Louise Moorman’s work has provided a backdrop for such Hollywood luminaries as Robert DeNiro, Bill Murray and Jim Belushi.
It also has graced the walls of homeowners from Morris to Minooka, from Carol Stream to Bolingbrook and Romeoville.
Moorman, 47, of Seneca specializes in transforming plain walls into grand, detailed scenes. In painting a mural, she finds herself captivated by her creations.
“When I’m painting, hours can go by, but to me it seems like just minutes. I lose all track of time. It’s like slipping into another world. I feel most relaxed and content when I’m painting, and it makes me happy,” Moorman said. “I can escape into my imagination and add my own touches to the work I’m doing. I think of paradise when I work on the murals.”
Moorman’s medium is acrylic paint, which she wields to produce shading that suggests three-dimensional realism. An example can be found at Maria’s Restaurant in Morris, where owner Ozzie Dzelil, in search of some Italian ambience, commissioned Moorman to create Italian landscapes within the arches on one of his restaurant’s large walls. It took her nearly four months to complete vivid scenes of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Colosseum and Venice’s romantic Grand Canal.
“We closed off the section of the restaurant where Louise was working, but the customers could see what she was doing,” Dzelil said. “They all enjoyed watching her work. It was very entertaining watching this woman with such talent.”
Dzelil was so impressed with Moorman’s work that he asked her to create an 18-by-31-foot landscape on the living room wall of his new home. He gave her a general idea of what he wanted and trusted Moorman enough to give her artistic free rein. The finished product, six weeks in the making, features marbled columns framing a brick pathway that meanders through lush greenery beneath a pale blue sky.
“The effect is like looking outdoors at the beautiful Italian countryside,” Dzelil explained. “We get all kinds of compliments on it.”
Moorman recently revamped the interior decor at the Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Romeoville.
“Louise is really good at creating images in a 3-D effect. She painted a beautiful water scene with birds and columns for our baptismal area that looks very real,” said Armand LaValle, assistant manager of the hall.
He said that Moorman also painted faux floor tiles that include a few cracks to match the existing tiles surrounding the baptismal fountain.
“We’ve got some guys that install flooring who are members of our organization, and they keep asking if they can repair the cracks for us. They look that realistic,” LaValle said.
Moorman charges from $10 to $30 a square foot for her mural work, depending on the amount of detail. She also paints portraits, landscapes and Renaissance scenes (priced at around $300), though the murals are her favorite creations.
She has had no formal training, and her work is all done freehand. Before each job, she draws a few sketches on paper to give her clients an idea of what she’ll produce, then sets to work with paint and brush.
Moorman is a shy, soft-spoken woman who blushes easily when she speaks of her accomplishments, including a stint as a set artist for Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures films made in Chicago. In 1990, she painted sets for “Curly Sue” and “Mad Dog and Glory.”
Robert Knight, Moorman’s 43-year-old brother, works as a head set artist in Hollywood and hired his sister to create the murals and the background scenery for the two films.
“Louise is a fantastic talent. I have yet to see such incredibly detailed work in anyone else I’ve worked with. I’m not just saying that because she’s my sister either. She’s able to put life into her murals, and the amazing thing about her is that she continually gets better and better. Her abilities are natural. I know she could make a fortune if she did this (movie work) full time,” said Knight from his home in California.
One of the scenes in “Curly Sue” took place at Ronny’s Steak Palace on Randolph Street in Chicago, where Moorman painted eight murals.
“We kept the murals on our walls even after they finished filming because they really add something nice to our place. People are always making compliments about them and asking who painted them,” said Rajai Omar, manager of Ronny’s.
Other movie sets were built within a large warehouse, and Moorman helped transform bare plywood into elaborate rooms with faux finishes that included marbleized columns; stark wood floors were painted to resemble expensive marble.
Her work was so well received that Knight asked his sister to move to California to continue painting movie sets, but she declined.
“Painting for movies requires 12-hour workdays, and some may even be longer than that. It takes up your whole life, and I just didn’t want to do that,” she explained. “The hours just drained me.”
Moorman said her short-lived career as a set artist resulted in invitations to movie screenings and the chance to meet Bill Murray and Robert DeNiro, “really nice guys.”
Another of Moorman’s achievements is the portrait work that has drawn the attention of such celebrities as Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. She and her husband, David, met Nelson when he performed in Joliet in 1992. He invited the Moormans into his tour bus, where he purchased two of her portraits of him.
“Johnny Cash first spotted the portraits we were selling at the concert and told Willie to come take a look,” Moorman said. “He bought them and told me he was going to give them to his wife for a present. I felt really excited about that.”
Nelson gave the Moormans a lifetime backstage pass, which she keeps on a keychain.
She has sold some of her other portraits to celebrities, including Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Mickey Gilley, Barbara Mandrell and Dolly Parton. (“I was going through a country-western phase at the time,” Moorman explained.)
In 1983, Moorman also drew an officially licensed poster for the White Sox featuring left fielder Ron Kittle, who liked the poster so much that he ordered 300 of them. Later in 1984, Anheuser-Busch called on Moorman’s talents for a Cubs poster that was distributed to bars and liquor stores..
Moorman traces her talent to her mother, Kimie Knight of Chicago, whom she describes as a skilled painter who lacked the chance to use her talent professionally.
“My mother always wanted to be an artist. She’s very talented,” Moorman says. “She had seven kids and couldn’t find the time to pursue that for herself.”
Her mother recognized her daughter’s talent at an early age, and Moorman said it worked to her advantage that her mother didn’t influence her artistic style. During high school, her teachers took notice of her talent and encouraged her to pursue art as a profession.
In 1970, Moorman married David, who worked for Metra before injuring his back two years ago. He describes himself as her spokesman.
“Since she’s shy, I try to handle the business part of her work,” he said.
Louise and David have three married children: Julie White, 26, of Morris; David, 24, of Coal City; and Rachel Raddatz, 20, of Joliet. They also have a 6-year-old son, Michael.
The talent seems to have passed down through yet another generation, because Rachel paints, sometimes with her mother, and is a talented Chinese paper cutter, a craft that involves creating intricate designs with a razor. Michael already shows signs of artistic talent as well.
As for Moorman, she’ll be happy just to keep painting murals.
“She’d paint the whole world if she could!” said her husband. “And she’d make it beautiful too.”
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To contact Louise Moorman, call 815-357-8455.
