‘It was just go, go, go’
In Ellicott City, Main Street mural gets finishing touches
On one of the coldest days of 2020 so far, Antonia Ramis Miguel was bundled up with a black parka draping her shoulders and a thick turtleneck sweater underneath.
Her hands appeared cracked in the late February cold; on the tips of her fingers, there were colorful specs of leftover paint.
As she walked back and forth from her white Honda CRV — parked outside the visitors center off Main Street on Ellicott City — to her 15-foot-by-43-foot mural, her long floral skirt brushed against the frozen asphalt.
“The back of my car is this little studio. I have all the paint there, everything I need,” she said. “I park it right next to the mural because I constantly have to be getting things in and out.”
Miguel, 56, was selected in June as part of a mural competition organized by the Fund for Art in Ellicott City, a nonprofit founded in 2017 to bring public art to the community. She said she’ll be done with the finishing touches in the next few weeks.
Despite the frigid temperatures, she said she was running on a natural high.
Just a few days before, television crews filmed Miguel painting her mural, which she calls “Car Dealership: Looking into the Past.”
In late February, there was confusion and curiosity buzzing around Ellicott City with the visit of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and his crew. When Miguel found out she would be featured on the special two-hour episode of “24 Hours to Hell and Back” that will air in May, she instantly took to Facebook to share the news.
“It’s the recognition of the work. More people know me now,” said Miguel, a 16-year resident of Ellicott City.
From the time she submitted her idea to the Fund for Art in Ellicott City competition, she had a vision. Miguel looked through the spaces that were open to design an entry for and instantly said, “I like that wall.”
“It’s big — I love big,” she said of the surface on the east wall of Sweet Elizabeth Jane at 8289 Main St. “I’m always painting on large surfaces.”
While she loved the canvas she was given, she loved the story of the building even more.
It had been the site of many businesses over the years; in the 1930s, it was the Ellicott City Motor Co., a car dealership for the Ford Co.
“Thinking about what you can paint there, but then knowing that it had been a car dealership, I thought what if I can pretend the brick wall has a hole in it and we can see what’s going on inside?”
Miguel said.
Over the past few months, that vision became a reality. Using the clothing and car styles of the period, Miguel painted Ford workers working on cars as if passers-by were looking through a time machine.
“After I thought of that [idea], I thought it can’t be anything else. It has to be that,” she said.
After being selected in the competition, it was a few months until the process started. It wasn’t until mid- August that Miguel said the wall was ready to be painted. The brick of the wall had been damaged; it wasn’t a flat wall and the smoothing process took a month to dry.
She started by priming the surface and, then for the next five weeks, Miguel See MURAL, page 5
Her hands appeared cracked in the late February cold; on the tips of her fingers, there were colorful specs of leftover paint.
As she walked back and forth from her white Honda CRV — parked outside the visitors center off Main Street on Ellicott City — to her 15-foot-by-43-foot mural, her long floral skirt brushed against the frozen asphalt.
“The back of my car is this little studio. I have all the paint there, everything I need,” she said. “I park it right next to the mural because I constantly have to be getting things in and out.”
Miguel, 56, was selected in June as part of a mural competition organized by the Fund for Art in Ellicott City, a nonprofit founded in 2017 to bring public art to the community. She said she’ll be done with the finishing touches in the next few weeks.
Despite the frigid temperatures, she said she was running on a natural high.
Just a few days before, television crews filmed Miguel painting her mural, which she calls “Car Dealership: Looking into the Past.”
In late February, there was confusion and curiosity buzzing around Ellicott City with the visit of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and his crew. When Miguel found out she would be featured on the special two-hour episode of “24 Hours to Hell and Back” that will air in May, she instantly took to Facebook to share the news.
“It’s the recognition of the work. More people know me now,” said Miguel, a 16-year resident of Ellicott City.
From the time she submitted her idea to the Fund for Art in Ellicott City competition, she had a vision. Miguel looked through the spaces that were open to design an entry for and instantly said, “I like that wall.”
“It’s big — I love big,” she said of the surface on the east wall of Sweet Elizabeth Jane at 8289 Main St. “I’m always painting on large surfaces.”
While she loved the canvas she was given, she loved the story of the building even more.
It had been the site of many businesses over the years; in the 1930s, it was the Ellicott City Motor Co., a car dealership for the Ford Co.
“Thinking about what you can paint there, but then knowing that it had been a car dealership, I thought what if I can pretend the brick wall has a hole in it and we can see what’s going on inside?”
Miguel said.
Over the past few months, that vision became a reality. Using the clothing and car styles of the period, Miguel painted Ford workers working on cars as if passers-by were looking through a time machine.
“After I thought of that [idea], I thought it can’t be anything else. It has to be that,” she said.
After being selected in the competition, it was a few months until the process started. It wasn’t until mid- August that Miguel said the wall was ready to be painted. The brick of the wall had been damaged; it wasn’t a flat wall and the smoothing process took a month to dry.
She started by priming the surface and, then for the next five weeks, Miguel See MURAL, page 5
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