By Rebecca Goldfine,Staff Writer

NORWAY – The youngest artist to ever show her work at the Norway Summer Festival made a small fortune at last weekend’s show, for an 8-year-old.

Selling her art for between $11 and $14, Rachel Corey earned more than $50.

Corey said she sold two paintings of angels, a big horse on a large canvas, a dolphin and a foal.

“Someone from church,” Corey said, listing the buyers. “One of my friends, Natalie, Grammy, and then some other two people walking by.”

Corey’s mother, Dianne, said the first buyer told the young artist he would hang her angel painting in his guest bedroom and that he was sure she would sell more art that day.

For eight hours, Corey and her mother sat at their booth, which they rented for the day. The Norway Summer Festival is a yearly event that showcases artists who line the sidewalk with booths and canvases.

This year, festival coordinator Eris Sessions said 56 artists registered. The two youngest were a college student and Rachel. Sessions said she hopes more young artists participate in the future.

“I think it’s like one more generation,” Sessions said. “I see it as turning over the reins if you will.”

But if they’re really little, she encourages parents to sit with them.

“I told the mother, either she or the girl’s father had to be there with her,” Sessions said. “She was a viable artist like all the others, but she’s 8-years-old.”

Corey has been making art since she was two, her mother said Thursday at their home on Ralph Richardson Road. Several framed paintings and drawings by Rachel that went unsold at the festival were spread out on their dining room table.

“She was coloring at two,” Dianne Corey said. “Some kids are eating crayons at two, and she was coloring.”

It was Rachel’s idea to be in the show, and with her first success, she said she would like to be involved in more art shows.

“Maybe when you get older, you can start charging more,” Dianne said to her daughter. “Like $300.”

Rachel said on a typical day, she might do anywhere from one to five drawings, sitting down to work when she’s bored. She held up two drawings she had recently completed, a sketch of a horse underneath trees and a detailed drawing of her kitchen in blue and green, with green Kool-Aid in glasses on the counter top.

“She has an eye for detail,” her mother said.