When Clyde Hollis offered to pay Lucy Willcutt to do some decorative window painting at his rental storage business three years ago, she figured it would be sort of a one-time deal.
It has instead turned into a means of helping finance her college education.
“At first, the only windows I painted were for (Hollis) doing new paintings for every season,” said Willcutt, 20-year-old sophomore nutrition/dietician student at Mississippi State. “Last year, I started getting more requests and it’s really taken off this year. I think I’ve done 40 so far this year.”
That number will swell as Christmas approaches. Willcutt said she’s booked solid through the end of the year.
“I do some painting after classes during the week, but mainly it’s weekend work – Saturdays and Sundays.” she said. “I also do pet portraits, which I had been doing before I started on windows.”
Willcutt’s window work is usually a blend of images and type, the latter a skill she began developing at an early age.
“I started that a long time ago when I was in middle school,” the 2024 Caledonia High School graduate said. “I started doing calligraphy and people would bring me different items for me to write stuff on. Really, I’ve always loved art. I started drawing at a very early age. My dad is very artistic and he would draw with me and my sisters, so I’ve been doing some kind of art about as far back as I can remember.”
Willcutt charges anywhere from $50 to $200 per job, depending on the scale and amount of detail the customer wants.
“Sometimes they’ll know what they want or at least a pretty good idea,” she said. “Sometimes they’ll give me a picture that they want me to recreate. Other times, it’s left up to me to use my creativity and my own designs. Most of the time, though, it’s a combination.
They’ll have general ideas, and I’ll take that and expand on it. Sometimes, after I have finished, they might want me to add a little something, but I’ve never had a situation where it turned out to be something they weren’t pleased with.”
Painting images on glass windows took a little trial and error at first, she said, especially when choosing what sort of paint worked best.
“Before I started painting windows I had painted mainly with acrylics,” Willcutt said. “But when I tried it on the windows, I realized that when the time came to take it off it was very hard to remove. I finally figured out that latex paints worked a lot better, so what I do now is paint with latex and then coat it with acrylics. It takes a long time that way, but it’s a lot easier to remove when it’s time.”
Willcutt said she painted about 20 storefront last year, but the demand really jumped this year.
“I do show my stuff on Facebook (Lucy Lane Willcutt) and on Instagram (lucywpaints), but most of the jobs I’ve gotten are just from people telling other people, which is good because it means the customers are happy with my work,” she said.
Given her lifelong interest in art, Willcutt said she has had thoughts of pursuing a career in the art field from time to time.
“I could see it being a career, but I always come back to the idea that my art is something I can do for fun,” Willcutt said. “Right now, I’m kind of doing both because the money I make doing the window and pet portraits does help out with my school expenses. But even if I hadn’t kind of started doing this by accident, I know I’d be making art. It’s what I do for fun. Really, I can’t imagine not painting or drawing.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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