Artist paints many local windows

Lorna Wright, window painter, at work at the Sisters Post Office. photo by Tom Chace

Lorna Wright is an unusual painter in an area known as a haven for artists. She paints windows.

A long-time Sisters resident with a home on Cloverdale Road, Wright is responsible for the colorful art seen around town this holiday season on such places as The Pony Express, Sisters Auto Supply, the Ski Inn and Soba Noodles & Rice.

Her most-often-viewed work is on the windows of the Sisters Post Office where she did a panel of twin snowmen, with garlands across three other windows. She painted "The Cat in the Hat" as a tie-in with the postal service's national promotion.

"Those jobs took me about four hours," she said, "and it was special fun with all the people coming by and talking with me while I worked."

She was paid $80 for that job, she reported.

"The money came from the private pocket of Pat Green, our new postmaster, and possibly others who work there," she said.

Although she mostly paints with tempera, a water-based paint, "I'll use acrylic occasionally if the window is exposed to severe weather, as it holds up better."

Old timers around the Sisters area will remember Wright when she and her then husband ran the Shell Service Station at the corner of Fir Street and Cascade Avenue, across from Bronco Billy's Ranch Grill and Saloon.

That spot is now home to Common Threads.

"That's where I started my window painting," she said. "I'd do our windows and occasionally others nearby. The only instruction I ever got was in high school art class in Redmond. There was no high school in Sisters back then so we all took the bus 20 miles into Redmond."

Wright and her family are practically an institution at The Gallery Restaurant, where most of them worked at one time or another.

Her mother, Shirley Miller, worked there; so did her grandmother, Ruth Rowe, and her sister, Cris Maddox. All were waitresses. She said that even some of her aunts and uncles were part of The Gallery staff, "so much so that people asked if we owned the place."

"I was a waitress there for probably 16 years total," she said. "I actually started my first job at age 14 washing dishes at The Gallery."

Wright had a baby store in Redmond, called "Tiny Hiny's," which she sold last November 1.

"With the store, my window painting had to be done in off hours," she said. "Now I am available to do it full time."

In addition to painting windows, Wright also paints murals in homes and businesses. In Sisters she did a mural at Your $12.99 Store and another at Catalyst Farms that is 25 feet across. One of her murals adorns the Big Red Barn Bed and Breakfast.

She also has a number of murals in private homes to her credit.

While the Christmas holiday more readily lends itself to her work, she has also done windows for Halloween, Easter, and the Fourth of July.

Her work generally starts the week before Thanksgiving and runs up until the week before Christmas.

"I love it," she says, "but if there is one thing I would change it would be to put Christmas in the summer as it gets pretty cold and often times wet outside during December," she said.

Working at the post office, she wore a hat pulled over her ears and mitts on her hands. The mitts came off when there was fine detail to paint.

For more information call 280-0126.