BELLVILLE, Ohio – As Christmas music fell from the speakers inside Brumby’s Coffeehouse and Pizzeria recently, Clear Fork sophomore Chauntzy Schuiling sipped on a vanilla latte and sat by one of the shop’s windows.
Fittingly, those windows display her latest work. Her paintings include the Grinch, a pizza, and coffee, among other items, with “Merry Christmas” in large letters.
The 15-year-old artist did the work as part of the Clear Fork Holiday Window Painting Contest – one of two notable art projects she has been involved with in the last several months. The other is painting a portion of the mural on the Happy Grape Wine Bar and Bistro’s wall in Lexington.
Because of her work, Schuiling’s name is now becoming part of the area art scene.
“It makes me really, really happy,” she said of her artwork noticed.
“I didn’t expect for anybody to find out about this except me – (the Happy Grape) is two towns over for heaven’s sake – but I’m just really happy.”
Because of that recognition, Teri Brenkus, office manager at Possum Run Greenhouse, sought out Chauntzy to take part in the Clear Fork window contest, which Brenkus organized.
Shuiling chose to do a Grinch theme on the storefront at Brumby’s.
“I came up with the Grinch idea myself, but they did ask me to do a happy Grinch with a cup of coffee,” she said.
The Clear Fork Window Painting Contest is sponsored by the Clear Fork Valley Chamber of Commerce and ends Dec. 31.
Painting the windows at Brumby’s spanned two days, Shuiling said. The lettering in ‘”Merry Christmas” took the longest.
She also did some of the window painting at First-Knox National Bank.
THE HAPPY GRAPE: In September, Shuiling and other local artists shared their talent with the Happy Grape, painting a Victorian-era teapot on the wall facing the bar’s outside patio.
Schuiling’s mother, Rachel, said the Schuiling family was at the Happy Grape one day when she asked their waitress about the mural on the wall. After explaining to Rachel what the mural was, the waitress told the family that it gets redone every September.
“So I asked, ‘Can my daughter do it?’” Rachel said. “She said, ‘Yes.’”
Rain fell on the day the mural was to be done, delaying the start. In turn, that scenario almost kept Chauntzy from doing it at all.
“When we got home (from the rain delay), she didn’t want to go any longer,” Rachel said of her daughter. “She got cold feet.”
Rachel, however, made her daughter follow through.
“I sort of panicked going in there the first time,” Chauntzy said. “But I’m glad I was forced.”
At first, Chauntzy said she was going to paint a koi fish because that is what she goes to when she has artist’s block, which she happened to have leading up to the event.
“And I got the idea of a teapot, so I was going to have a koi fish coming out of a Chinese-style teapot,” she said. “But the Chinese teapots, they’re not very pretty – they’re pretty plain.”
So Chauntzy decided to do a Victorian-style teapot instead – similar to what is in “Alice in Wonderland,” which she cited as her favorite book.
“I didn’t think a koi fish would look good coming out of a Victorian teapot, considering they’re from two different parts of the world,” she said.
The Victorian teapot Chauntzy painted is white on a black background. Steam pours out from the spout, and in the steam are tiny women who appear to be flying away.
“It was supposed to be a big woman in steam coming out of the teapot, but she wasn’t going to fit, so I made it a bunch of little women,” she said.
BROADER STROKES: Though skilled with a brush, Chauntzy said she “isn’t much of a drawer.” She prefers to make digital art paint, beginning to hone her skills during her freshman year in Art I.
“I was sort of stressed out because I’d never liked painting before,” she said. “We started out with the basic acrylic paint on white paper – nothing fancy – and I stressed out about it because I had never been good at painting before, and I realized that I was so much better with a paintbrush than a pencil.
“It just sort of comes naturally to me.”
Rachel said Chauntzy, who turns 16 on Christmas Day, has been creative with art since a young age.
“And then she just went leaps and bounds with the iPad – that’s what really got her going,” she said.
With the iPad, Chauntzy said she found unlimited color and tools.
Chauntzy said she uses art to vent, and because of that, she is not sure she wants to pursue it as a career.
“I would like to keep art for myself – that’s how it started,” she said.
In the meantime, she plans to take as many art classes as possible.
One of Chauntzy’s favorite artists is Claude Monet. Outside of doing art, she plays piano and trumpet in the Colts Marching Band.
Chauntzy is the daughter of Michael and Rachel Schuiling, of Butler. Rachel, who was born and raised in Butler, works at Knox Community Hospital, while Michael is chief of Delaware County Emergency Medical Services. Chauntzy also has a brother, Piersen, who is 12.
“I didn’t expect for anybody to find out about this except me – [the Happy Grape] is two towns over for heaven’s sake – but I’m just really happy,” said Chauntzy Schuiling
