MEET VIENNA
ELEANOR DOUGHTY
ARTISTS & ART
ADVOCATES:
Have you visited Taco Bamba, Mod Pizza, Rexall, Cava, or (hopefully not) - INOVA urgent care on Maple Avenue in Vienna? If you found parking in front, then perhaps you were lucky - or were you? Because along the back of the building a 3000-ft mural created and designed by Eleanor Doughty, and Emily Herr has transformed a drab parking lot into a beautiful visual experience.
Eleanor Doughty is an artist making her way through the international art scene - she has completed murals in Brooklyn NY, Seattle WA, Charlottesville VA, Orlando FL, Vienna VA, and even our own Kiln & Co. on Historic Church Street (inside the shop's back wall). Her range of artistic style is wide - yet remains consistent and unmistakably hers. Eleanor's signature style gives her art a certain specificity and uniqueness that is well suited to both large AND small scale endeavors. Her art is available on Etsy, and her murals bring life and vibrancy to once-mundane spaces. She is ready to continue covering the world in paint and ready for commissioned requests.
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Let's meet Eleanor Doughty.
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Tell us a little bit about who you are?
I’m Eleanor Doughty (pronounced Dow-Tee), I’m an illustrator and painter, and right now I’m in my studio space in downtown Seattle (called Common Area Maintenance) that I share with about 14 people. It’s my office, workspace, and social base. I didn’t really expect that murals and large-scale painting would be such a big part of my career at this point – but it kind of just happened. The Vienna mural was a really big step in that direction, and a really great opportunity. It was an answer to a request for proposals that the Vienna Art Commission put out. Luckily a high school friend linked me to – or I might not have seen it, let alone applied to it.
I feel like everything in my career is kind of organic, and I feel that there is some truth to “do what you love and the money will follow”. It might not be millions of dollars (and I feel pretty okay with that), but it's pretty awesome to be able to make a living as an artist and also have the freedom to be fully self employed, have fun, and be free. But there are hard times, like managing many different deadlines and having to do some very late, lonely nights in the studio.
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If I’m a college student or creative in any area of the arts – then I probably hear the whole “follow your passion" mantra often. But practically speaking, what is your process for the business side of what you do? Do you have a place that you go where you source potential clients, or is it just about networking?
Of course, it’s different for everybody, and I know illustrators who have really different approaches to this – e.g., some people send out mailers to art directors. A lot of my projects have been unexpected how they’ve unfolded. And it’s been interesting, though maybe not surprising, that 20% of my clients provide 80% of my income. But yes, a lot of it has been networking. Putting my work out there on Etsy has been pretty successful – Etsy has been surprisingly good for pulling in potential clients because of their search engine. People see the illustration work, and they’ll ask me to draw their house or similar things. I also do craft markets locally, and those are good for getting smaller commissions and they can also be more fun, I like meeting people in person and personally introducing them to my work. Sometimes it’s not worth it, because of the weather, crowds, whatever, but you never know.
But, my favorite thing is sitting outside and drawing in plein air – that’s my passion! So everything else that I can funnel into that has been great – I feel really fortunate that that’s the work I’ve been doing. Plein air is drawing from life outdoors – traditionally, you’d think of an oil painter with an easel standing in a field somewhere. But for me, it's more like sitting at a café, or on a sidewalk, capturing what’s around me. I’m part of the Urban Sketchers (urbansketchers.org) organization, which is a global network of people who like to draw from life out in the world. I’ve had some opportunities to travel based on my work that I’ve linked to that passion. I went to Amsterdam to teach workshops in 2019, and this year I’m going to Australia to do the same, as a result of being in Urban Sketchers.
Anyway, for my career, at the heart of it it’s about having fun making things, and posting them on social media and using hashtags. Also working hard, studying, practicing all the time, and finishing projects. My biggest clients right now I got from submitting work to websites – like online archives of work. For example, I submitted work to a website meant to connect hotels that need art for their walls with artists who have those kinds of images. While I haven’t been successful at getting a contract like that yet, someone who works at that company really liked my work personally, and set up me up as a commission-based artist for bigger projects that weren’t ever public. So you never know what’s going to happen when you put work out there! Most of the time it’s a bust, but sometimes these types of jobs are linking me to bigger projects. I’ve kind of just cast a wide net, because I feel like I’m disorganized and I really have a distaste for the business side of this.
I just want people to have an opportunity to be spontaneous and create something that’s from the soul of the community
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How did you discover your niche for creating murals?
I give a lot of credit to my friend and frequent collaborator Emily Herr who was about 50% of the Vienna mural. We went to school together at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. She’s a full-time muralist. So when I was applying to that call from Vienna, we applied together. I did the design piece and brought everything together for the proposal, and she promised to take care of the logistics if we won the project. We had done a couple small murals before and we had worked on some school projects together, and she herself has done about 100 of these. I brought her in so she could vouch for the technical aspects of it, so the client can feel like we can actually pull this off. And once you do one, you can say hey “I’ve done this 3000-foot mural, now I can do anything”. We just finished a mural together in Florida in Northern Orlando. We were there for 3 weeks, and it was pretty big (5 stories tall!).
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Tell us about the Orlando mural is it somewhere online that we can find it for a sneak peak?
I don’t think its online yet. The building is under construction, but Emily Herr may have some pictures on her Instagram. (instagram.com/herrsuite)
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Did you create a smaller version of the Vienna mural before painting the full-size mural?
