No Space Too Large: Muralist Patty Clark

This underwater scene at Crossroads at Big Creek helps provide a life-like backdrop to display the ecology of Lake Michigan.

A stroll through Patty Clark’s Sturgeon Bay home provides many clues to her occupation.

Two walls of a bedroom are decorated with leafy tree branches, birds and a nest with three eggs. A trompe l’oeil (French for deceives the eye) skylight – permanently open to blue sky and fluffy clouds – and a door leading to a lake scene expand the master bedroom.

“I always wanted a skylight and a door to our patio,” Patty says. “Now I have them.”

The bathroom walls sport birch trees so real looking that one expects the bark to feel rough to the touch. A life-size bird perches on a twig at eye level. Patty’s home studio was once the bedroom of a daughter who wanted red walls. They compromised on a red and gold sunset that encircles the room. Asked how she created such a broad sweep of colors, she laughs. “It’s easy,” she says, “just like washing walls!”

Patty, a little girl who loved to draw and color, mailed entries to many art contests and never won. “But it didn’t stop me,” she says. She grew up to be a mostly self-taught artist whose murals grace some of Door County’s best-known buildings.

“I took four years of art classes at Southern Door High School,” she says, “and later, when I had a little shop in Florida that sold music cassettes and small items I’d painted, I took classes in commercial art at a community college.”

After returning to Door County in 1981 and marrying Jay Clark, a master cabinetmaker, she began decorating their home. “I ran out of walls,” Patty says, “so I had to find something else to paint.” In 2000, a friend referred her to the owner of a home in Michigan who wanted a mural on a large wall. It was her first major professional job.

“I’m afraid of heights,” Patty says, “and this was a very high wall. Fortunately, he built a secure scaffolding for me.” Next, her cousin, Kay Sietz, recommended Patty to the owner of what was then Bay Furniture Gallery in Cherry Point Mall (now the Dish Network store), where she painted a 38-foot mural that included Cana Island Lighthouse and a boat that’s almost full size.

That led to a mural at Open Hearth Lodge in Sister Bay, where she painted a lake scene and Eagle Bluff Lighthouse by the lodge’s indoor pool. Next was a mural for the wildlife exhibit at Crossroads at Big Creek. “They had mounted animals in a closet and didn’t know what to do with them,” Patty says. “At first, I was just going to paint a background for them, but it grew beyond that. I learned so much on that job, which began with just a pencil sketch.”

Months later she met Nancy Bertz of Stone Harbor Resort, who, upon seeing samples of Patty’s work, said she’d like to have murals done for the ballroom at Stone Harbor. Patty’s “application” for the job was a 10-inch by 80-inch to-scale painting on wood of what she envisioned the mural would look like. “It took six weeks to do that,” she says, “but it got me the job.” The actual mural, 10-feet by 80-feet, took about the same length of time and is, she believes, the largest in Door County.

Then it was back to Crossroads, first doing an under-water scene of Lake Michigan with mounted fish, followed by the recently-completed mural of Door County caves.

Completed this spring, Clark’s cave mural at Crossroads at Big Creek includes three-dimensional elements.

“I worked with some fascinating people on that project,” Patty says. “Gary Soule, who heads the local group of cavers and has discovered a number of caves in the area, and John Kellner were so helpful. Along with my fear of heights, I’m also not keen on going underground, so with lots of input from those guys, I painted several walls of that mural from photographs of a cave on the property of a Door County family. I molded plaster under the paint in some areas to create a three-dimensional effect.” (She’s also using that technique to create rocks in a painting she’s currently working on.)

“My goal when I paint a scene is to make viewers feel they’re actually a part of it. And when I paint an underwater scene or one of a cave, I want to make them feel comfortable in an environment where they might not venture in person.”

Most of Patty’s work – like the murals in private homes – comes from word of mouth. Along with these large projects, she also paints smaller works, furniture, signs, mailboxes and other small items to order and creates faux finishes such as marble and granite.

“I used to feel so intimated by all the wonderful artists in Door County,” she says, “because I didn’t have the formal training they do. But my confidence has grown with each job I’ve completed… And I look at the murals I’ve painted and think, ‘Maybe they’ll still be here for my grandchildren’s children to see.’”

Clark Custom Painting is located at 1412 Superior Street, Sturgeon Bay. For more information call 920.743.0062.