Retired Realtor Susie Shippey had no idea she was to become an “artist.” In fact, she was the one most surprised when she\u2019d learned she\u2019d been “volunteered” by a friend to do a watercolor portrait on a utility box outside the rear entrance of Pacific Beach Earl and Birdie Taylor Library, at 4275 Cass St.
\nAbout two years ago, one of Shippey\u2019s friends in PB told her that art was being considered to adorn the library\u2019s bare-faced utility box. Shippey sent her friend samples, pictures of watercolors she was doing as a hobby, but didn\u2019t hear back for a long time.
\n“I kind of forgot about it,” Shippey said, adding she was “reminded” months later when she got an email noting she\u2019d been selected from among numerous applicants to do the rendering.
\n“I didn\u2019t even know where the box was,” Shipped admitted. “They said, \u2018It\u2019s at the library; they\u2019re looking for something beachy with sea life and books.\u2019”
\nSo Shippey got busy being creative, eventually coming up with a coastal theme featuring “crabs reading books,” brightly colored fish and other things.
\nThat work has since evolved from one utility box panel into four.
\n“I\u2019ve got two of the four done now,” Shippey said. “I\u2019m working on the third and fourth.” So far, the budding artist has put more than 20 hours into the effort.
\n“It\u2019s kind of fun,” she said while pointing out, “It\u2019s kind of a big box.”
\nShippey noted painting on a utility box has been “a learning experience.” “I kind of have to figure out some ways that I could do it more easily another time,” she added.
\nPointing out she has no “special affinity toward utility boxes,” Shippey nonetheless noted that working on a metal surface has been challenging too.
\n“I used a Rustoleum paint,” she said. “It\u2019s weird. It\u2019s like painting with glue or something. The colors are really runny, and some of the paint can be kind of thick and goopy.”
\nShippey said she hadn\u2019t done much art in 25 years but has picked it up again now that she\u2019s retired.
\nShippey\u2019s glad to have the opportunity to paint again, in whatever medium, because it’s reawakened her “inner artist.”
\n“It\u2019s rekindled something,” she said. “I\u2019ve started drawing a little more.”
\nShippey said doing art is therapeutic because “it takes your mind off everything else because you\u2019re focused. So it\u2019s a good thing.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Retired Realtor Susie Shippey had no idea she was to become an “artist.” In fact, she was the one most surprised when she\u2019d learned she\u2019d been “volunteered” by a friend to do a watercolor portrait on a utility box outside the rear entrance of Pacific Beach Earl and Birdie Taylor Library, at 4275 Cass St. […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":267996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Retired Realtor becomes utility artist in Pacific Beach","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}