Today’s blog post is the first in a three-part series about the painting “Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” Part 1 is the inspiration, part 2 is the development of the real-life gingerbread/frosting model, part 3 is the painting process.
“Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” will be part of my March 2026 exhibition at Hidell Brooks Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Please contact Hidell Brooks to schedule a viewing.
Where I Grew Up
Before I show you the process of painting the four-foot-long trompe l’oeil piece “Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” — my most complicated painting ever — I think I need to tell you about the beautiful neighborhood where I grew up. It’s not that I literally painted any part of my old neighborhood, but I did try to capture some of what it felt like to grow up there. If you only have time to read one sentence about it today, this is the most significant one:
While I am quite sure that there were occasional neighborly spats and disagreements, and while I know that everyone struggled with normal daily stresses, I choose to remember most those beautiful moments, where, in my childhood mind, everyone in the world got along and just wanted everyone else to be happy.
Once Upon a Time
Once upon a time, several decades ago, I lived in a beautiful smalltown neighborhood with my mom, my dad and my younger sister. Although there were a handful of kids down the street and beyond, almost all of my immediate neighbors were elderly women. For the sake of anonymity, I’ll call them: Ms. M., Mrs. H., Mrs. Z., and Mrs. S. My great-grandmother lived in the neighborhood for 50 years before I’d arrived, in a 120-ish-year-old home where, eventually, my family lived.
When I was very young, we lived in a smaller, newer home just behind my great-grandmother’s home. My great-grandmother was an excellent baker. When I was as young as 3 years old, I’d go over to her house to bake with her. I loved baking with my great-grandmother. I can remember once when there was a terrible storm, and my baking date was cancelled. I was so sad. I pressed my little three-year-old nose and hands to the back sliding glass and stared through the rain across the yard to the window of my great-grandmother’s kitchen, wondering if she was in there baking without me.
Once we moved into great-grandmother’s big house several years later, I began to get to know the neighbors a bit more. Mrs. M. used to come over and push me on my swing set, while reciting Robert Frost poems to me:
How do I like to go up in a swing
Up in the air so blue
Oh I do think it’s the pleasantest thing
Ever a child could do
Mrs. H. was also a cookie baker, and I remember visiting her small, neatly arranged kitchen that led out to her backyard, just to pick up cookies or some other baked item.
Mrs. Z. had a collection of antiques. We rarely went in her house, but when we did, she was quite proud to show them off.
Sometimes I thought it was strange, living in a neighborhood with few children directly nearby, but I do wonder how much the kindness and maturity of these neighbors helped to influence my upbringing.
A Bit About the Town
The town where I lived was a former coal-mining town, in a peaceful small valley area an hour beyond the city of Pittsburgh. There was a river that ran through it, with a big bridge, and a lovely downtown area full of small shops and businesses with architecture that dated back to the 19th century.
My home was within walking distance of the downtown, several small churches, the gymnasium that used to belong to the old high school (where my parents met before it was torn down) and the park.
The town hosted an annual community festival, whose location migrated from downtown to the park in my neighborhood in later years, and played host to lots of food and craft vendors, carnival games and a few rides, plus a stage with live entertainment, including the occasional big-name “oldies” band. I loved hearing the sounds of the stage in the background and seeing all of the happy folks laughing and talking, or just watching the elderly ladies of town visiting with each other or perusing the vendor tables, often dressed up and carrying fancy purses, almost like they were headed to church.
Every Halloween, the town held a big parade downtown on the Saturday afternoon before (or on) Halloween, which preceded everyone treat-or-treating in Saturday afternoon daylight, in a fairly orderly procession through the neighborhoods. There was costume judging by a town committee, and at the end of the parade each child would walk through the fire department and receive — as a reward for participating — a cookie, an orange drink and a 50-cent piece, before beginning their trick-or-treating. My mom always helped my sister and me with our costumes, and for several years, we joined up with some other families to portray groups, like the Wizard of Oz characters. (And yes, we usually won prizes!)
The town also hosted a “light-up” night each year for the holiday season. There was always hot chocolate and donut holes for sale, and I can remember loving the new gift shops that had popped up and occasionally picking out a little decorative item for the holidays. There was often a live nativity scene (one year, I was an angel, though it was the year I had a perm, so let’s just say that was less than ideal). I have a particularly strong memory of a live donkey stubbornly standing on the railroad tracks, with someone desperately trying to pull him forward.
While I am quite sure that there were occasional neighborly spats and disagreements, and while I know that everyone struggled with normal daily stresses, I choose to remember most those beautiful moments, where, in my childhood mind, everyone in the world got along and just wanted everyone else to be happy.
The Mister Rogers Thing
In addition to drawing inspiration from my childhood, I titled the painting “Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” in part to pay homage to the wonderful Mister Rogers. He was from the Pittsburgh area as well, and I always took pride in that. My favorite part of the show was the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe” segment, and maybe that comes through a bit in the painting — just this bright, sunny colorful place where everything is a bit exaggerated and fantastic, and you can always expect something magical to show up around the corner.
The Design and Painting Process
In the next post, I’ll dive into how I designed this piece by spending nearly a week baking and decorating a real-life cookie model, and then almost 400 hours of non-stop painting. It was the most intense painting experience I’ve ever had, but I do feel like I captured something a bit magical here, and I’m ready to explore this type of work more.
Thanks for sharing in some of my memories today! Back to painting!
Kim T.
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