Quirky paint job gives blank building a personality!

By Mark Frost, Chronicle Editor

I remember when the building was home to the meat purveyor Double-A Provisions, but for decades it’s been non-descript apartments across the street from Glens Falls Hospital.

I took notice when a painting project started that was fun and gave the building a personality.

When I saw the artist — who turned out to be Rachael Rhianna — at work on a recent Saturday, I stopped to find out more.

“I guess it used to be a pretty shabby building,” Rachael said. “I guess I never paid attention to it. I’ve driven by it a million times.”

She said she was contacted out of the blue by the building’s owner, who chooses to remain unidentified. He had a definite plan to transform the exterior.

“He went on Google [for] an artist in the Shirt Factory and my number came up.

“I came and looked at it and gave him a quote and he hired me to do it. I had never met him before. I lucked out with Google.”

“Most of it is pretty much his ideas,” said Rachael. “I just helped bring it to life. I was free to decide how to do it within those parameters” the owner set.

He wanted the “old-fashioned door” as if to a “stable a horse could back into,” Rachael said.

“My favorite thing so far is the dead tree with the little opossums in it,” the owner’s specific request, she said.

Rachael, who calls herself a “Creativologist/Artist,” has a shop at The Shirt Factory. “I do painting. I do artwork. Natural gemstone jewelry. A lot of gift items, accents made of natural gemstones.”

At the Shirt Factory outside Sensibiliteas, Rachael did a nifty mural of undersea creatures that you walk through.

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