Artistic duo melds many memories onto mural

By Libby James
Correspondent

Susan Dailey and Lynn Lucke-Lutkin like to paint big, and they like doing it together.

Established artists and experienced teachers of art, they are always pleased with an opportunity to work together. They find great satisfaction in creating murals that have special significance for their clients. Their most recent work, a 15-by-4-foot pastoral scene, took 240 hours to complete. That's quite a bit of togetherness.

A Windsor couple who commissioned the work have fond memories of growing up on farms near Pickrell, Neb. They wanted a nostalgic piece, reminiscent of their past--a walk down memory lane. The Fort Collins artists, who did not grow up on farms, asked lots of questions and pored over black and white photos of farms and outbuildings and the Zion Lutheran Church where the couple were baptized, confirmed and married.

Lots of cows, no horses, the couple said. The church should loom large because of its importance in their lives. Both childhood homes needed to be included, as well as outbuildings and barns, gardens and fields. The research and design phase continued with searching the Internet and delving into a stack of books until the artists had enough information to produce preliminary sketches for approval by the clients.

Instead of spending tedious hours on a scaffolding painting directly on the wall, the women sketched out and painted the mural on acrylic cloth tacked to the wall of Dailey's studio. She had used the cloth technique, developed by the Philadelphia Mural Program, to produce a 55-by-30-foot landmark mural for a grain elevator in Berthoud. As far as the artists know, the process has never before been used in Colorado for an indoor mural.

After applying gesso--a mixture of gypsum and glue--to the cloth to prevent paint from seeping through the fabric, work began. Using pencil and charcoal, they drew in guidelines, indicating placement of buildings, fields, gardens, fences, cows, chickens, trees--even small meadowlarks, Nebraska's state bird.

Painting took five weeks and, according to the artists, was a more relaxed time than the critical planning phase. Because they had painted together before, the process went smoothly. "We find that two heads are better than one when it comes to solving problems," Lucke-Lutkin said.

The painters moved frequently from one part of the mural to another as they worked. "When one of us got tired of painting cows we traded places and painted something different for a while," Dailey said. There are 34 cows in the mural--each with its own personality.

Daily appreciates her friend's ability to know what's wrong when something doesn't look quite right.

"Susan is a master of lighting," Lucke-Lutkin countered.

The artists agree that getting the perspective of the church right, without destroying the integrity of the mural, was their most challenging task. "The church had to be a major focal point and at the same time blend in with the rest of the scene," Dailey explained. They achieved their goal by using filmy rays descending from the sky to the church to soften the point where the church and the rest of the scene came together.

Dailey thrives on the challenge of being presented with several criteria and making them work well together. She describes a mural as a collage of images, making possible options that would not work in a traditional, smaller painting.

Lucke-Lutkin feels less intimidated when working on the wide span of a mural than she does when working on a small painting because in a larger work, there are multiple focal points to work with.

When the time came to attach the mural to the wall, the artists' collaboration expanded to include Dailey's husband and several friends willing to lend a hand. They applied a layer of glue to the appointed wall, another to the mural, and, with many hands helping, the huge piece of cloth was lifted carefully into place. The process took three hours.

When the clients sat down in front of their piece of art for a cup of coffee, they came face-to-face with the power of images. The mural took them back to a simpler time when they lived on adjacent farms, close to their parents and each other. Now most of the buildings have been torn down, but the church stands firm. Three of their parents are gone, but through their mural, they can still see their parents working the land and feeding the animals, just as it used to be.