Painting Flowers through the Snow and the Struggle

Last winter, I painted the tallest floral mural of my career to date—three stories on a formerly abandoned factory building in Poughkeepsie, upstate New York. I was supposed to complete the wall painting in October, when the weather would still be comfortably brisk; but I ended up painting outside in the middle of December, working through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, with snow on the ground. Somehow even my “easiest,” “most fun,” and “most well-paid” projects end up becoming a sort of heroic feat to complete.

My friend (bless her) came up to spend Christmas with me and we painted together alone in the massive, unheated warehouse. I spared her the torture of painting outside, but still she refers to that time with a mixture of horror and admiration. “You freeze, Natasha!!” she exclaims. “When you paint a mural, you are camping!” She is not far from the truth. 

But I wouldn’t trade the experience of struggling through, creating flowers on a wall no matter what the weather conditions, and the sense of joy and fullness that greets me when I step back from the mural and see that it is finally done. The flowers hold a memory of the obstacles through which I fought to make them bloom. In the beauty I have managed to create in my mural, I also see the hardship, the pain, and the perseverance. How could it be any other way? 

Chrysanthemums for the First Floral Mural in Poughkeepsie

This particular flower mural was painted for The Academy in Poughkeepsie, NY—an admirable construction undertaking that renovated a huge abandoned car factory in the center of town into a bustling food and drinks destination. I chose to paint large chrysanthemums in the mural, in a combination of yellow, orange, and purple, which gives a flavor of fall all year round. My mural was outside on the side of the building closest to the street, so it is easily viewed by pedestrians and cars passing by, and there were definitely many people yelling their support up to me from their cars as I painted.

I was able to complete the mural in only one week, with the help of my assistant. We had to use a boom-lift to reach the full height, so we were swinging precariously in the orange basket for most of the day. The wind would blow at a tremendous speed at that height, and the location itself was a wind tunnel, so we suffered. But watching the setting sun come down over the buildings, as we were painting our flowers on the wall, was a beautiful daily treat. I started each flower in the mural with spray paint to get a fast sketch and block in the base colors quickly. The floral mural took shape in a matter of a day or two. Then we went back in with paintbrushes and detail colors, cleaning up the lines and adding definition as we went. 

My mural style is very colorful, so sometimes I end up using all the colors in all the flowers, and it is hard to keep a flower pure white or pure yellow. I was very careful in this mural to keep the yellow flowers as bright yellow as possible, and the bright pigments of the spray paint definitely helped me create pops of color. The leaves were the most fun to create; because they were so huge, we were able to spray various greens freely and just make a beautiful mess of different green tones. From the ground looking up, the leaves glow with all of the different pigments used. While we painted the mural, there was a very tall metal fence constructed to keep graffiti artists out at night, but once the fence got removed, local people immediately starting taking selfies in front of the flowers. That’s how I know that people were very excited to have a floral mural in their community.

Preserving the Old and Adding Beauty with a Floral Mural

Poughkeepsie is a former factory town in the Hudson Valley, with beautiful and sometimes dilapidated 100 year-old houses, and it is a place best enjoyed in the fall, when the foliage makes a spectacular display of reds and oranges. During Covid, many New Yorkers moved out of the city and found refuge in Poughkeepsie, which drove up rents and house sales to an astronomical level. The Academy was created at a perfect time, just as more people are visiting and living in Poughkeepsie. The developer, Baxter Built, is owned by a family from Poughkeepsie, and I really enjoyed this project because I respect their desire to preserve the historic buildings in their town.

It takes so much more time, energy, and attention to renovate an old building than to just tear it down and build a new one with all the modern construction techniques and amenities. But the grace, quality, and heritage that old buildings possess is irreplaceable and certainly worth preserving. I’m grateful to Baxter Built for including me in their vision, which I find inspiring. This was the tallest floral mural I’ve painted to date, and I hope it continues to give joy to the Poughkeepsie community in the years to come.