At 94 years of age, the Bendigo woman is celebrating her first solo art exhibition.

Her delicately crafted bird paintings currently adorn the walls of cafe Cortille in Lyttleton Terrace, Bendigo. 

“It gave me something to do in my old age,” Mrs Heenan said when asked about her lifelong hobby. 

An artist in her youth, Mrs Heenan put aside her paintbrush while raising 12 children.

But when her husband died 33 years ago, art turned out to be a much-needed lifeline.  

Her youngest daughter, Lisa, credits the creative outlet with helping Mrs Heenan recover from depression.

“It brought her out of it,” Lisa said.

“Although it was tragic, just getting back into art helped her embrace a new life without Dad.” 

Soon enough Mrs Heenan was volunteering with Meals on Wheels, running with the Sydney Olympic torch and taking part in competitive diving.

At 87, she won a Masters world championship in the sport.   

Mrs Heenan said she lived by the motto “Use it, or lose it”.

The idiom was a remnant of her time working for the Bendigo chapter of Arthritis Australia.  

“And you do (lose it) if you are going to sit at home and not move your legs.”

The treasured images now on display were almost lost too when the book in which they were kept went missing. 

“They disappeared for years and we thought they were stolen,” Ms Heenan said, explaining they were eventually found by one of her grandchildren a decade after they were first misplaced. 

The host of ABC show Gardening Australia, Costa Georgiadis, was the special guest at a luncheon held to mark the exhibition’s opening.

“She’s got a fan in me,” Mr Georgiadis, a family friend, said when asked about his connection to Mrs Heenan. 

Also there for the occasion were some of Mrs Heenan’s 32 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren.

“She’s an incredible woman,” Lisa said. 

The birds in the paintings of Bendigo nonagenarian Pearl Heenan are cause for nostalgia, reminding her of a lifelong fascination with the feathered creatures.  

“My brother and I always had a pet rosella,” Mrs Heenan said.

“It used to sit on my shoulder at night.

“The bird would pull all my hair pins out, as quick as I could put them in.”

The childhood memory was among those Mrs Heenan shared on Saturday while celebrating her solo exhibition opening. 

She was 11 years old when her family moved to Bendigo.

A doctor recommended the clean country air to her father, a First World War gas victim. 

Here she worked a milk bar in the same building federal Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters now occupies.