Artist creates makes furniture her canvas

WADESBORO — “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” and Monica Ann followed the less traveled path for her own success and happiness.

The artist excitedly showed off her hand-painted pieces in her home in Wadesboro. She moved to Wadesboro in 2018 from the bustling stress of Chicago living. Now in a small southern town, Monica Ann has freedom to do what she loves: paint furniture; a unique and fitting talent for someone who never followed a traditional path.

Monica Ann is a self-taught acrylic and mixed media artist and for the past eight years she has found inspiration in personalizing furniture.

Walking into her new home feels like entering a gallery. Two couches sit across from each other, painted with words and silhouettes of Romeo and Juliet. Paintings are hung all over the walls. Your eyes don’t know where to look next as every piece of furniture is covered in her art from the stenciling on the ceiling to her hand-painted Chicago-themed drawers.

This was her dream when she and her husband bought the house in June of 2020: she wanted to transform the 100-year-old plain white house into a living gallery. Once COVID-19 restrictions loosen, she plans on opening her house for people to come see her work.

Every piece of furniture is completely unique, even down to her colorful paintbrushes with faces on the handles.

Monica only rediscovered her talent in the past eight years.

“My parents brought me up to appreciate art and classical music and opera,” Monica Ann said. “That was their thing.”

She played around with painting and drawing as a child, but the pressure from her German parents forced her to throw out her art supplies, never to return until recently.

“Don’t push me!” Monica remembers saying to her parents as a child.

Instead she dabbled in cooking for a while. She entered into the military as a cook when she was 18. She eventually went into the hospitality industry, working her way up to general manager and then opened a private chef service in Chicago with her husband.

“That became a full-time day, 365 days together,” Monica said. “We survived the recession by rebranding and refocusing on what people could afford.”

Her cooking expertise landed her on Food Network’s “Chopped” twice.

Now, her artwork is doing the talking.

“This is the perfect balance right now,” Monica said. “Being able to do what I want to do in the studio and still have a normal job…Sometimes trying to find that balance a few years ago was really hard. Now its just really easy.”

Since moving to Wadesboro, she hasn’t felt the stress or pressure to create her pieces of art or showcase it at shows.

“This is a very laid-back southern approach to ‘We’ll get to it,’” Monica said.

She’s showcased her unique pieces in galleries before, including The Drake Gallery in Wadesboro, as well as in Chicago and throughout the Midwest. But looking ahead, she wants to do multi-day shows.

Until then, her mornings are spent hunting down new furniture pieces on Facebook Market Place.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for sometimes, but I’ll know when I see it,” she said. “There was one yesterday…I was salivating over that bad boy! I was ready to drive to Charlotte for it.”

Depending on what pieces she finds, it could be added to her house collection or she will try and sell the piece. She believes she is done with the house and is ready to show it off, but like many of her pieces, she may scratch everything and start completely over.

Her process of painting can take anywhere from a few days to even a year. One piece in particular she let sit in the corner, unsure of what figure should go on its face. Sometimes a piece of furniture will speak to her especially loudly and she will finish it in days.

Monica will search through Pinterest for different artists. She’ll contact the artist for permission to use a painting and then take the painting’s print and add it to a furniture’s face.

In the dining room, there is a side table with three drawers and a picture of two classic woman. The picture is from a California artist. She added to a photo once she was given permission and then expanded the piece by hand-painting details. Monica added stenciling to raise the piece and give it a three-dimensional look.

“We don’t have anything that is new here,” Monica said. “Like we don’t have nice furniture, but we have nice furniture.”

Since she is constantly working on a piece, Monica often times is turning to local shops and people to help with hardware or to purchase specific paints. She has her go-to people in the area.

“I go in Little’s and they’re like, ‘What are you working on today?’” Monica laughed.

Her pieces are durable and yes, even a painted leather couch is still very comfortable. At art shows in the past, she would jump up on her painted furniture and do a little dance just to show nothing scuffs.

Monica said it finally feels like home. Her and her husband fell in love with Wadesboro when they moved. Their house is finally coming together and their three rescue dogs are running around happily.

“Both of us moved around so much through our careers,” Monica said. “This is nice to finally settle and find that this is it. It is nice to un-box the boxes we haven’t unpacked for years.”

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” and the Chicago gal found herself creating art in small-town Wadesboro a path she’s found to be way more fun than the “more traveled” one.