The fifth installation of an art board at Strawberry Plaza, placed March 9, offers potential for glowing reviews under the right light.
Artist Miranda Shute painted a scene of sun rays beaming through trees and ferns, which was inspired by a recent project she did at Willamette Manor Assisted Living.
The art installation, entitled “Sun-Moonshine,” includes use of fluorescent, glow-in-the-dark paint. It was Shute’s first time using paint that will glow under a black light, and she said she was pretty happy with how it turned out.
MIRANDA SHUTE, with her grandmother, Rosa Brainard, from whom, Shute says, she inherited her artistic abilities.
The Lebanon native had recently moved back to her hometown when she offered to paint a mural at Willamette Manor. The residents loved it, and so did members of the Art Commission, she said, who agreed to display her work in the plaza.
Shute, 38, has completed many art projects in her life, but has never had any formal training. It’s just in her genes, she said.
Her grandmother, Rosa Brainard, sold several of her own paintings throughout Lebanon.
“Ever since I can remember, I always saw her painting,” Shute said. “So I studied her stuff and it always inspired me, seeing all the creations she had.”
Shute cut her teeth by painting a mural for an aquarium in Albany, even though she’d never done any paint projects before. That one painting got her a string of other paint jobs that hasn’t stopped since.
“It just kind of went from there,” she said. “People would come and talk to me while I was painting.”
She has painted in several different cities throughout Oregon, and has even painted totem poles and a propane tank.
“I just kind of learned as I went. I’ve painted a little bit of everything. I painted the Grand Canyon.”
The Grand Canyon was a 20-foot by 30-foot mural she did in someone’s living room. The owner had cancer and his wish was to go to the Grand Canyon, Shute said.
“But instead, he wanted to bring the Grand Canyon to his family, so I painted it.”