Margaret Schuster (Locky)

Locky Schuster, 92, a longtime resident of Ames, died peacefully Saturday, July 18, 2009, in Corvallis, Ore.

Raised in Unionville, Mo., Locky showed an early interest in painting and photography. Her father strongly encouraged her artistic talents and gave Locky her first set of oil paints for her fifth birthday. After graduation from high school in 1933, she began formal art training at the Kansas City Art Institute under the guidance of Thomas Hart Benton. She later attended the University of Iowa, where she was strongly influenced by Grant Wood, and received a bachelor’s degree in 1938. Following a program of study in photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she established a portrait studio in Minneapolis, which offered both oil paint and photographic likenesses.

In the early 1950s, she set aside her professional ambitions for marriage and motherhood. In 1951, she married Donald Schuster. The couple and their two daughters later settled in Ames when Don joined the Psychology Department at Iowa State University. She continued to paint portraits on commission, and in 1966 also began teaching oil painting through adult education. She later founded the Ames Brush Club, and mentored local artists for more than 30 years. She will be remembered for her ability to find something positive in every student painting she critiqued.