taking art classes. Now, she encourages other residents of the assisted living facility by telling them it doesn't matter if they make mistakes.

“I tell them, you can become a real painter, too!” Lewis said.

Lewis has an impressive “can do” attitude that everyone around her feels, said Savannah Galindo, lifestyle director at The Landing on Dundee.

“She's got the spirit to just do it,” Galindo said. “She's always inspired the heck out of all of us.”

The facility's staff members now are brainstorming how to help Lewis find ways to sell her paintings. Lewis would love to do that through St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, to help with fundraising.

“I pray to St. Jude all the time,” she said. “He's the patron saint of the impossible.”

Karl Lewis said he and his siblings are proud of what their mother has accomplished in life.

“My mother is a curious person. She's got an active mind,” he said. “She doesn't like to sit in bed or sit in a chair and not do things. I think that's what this really shows, how active she is. She's still developing interests at 73. She still tries new things.”