Yes, it was pretty close to the original drawing that I submitted for the proposal. The only thing we ultimately changed was making it fit within the actual dimensions of the wall, and that was kind of tricky, because of the door alcoves, and it’s not a perfect rectangle – it’s a little higher on one side than the other. But I tried not to change very much once we started painting, because once things get approved, there’s a whole process to change design, and they understandably really don’t want you to mess with it after its been approved the first time.
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It seems like you made intentional choices about what you were going to paint inside the doorways – and the doors invite the viewer in. Do you consider how light will affect the way a mural will look at different times of day?
That doesn’t really influence my decision-making. But with the doorways, we avoided placing the more important elements in them, like the historic buildings. We wanted them to be placed more organically on the wall – so in that sense we weren’t going off the plan – it just needed to work on the physical space. But as far as objects casting shadows – we don’t really think about that, because there’s not anything you can really do about it. It doesn’t really affect how someone reads the image.
The direction the wall faces is important while you’re painting, since how the sun hits it affects the process. If it’s really hot, or freezing cold it can be difficult to paint. The Vienna mural was painted in November, so there were some really freezing days. It is nice to have it facing directly sunlight, since then the colors really sing!
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The colors are fantastic, what influenced your color choices – is there something about Vienna that inspired those choices.
Not really, I just think yellow looks really good all the time. So, I use it a lot - especially in skies. I tend to avoid blue for skies, I reject the idea that I have to paint it blue because that’s “how it is”. It doesn’t really matter how it looks in reality, as long as it works in my composition. Having a more limited color scheme, like the yellow and blue, makes it more unified and graphic. That's what is going to be more interesting, pleasing, and iconic for people that see it all the time.
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What can we do, as people who see and enjoy your public art, to advocate for you and other artists, to make sure you continue to influence and contribute to how Vienna evolves?
Highlighting public art and collecting it on this site is a good start. It’s good if people realize there’s an appetite for it in Vienna. I think there are a lot of walls in Vienna that could benefit from it. Public art is good for the overall feeling of a town. For example, I was just in Miami with my muralist friend Emily – and that place is so covered in murals – I didn’t know a place could be covered with that many murals – it was amazing. And I felt like people really cared about the place they lived and wanted to show off.
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Our project in Vienna was funded by the Rappaport company which owns the shopping center, and lots of commercial real estate in the DMV area. They have a large budget to pay for projects like ours. But a city or town doesn’t have to have the backing of a large real estate company to make something artistic happen on a house or business. I don’t know that much about this – but there are zoning aesthetic requirements in Vienna that have prevented other more vibrant installations, or painting endeavors. For example, that old house that was by the post office – they painted it rainbow – and I thought “this is so awesome!” – and then they made them paint it over – and I’m thinking “why?! it was so cool!”. But it’s the mindset of people who are in charge - they may be thinking “what do we want the town look like – or be – and who do we want to it to be like that for?”. But in Miami I was really inspired by people going out and doing something small scale, just on their home fence, or the wall of an auto repair shop. They might get a couple gallons of leftover paint, and do something simple on a building – but even something simple that’s repeated on lots of walls can add up to something that’s really impactful and amazing – and make the place come alive.
Any teachers that you can name?
Yes! Ingrid April-Levey. She absolutely changed my life. I still remember her telling me to “loosen up” with drawing…well, it took 8 years of practice and learning how to actually draw, but now I feel wonderfully loose. And also, Genette Boyle and rest of the art department – for giving me a generous amount of room to experiment and play. Those were the main people that impacted me. I really hope I’m not forgetting anyone! It’s been over 10 years now.
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Anything else you want to talk about?
I just need to thank the Vienna Arts Commission. They were really awesome!.
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Thanks Eleanor!
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So you’re a Vienna native – how does the history of Vienna inform the future in terms of the aesthetic? And more specifically, you grew up here and got to see where Vienna has been – and now we're seeing where its going in terms of a lot of the newer buildings – where should the aesthetic for Vienna be pointed (from an artist’s point of view).
I know it might just be unrealistic in terms of how things actually work in the world – I just want people to have an opportunity to be spontaneous and create something that’s from the soul of the community, as opposed to something that’s been vetted and 'committeed' to death by people who don’t live in Vienna or whose motives are about maximizing profits.
What’s very special about Vienna compared to other towns and cities in the NOVA sprawl is that we have a center of town that still feels very historic, and is a place where people can gather in the green spaces. And you can tell I care about it a lot because that was the subject matter of the mural – all the historic sites along the W&OD railroad – now W&OD bike trail – which I grew up riding on! And not a lot of other towns in the area have that truly historic feel, or that space. And now we have the town green and park, the caboose area (Centennial Park) – and it feels really soulful. We need to protect that, and we need to keep it safe. And as for the new stuff – I just personally think zoning has to be relaxed a little, if we want the town to be artistic and creative - let people be spontaneous. Even if artists create something, it can be painted over in a couple of months – what do you have to lose in the grand scheme of things? Even if it’s bad, or “ugly”, I think anything is better than having a blank beige wall – because it's something that’s being created, which feels like something a little bit magical. That energy of purely creating something new in the world has a ripple effect through the community, and shows people that this kind of freedom and expression is possible.
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Did you go to Madison High School? And were the volunteers that helped you from Madison HS, artists?
I did go to Madison (Class of ’09!), and most of the students that helped me were from Madison. Some people from other parts of the community helped out, alone or getting their kids involved. My little niece Madeleine also made a few brushstrokes. Some students just needed 6 hours of community service – which is fine – I’ve been there. Some of them were from the art club at Madison. I've kind of lost touch with the art program at Madison now – but when I was there, all the teachers were extremely supportive and gave me so much space to be really ambitious with what I was doing. And I seriously wouldn’t be here without them.