The world of Nova Scotia folk artist Maud Lewis

CBC Telescope brings viewers to the tiny home where folk artist Maud Lewis creates her paintings.

Painter lived and worked in a modest, one-room home

Maud Lewis, contented in her world

59 years ago
Duration 0:21
Maud Lewis tells of being content to sit in her little house and paint.

Folk artist Maud Lewis was a self-taught painter who lived in a tiny, one-room house with her husband, Everett, just outside of Digby, N.S.

The world of Maud Lewis

59 years ago
Duration 3:22
Maud and Everett Lewis on "days gone by".

On Nov. 25, 1965, CBC's Telescope introduced viewers to the couple, who had then lived together, in that tiny house, for nearly 30 years. 

Surrounded by walls covered in her characteristic flowers, birds and butterflies, Lewis, then in her 60s, is shown working on a painting which evokes the childhood she describes — one with horses, oxen, and buggy rides. 

At the time of the interview, Lewis has been selling her small paintings to passing tourists for years. But her work is becoming known to a wider audience and she is now sought out for it.

Maud Lewis on selling her paintings

59 years ago
Duration 1:15
Maud Lewis and her husband Everett talk about pricing her pictures for sale.

"My price has gone up some," she tells Telescope, up by 50 cents to $5.  Everett remarks that charging too much would be "a little too greedy."

Lewis died in 1970, just a few years after the Telescope episode aired.