BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — When others might cry, Maria Laurendi was laughing last Sunday as she reached over her head to pull together the plastic tarp surrounding her booth at the 69th Allentown Art Festival in Buffalo.
A thunderstorm was raging beyond the tarp, threatening to not only douse her precious artwork with rainwater, but also rip her paintings and prints from the walls of her booth and send them sailing down Delaware Avenue. And yet, she laughed.
Maria has seen enough in her 75 years to make her realize that there’s no reason to sweat a thunderstorm disrupting an art show.
She’s a mother of six, a grandmother of eight, a real estate saleswoman of 43 years, and, most importantly, on this Allentown Art Festival Sunday, she’s a disciplined oil painter of 15 years who has discovered and created a following for her passion in art.
At age 60, Maria was attending a real estate convention and was overcome by boredom. She told her husband, Carmen, who is also her partner in real estate sales, that she wanted to go to art school. “I would doodle and draw cartoons before that, but I never thought I could do this well,” Maria says…