I had already poured out my brush rinse water and stood up to clear my face paint tray after a long St. James Court weekend. When the economy went south and large painting sales were reduced, I sat down to paint faces, Some of my friends scoffed at the pursuit but it dawned on me, but not them, that the tellers at Stock Yards Bank never asked whether my Monday morning deposit happened from canvas weekend sales or many little decorated faces.
After a while, my scoffing friends were no longer exhibiting near me and I was meeting many happy children in a world where a rainbow or a Garfield made a child’s eyes shine. To them, as to the children at the Jefferson Street Chapel that I taught, I was a “Paint Lady”.
Several mothers came back to tell me their daughters aspired to be a face painter when they grew up because they had met me. They didn’t care about the large oil paintings hanging in my exhibition booth, All they saw were the boards listing the small illustrations that children could select for their own face paint. I was glad to be someone’s role model if only for those small works.
How high a regard a little girl held her rainbow was brought home to me when my niece’s shriek after her brother touched her little face painting scared a stewardess on a flight home to New York.
So when a mother came rushing into my booth with a daughter in tow, she did not have to beg me to paint one more face, but she did. I smiled and said, “Of course.”
That was how I met Ariel who wanted a unicorn painted on her eight-year-old face.
Ariel returned for many years to St. James for her face painting. In later years, Ariel played her violin at the edge of my booth. I taped one of her performances and as I play it when autumn comes to town, I can still see the young Ariel amazing the patrons who visited St. James.
It is one of my fondest art memories and it all started out with one small unicorn.