Easter, on the other hand, creates her “feast for the eyes” mainly with oil and acrylics, but she ventures into a variety of mediums.
“I’m a painter and illustrator, a designer and a muralist. I do work with clay. I like working three-dimensional, designing and creating pieces
like Dan and I do together, like mosaics. I pretty much like anything art and using my abilities to put it all together,” said Easter, who enjoys leaning toward the whimsical.
“I like the human form. I love drawing people, animals, horses, birds, cats, dogs, peacocks. I’ve drawn lots of food-related items and wine bottles. Eventually, I would like to go into portraits in my style,” said the Tuscaloosa, Ala., native and graduate of Gallatin High School, who earned a fine arts degree from the University of Tennessee.
Easter, who was art director for “Music City News” from 1992 to 1995, also drew illustrations for Methodist Publishing House. She likes to “paint large.”
“It’s hard for me to paint on a little canvas,” she explains. “I like to paint true to form to images. I like working with large images. If I paint small, everything gets too tight, and I can’t do that with large brush strokes. What I enjoy about painting a mural is taking a blank wall and transforming it into a large canvas.”
She has painted murals from 25 feet long to 10 feet high and one that went from floor level to 35 feet up and over the ceiling.
Her favorite medium? Well, that depends on what day you ask her.
“Right now my favorite favorite would probably be tile, but I like to work on textured surfaces. I like the way the brush feels running across the surface.”
As for where Easter and Goostree will strike next, the blacksmith says, “For now we will continue to take on commissions together and separately. We have also been developing a restaurant concept that may someday happen. Other than that, we would love to travel more, but you know, who wouldn’t.”
Easter shows her paintings in Nashville at the Eastland Grill, Urban Grub and Park Café.
The artist and blacksmith work strictly by commission. But a lot of their creative labors are strictly playing with fire and paint, which seems to flow right nicely with their creative juices.
Artists at work
To check out the handiworks of ornamental blacksmith Dan Goostree and artist, illustrator and muralist Paige Easter, go to their Web sites: goostreemetalworks.com and paigeeaster.com.
