Catherine Justice grew up in a family with 11 children during the Depression.

“In the Depression, you didn’t get much in a big family,” she said. “You had to clean and take care of the kids” while her mother spent most of her time in the kitchen cooking and taking care of the babies.

In eighth grade, though, Justice’s art teacher told her she was talented and should be sure to take art classes in high school.

But Central Catholic, where she went to high school, didn’t offer art classes.

Life was like that in the 1930s. Frills fell by the wayside.

It wasn’t until she was in her 30s that Justice was actually able to pursue art. She started taking lessons from a local artist who taught art at the Y. She joined the art guild, started entering art shows and started selling her paintings.

That was in the 1950s and ’60s. A couple of times a year, there would be big art shows at Glenbrook Square, where artists would show and sell their works. Other organizations also put on regular shows, giving local artists a visible forum.

In time, though, participating in those shows became difficult. Justice’s husband died, and hauling tables and chairs and stands for her paintings became too much for Justice to do by herself.

Justice continued to paint, though. “Real artists paint till they drop,” she says. She’d haul her equipment into the country and set up whenever she found something that inspired – she particularly likes barns and historic structures – and start painting.

A few years ago, she broke her foot and was laid up for three months. After she had recovered, she headed out to Salomon Farm to paint. It was there that someone noticed her work and offered her a job teaching painting.

By that time she was 81, and she thought, “Who’d want to take painting lessons from an 81-year-old woman?” But the students came, and, given a shot of adrenalin, Justice’s art career continued to chug along.

By now, though, Justice was marketing her paintings in a very homespun way. Once a year, she’d have a garage sale, she’d put her paintings out, and they’d sell.

It was at one of those sales that an unexpected relationship began. Catherine Cassidy, an emergency room physician at Parkview Hospital and a picker on the side, was taken by Justice’s work. She bought a dozen paintings, much to Justice’s delight.

Then, just a couple of months ago, Cassidy called with a proposition. She had bought a building on Indiana 1 in Leo-Cedarville. The front of the building contained a Subway sandwich shop, but there was a room in the back with a red door that would be perfect for a shop where Cassidy could sell her collection of curiosities she had accumulated as a picker. She also wanted to occasionally feature what she called local treasures, the works of local artists and craftsmen.

Cassidy’s plan was to highlight Justice’s works, putting several on display, and hold a special reception for her. Would she go along with it?

So this weekend, at 87, Justice, for the first time in decades, had her own small show in the little shop, called the Red Door West.

The paintings will remain on display, and for sale, for at least a few more weeks.

And Justice will keep painting.

“I need something to inspire me,” Justice says, “and this inspires me.”