NORWAY – A trip to the local hardware store inspired an award-winning oil painting by an 80-year-old Oxford artist.

“I sat there and looked at it for quite a while,” said Ruth Carlson-Friberg of Oxford whose painting of the Norway marsh behind Aubuchon’s Hardware was recently purchased by the town of Norway at the Norway Arts festival.

Carlson-Friberg said she was very surprised to learn that her painting had been selected from dozens of others displayed by artists from New England and beyond at the July 4 weekend art show in downtown Norway.

Last year, annual town meeting voters approved the use of $400 from the Hebert Dennison trust fund to purchase a piece of art from pieces displayed at the sidewalk art show in recognition of the Art Festival’s 40th anniversary. The tradition continued this year as Norway residents agreed to pay for another piece of local artwork to add to its collection.

Selectman Warren Sessions, who along with Irene Millett made the selection, said they had criteria they had to follow including the need to select either a Norway artist or a picture of a Norway scene.

Painting did not come easily to Carlson-Friberg, but through the tutelage and inspiration of artists Lee Bean and later Barbara Traficonte, Carlson-Friberg got, as she put it, “hyper” on painting.

“I’m 80 years old and now I paint every day,” she said of the work she began some 30 years ago when, after raising a family of nine children, she decided it was time to devote something to herself.

A breathing problem stymied her work with pastels and arthritis kept her from using watercolors that have to be put under heavy glass, so she switched to oils.

Carlson-Friberg has shown her work at a number of area shows including Winthrop and Farmington where she won Best of Show one year.

Although her grandfather, who painted heavy velvet stage curtains that used to grace theaters, and father and a brother painted, she said her talent was developed with the help of her teachers and inspirations of what she sees each day.

“This is my passion,” she said.