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summer 2001 : arts

mural in Maison et Cadeaux by Martine Drackett. photo by David N. Seelig

Magic in Murals

Decorative Painting in the Home

by Pat Murphy

Martine Drackett’s earliest recollection of trying her hand at art was as a child in Paris. She was handed paper and pencil by her mother, Janine Montupet, who needed quiet while writing historical novels and used the paper-and-pencil ploy to keep her daughter occupied.

The setting proved to be more profoundly influential than either Martine or her mother realized at the time: Martine sketched on paper while subconsciously absorbing her mother’s work as a novelist.

Martine, today an accomplished professional muralist and designer of fabric and wallpaper, has brought her impressive range of skills to the Wood River Valley.

And befitting the years she watched her mother writing novels, Martine has sold her first novel (in French), “Un Peu, Beaucoup, Passionnement” (“A Little, a Lot, Passionately”), a comedy set in France and the United States.

Like mother, like daughter.

Martine Drackett at home with two friends. photo by David N. SeeligOne other of Martine’s artistic skills, of sorts, is worth mentioning.

She and her husband, Dan, a would-be screen writer and former co-owner of a Phoenix advertising agency, bought five old Vermont barns, had them disassembled and moved ’cross country to acreage south of Ketchum. The old barns and their white oak, chestnut and hemlock wood were reassembled to become skeletons for their new home, a rustic showcase of eclectic modern and antique furnishings. 

While Dan writes screenplays in one wing, and Martine’s mother Janine, now 82 and still a novelist, and father, Jean, 93, occupy another wing, Martine has a separate detached two-story studio—like an oversized playhouse—where she sketches mural ideas and, on the upper level, works as an author.

And there’s plenty of room for visits by the four children (ages 17 to 22) from their two marriages.

After stops in Phoenix, Arizona, (where she lived for 15 years and met Dan, her second husband) and briefly in Cincinnati (where they lived for five years), she and Dan moved to the Wood River Valley permanently after visiting Sun Valley off and on for 20 years.

Although a ski resort town might seem to offer limited opportunities for a muralist, the opposite is true: Martine has found one commission after another to busy herself.
One of her first was for Marcelle West, owner of Maison et Cadeaux (House and Gifts) on Sun Valley Road in Ketchum.

On walls that might otherwise have featured routine shop decorations, Martine has painted the elements of a French garden with an arbor and vines, giving shoppers the immediate feeling of being in a quiet retreat.

detail of the mural in the chapel at St. Luke's, by Martine Drackett. photo by David N. SeeligShe also did a series of wall paintings for the small chapel of the new St. Luke’s Wood River Medical Center. To maintain a non-sectarian motif, she painted a series of tranquil mountain scenes seen through mural “windows” whose frames are made of arched aspen limbs. She donated the work to the hospital.

Other commissions have included a guest bedroom and kitchen of a large home, where she artfully has called on nature for decorative use of trees and flowers painted on walls.

She has worked on a project, now on hold, to decorate a child’s bedroom with an “Alice in Wonderland” theme.

“The idea is to walk into this bedroom as if you’re walking into a story book,” Martine explained. “There must be magic in it.”

Occasionally, she’s been sidetracked from painting walls: She painted invitations for the Crisis Nursery when living in Phoenix, she’s decorated an armoire with paintings, and she painted a statue of a Labrador retriever to be sold to benefit the Animal Shelter of the Wood River Valley.

Her mural art didn’t come as a happenstance. Martine studied art in Paris, first at the Ecole Superieure d’Arts Graphiques, then as a student of Paul Colin, who painted posters for the great jazz era singer and American expatriate Josephine Baker. Later, Martine designed fabrics for Pierre Frey.

Out of this came a period when she designed and painted wallpaper mostly for children. She used acrylics on heavy paper.

Why murals, and why murals especially in a home?

“It adds refinement,” Martine says quickly. 

“A mural is restful. It gives life to a wall, and an opening to a new place.”

In words that almost create a fantasy, she says, “You can lose yourself in a big image.” 

She maintains a pace of five to eight hours most days, always drawing. At 50, Martine’s youthful energy is obvious in her fast-paced but not hurried speech and as she moves briskly when touring a visitor in her home.
“But I must have tea and music,” she adds brightly, while she works to establish a tranquil atmosphere.

Her approach to each commission is the same—meticulous.

She measures the wall area where she’ll paint a mural—she calls murals “decorative painting”—then retires to her studio where she sketches and sketches until she finds what the client wants.

Then she shows up at the client’s place, first sketching the mural in charcoal and then painting the finished scenic, usually acrylics on plaster.

Martine’s work inevitably includes a range of images that are restful or playful and bright—gardens, angels, landscapes, birds. It’s no accident that occasionally blue hydrangea show up in her murals—“my favorite flower.”

Martine Drackett paints a pooch for an Animal Shelter of the Wood River Valley benefit. photo by David N. Seelig“Painting on a wall makes me dream,” she says wistfully.
Most of the army of dog owners in the Wood River Valley will be drawn to one of Martine’s personal design projects—a weathervane on the roof of her studio.

It’s a metal cutout of her late little dog, Muffin, adorned with wings.

“My little angel dog,” she says mournfully.


A Lab-yrinth of 
Painted Pooches

by Dana DuGan

Wildlife is a more familiar site in these parts than public art, however, this year large painted Labrador retrievers are on display in the Wood River Valley, painted by artists, local and from afar.

Chicago and New York had their “Cows,” Cincinnati had “Pigs,” and New Orleans their “Fish.” 

Two local animal activists Lyn Stallard and Terry Tischer felt dogs, or in this case Labs, were a natural for the Wood River Valley. 

“We love ideas. I said to Lyn, we have to do this,” Tischer explained. “Our two passions are animals, it was a natural event for us to do.” 

Lyn Stallard started the Animal Shelter of the Wood River Valley nearly 30 years ago, and Tischer joined the Animal Shelter board two years ago. They recognized in each other a sister in ideas and action. 

The Labs will be auctioned off at a party in October, and the money raised will go to several local charities. “They’ll make great patio pieces,” Stallard said.

It’s apparent that this is a rare merging of art and commerce. What has been unexpected in the cities where these whimsical animals have been designed and displayed is a constant conversation that takes place around them. 
Already artist Mary Roberson has painted “Labitat”—a play on the habitat paintings for which she is known.

Other Labs to keep an eye out for include “Dental Lab,” “Lab Attack,” “CeLabrity,” “Dear Labbie,” “Lab-racadabra,” and “Labotomy.” It’s simply hi-Lab-rious.