SHE COMMUNICATES THROUGH CANVAS EVERYONE HAS A STORY

People featured in this column have been selected at random from the telephone book.

MOSCOW Mary Kirkwood, a retired professor of art at the University of Idaho, is best known, she confides, as a painter of portraits.

But it is the entire human body in all its naked wonderfulness, said Mary, that has always caught her eye and attention.

Not that painting nudes has preoccupied her art. In fact, most of her paintings are of fully-clothed people. But it is because she has studied the ''figure'' of the human body, Mary explains, that she has been able to paint beyond clothes and nakedness to the inner most qualities of human nature.

''It's the most beautiful thing in the world,'' Mary said of the human body.

She probably wouldn't have talked publicly like this prior to 1970. That's the year she retired from UI, after 40 years in the classroom.

Today, sitting in the living room of her modest home with her cat, C.B., purring nearby and the paintings of many of her students hanging on the walls, Mary snickers about a question a member of the UI regents posed more than two decades ago.

''Do you use the draped or undraped model?''

If the truth be known, it wasn't until shortly after Mary retired that UI allowed the first nude models in its art classes. Not that Mary agreed with the practice.

''Nobody made a rule, at least that I knew about. But I knew better than to try it,'' she said. Instead, all the human models in Mary's art classes were clad in bathing suits.

''The public is curious about nude posing,'' said Mary, who, even after retirement, paid people by the hour to privately pose nude in her own studio.

She still has many of those paintings stored away and is proud to display a photo album of the works, even though the snapshots don't do the pieces justice.

And just what is art? The question is especially relevant these days, says Mary, when ''I'm afraid there are a great number of people who think art is anything. Maybe something ugly can be art ... but not because it's simply ugly.''

It's a debate that may never end, Mary concedes. But after virtually devoting her entire life to the study of the great masters and the pursuit of her own talents, Mary said she is convinced that art must be ''an expression,'' not just a pretty picture. A painting must communicate.

''I'm a very great believer in basic training,'' she said. However, just like the grammarian who masters sentence structure and punctuation and still falls short of being a real writer, so many painters exhibit technique but offer no message, said Mary.

''It takes a great deal of understanding and yet it may be impossible to say this is art and this isn't art,'' she said.

Born in Oregon, Mary moved to Montana as a youngster and received a bachelor's degree from the University of Montana. One of her fondest memories is of meeting Charles Russell, the famous western artist. She received a master's degree from the University of Oregon in fine arts and was hired by UI just as the Great Depression began.

''Fortunate,'' is how she describes her finding work in her life's ambition at a time when so many people couldn't find any kind of job. Having never married, Mary said she realized early that an artist needs solitude and privacy. She credits a year of study at the Royal Art School in Stockholm, Sweden, with synthesizing her penchant for painting with a devotion to teaching.

''I consider myself more a teacher than an artist. My teaching came first,'' she said.

And yes, Mary confesses that she did turn out any number of landscapes, mostly of the Palouse, because people wanted them, she was somewhat intrigued by the countryside and all artists should try reaching beyond their preferred medium and subject matter.

''I sold practically all my landscapes for $100 flat.''

Health problems have severely limited the time she takes brush in hand these days. But Mary still maintains her studio in downtown Moscow.

''And I'm happy to show anyone who's interested in my paintings,'' she said. ''I don't have any pretentions about my own ability. I feel I've become a modest artist.''