Retired Realtor Susie Shippey had no idea she was to become an “artist.” In fact, she was the one most surprised when she’d learned she’d 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.
About two years ago, one of Shippey’s friends in PB told her that art was being considered to adorn the library’s bare-faced utility box. Shippey sent her friend samples, pictures of watercolors she was doing as a hobby, but didn’t hear back for a long time.
“I kind of forgot about it,” Shippey said, adding she was “reminded” months later when she got an email noting she’d been selected from among numerous applicants to do the rendering.
“I didn’t even know where the box was,” Shipped admitted. “They said, ‘It’s at the library; they’re looking for something beachy with sea life and books.’”
So Shippey got busy being creative, eventually coming up with a coastal theme featuring “crabs reading books,” brightly colored fish and other things.
That work has since evolved from one utility box panel into four.
“I’ve got two of the four done now,” Shippey said. “I’m working on the third and fourth.” So far, the budding artist has put more than 20 hours into the effort.
“It’s kind of fun,” she said while pointing out, “It’s kind of a big box.”
Shippey 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.
Pointing out she has no “special affinity toward utility boxes,” Shippey nonetheless noted that working on a metal surface has been challenging too.
“I used a Rustoleum paint,” she said. “It’s weird. It’s like painting with glue or something. The colors are really runny, and some of the paint can be kind of thick and goopy.”
Shippey said she hadn’t done much art in 25 years but has picked it up again now that she’s retired.
Shippey’s glad to have the opportunity to paint again, in whatever medium, because it’s reawakened her “inner artist.”
“It’s rekindled something,” she said. “I’ve started drawing a little more.”
Shippey said doing art is therapeutic because “it takes your mind off everything else because you’re focused. So it’s a good thing.”