Artists Chastity Sayer Smith and Lindsay Moore of Paint It Up Murals have to think about how many murals they painted on the outside and inside of buildings around Central Louisiana since they started working together in 2022.
There’s a mural of some magnolias on Main Street in Pineville, said Smith. That was done for Louisiana Fireplace. Then there’s the lotus flower they painted on a wall of The Yoga Studio + Movement on Texas Avenue. And also the one they did for Gator Country Louisiana, the alligator part in Natchitoches, added Moore. They also painted murals on the inside walls of Little Cakes With Big Attitude in Pineville and East Side Daiquiris on the Circle in Alexandria. These are just a few that they’ve painted.
“We should make a map,” Moore told Smith.
“We should make a map. That would be a good idea,” replied Smith. That way people could see and enjoy their work.
“I actually love doing the murals because I get to share with a lot more people. A lot more people encounter it on a daily basis,” said Smith.
When her children were young, she would paint their bedrooms about twice a year and “do really cool things all over the wall.”
Moore was 16 when she was hired to paint her first mural which was a swamp scene in an office.
“I guess when some people hear you’re an artist, they say, ‘Oh! I know this person that can paint. Can you paint this on my wall?’ And it’s just a matter if you want to say, ‘Yeah, sure, I can do that.’ It’s the same in the sense as a canvas but it’s very different in a sense so you have to adapt your skills, your smaller skills, and transform them to bigger skills. That’s how I did my first one,” she said. “Once you do your first one, you just figure it out.”
They’ve painted several murals for Ugly Mug Marketing in downtown Alexandria, most notably the colorful mural featuring a pink octopus holding an umbrealla and a megaphone on the outside of the building on the corner of Desoto and 4th Streets.
During the Christmas season they painted holiday windows on business windows including Sentry Drug on 3rd Street, The Rapides Foundation building on 4th Street and The Source on Highway 28 East in Pineville.
Some of the businesses really loved the design of their Christmas windows, said Moore. So they got the idea that the windows could be designed and changed throughout the seasons and adapted for other holidays such as the Mardi Gras season.
The windows at Logan Farms on MacArthur Drive, for instance, had an alligator with reindeer horns and a pelican with a Santa hat, said Moore. To adapt it for Mardi Gras, they painted a jester hat on the alligator and a crown on the pelican.
Just changing a couple of key elements will bring the windows through to the next holiday, said Smith.
“The Source in Pineville is a gym and we did their holiday windows,” said Smith. “And he just wanted to keep it up so I just changed some wording.”
They just finished painting the windows at the Vac Shack on Jackson Street for the spring and summer seasons. When September rolls around, they’ll change up the windows to reflect the fall season. They also painted the windows for the River Oaks Arts Center’s fundraiser, the Van Gogh Gala. Smith said executive director Rachael Dauzat asked if they could do it.
Both just smile and laugh when asked if they have a favorite mural. If they have one, they won’t say.
“I think the most rewarding one was probably Ugly Mug,” said Moore of the outside mural the covers the building.
From the time owner Wayne Mullins asked them to paint the mural, to when they came to an agreement on the design, to when they painted and finished the mural, was a year to to a year and a half process, they said.
“Just getting the idea out of the head and onto an actual building was cool,” said Moore.
The actual painting of the mural took over 130-140 hours, said Smith. And they had obstacles to overcome, one of them being the heat. They painted the mural last summer during record high temperatures. They had a lift but couldn’t use it because the power lines were too close to the building.
“It was forever hot up there on that metal. And, we had to put a ladder on top of the awning to get to the very top which was very scary,” said Moore.
They painted two other murals before this one for Ugly Mug. The first one was for their conference room. Mullins had contacted River Oaks Arts Center where Moore and Smith are residents artists. Artistic director Aubrey Bolen posted Mullins’ message to their artists’ pages.
Smith was interested in doing the mural. Moore said she’d help.
Each has painted murals individually and already had murals lined up, but they both found it much easier to work as a team so they started helping each other. Then, eventually, they just started doing it together.
So that’s how Paint It Up Murals came about.
“I don’t know if it’s technically a business but that’s what we call ourselves. We run it through our respective art businesses,” said Moore. “Paint It Up Murals is just what we decided to call ourselves.”
They collaborate with clients on what designs they want.
“They’ll kind of give us an idea and then Lindsay’s really good with that part of it,” said Smith. “She’s got way more ideas. And then we do a mockup on a program on our iPads that will show them pretty much what it’s going to look like.”
“That gives us a plan, too, to follow, to know what to do,” said Moore.
“And then once we come to a final agreement, we start throwing the paint on,” said Smith.
They will also paint windows and murals in private residences.
“We did some residential windows for Christmas. And I have a mural in a child’s room in March that I’m going to be doing. I’ll do whatever,” said Smith.
Smith handles the meetings with clients to get their ideas and Moore does a lot of the mockups because she has a creative mind and can see things she can’t, said Smith.
For those interested in getting a mural or windows painted, Smith said to contact her through their professional page Paint It Up Murals.
