`So you’re the one doing all the painting!” exclaimed the 12-year-old boy when he spotted Marilyn Adamovic with paintbrush in hand. Adamovic nodded, then sank to her knees to add detail to a school of clownfish.
“There’s a killer whale,” said the boy’s 13-year-old brother, pointing to the black-and-white sea mammal that seemed to swim across the wall above Adamovic’s head. “It’s really an orca,” she explained as she painted, “but it’s sometimes called a killer whale because of the way it attacks.”
Clients, staffers and visitors alike are marveling at a brilliant transformation under way at Catholic Charities of Lake County on Lewis Avenue in Waukegan, thanks to Adamovic. The Deerfield artist is donating her time, talent and water-based latex paint to turn some barren walls in the agency’s second-floor reception area into a wraparound seascape.
Visitors who step off the elevator are immediately greeted by a pair of lively dolphins on the wall in front of them. Vivid foxfish, three-striped humbugs and Japanese tangs dart across a brilliant expanse of blue ocean.
The scene stretches along the west wall and extends around a corner to the north wall, where a gray shark cuts through the water and a blue-tinged swordfish appears suspended near its surface. There is no fabrication here; Adamovic meticulously researches and authenticates all the fish and mammals she includes in her mural.
To create the design, Adamovic began with a main focus–in this case, the orca whale–and then patterned the rest of the painting around it. According to her, a mural must be seen as a whole from afar. “You wouldn’t want to put this in a normal hallway, because otherwise you’d be looking into the eye of the whale,” she said.
She began the seascape last fall and has been working on it gradually as her schedule permits. When she is done, she figures it will wrap around the entire reception area and cover about 50 feet by 8 feet of wall space, leaving those who view it feeling they are being embraced by the sea.
“It’s colorful, yet quiet and soothing,” Adamovic said. “It just seemed like the perfect thing to paint in an area that would be seen by people of different ages.”
The second floor is home to the agency’s Department of Family Services, which offers foster care and adoption services, maternity counseling and foster parenting classes to county residents. Given the nature of those services, the presence of children there is common, and they can find the mural especially compelling.
“They like to feel the texture of it and see if it has any dimension,” said foster care recruiter Charlene Williamson, adding that it also can be calming for children who are anxious or upset.
“Many of the children we encounter here come from backgrounds of physical or emotional abuse or neglect,” explained Mary Clare Jakes, associate division manager of Lake County services. But, she said, the agency strives to create an environment that will help families to heal.
“The mural creates a fun, playful surrounding that can help children going through a difficult time in their lives,” Jakes explained. “Art like this may be their first real exposure to creativity.”
But children aren’t the only ones who appreciate Adamovic’s tranquil subject matter. “When it gets heavy in there,” Williamson said, pointing to her office, “we can walk out here and feel like we’re on vacation. It puts us in a relaxed mode.”
Although Adamovic has had no formal artistic training, she has been honing her craft for 20 years. Her specialities include custom borders, murals and trompe l’oeil, which creates three-dimensional illusions on flat surfaces.
The artist, who grew up near St. Paul and lived in several cities in California before moving to Deerfield almost 17 years ago, began painting murals in the office of her children’s pediatrician in California in exchange for the distribution of her business cards for her fledgling mural-painting business (Adamovic has four adult children).
Currently she charges $275 to $300 a day (seven to eight hours) to paint a scene; a 12-by-8-foot garden scene would take two to three days, depending on the detail. She usually paints five days a week just to keep up with the demands of her clients, who are generated through referrals. Occasionally she will enlist the help of her husband, Chuck, an engineering consultant, to paint areas she has sketched. The two recently spent nine hours working on the seascape together.
Adamovic’s distinctive artwork can be found in the kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms and family rooms of homes across Lake County. One Long Grove family hired her to paint 500 spectators around a 30-by-30-foot room they use to play floor hockey. A family in Deerfield had her transform a wall in their home into a rain forest.
She does commercial work as well. In 1996, for example, she was commissioned by the CHAI Lifeline Jewish service organization to paint a 16-by-7-foot carnival scene on a wall in the chemotherapy unit of Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Because many of the young patients there wear hats and scarves to hide the hair loss they experience during cancer treatments, Adamovic painted hats and scarves onto the heads of children in her mural so the patients could relate.
A small flock of painted pink flamingos grace an elevator in the Henry Crown mansion in Evanston, the result of another of Adamovic’s endeavors.
For some time, Adamovic had been interested in volunteering her talent to a long-term project that she could work on once or twice a month. Her friend Jeannie Larson of Lincolnshire suggested Catholic Charities. Larson, who is a foster mother through the agency, had seen one of Adamovic’s garden murals on a wall at the agency’s former building at 1 N. Genesee St. in Waukegan. (Adamovic had done several murals for the agency years ago).
“I called Marilyn and told her that Catholic Charities had just moved into a brand new building with nice clean walls,” Larson said with a laugh. “She’s always really busy, but she . . . got right on it. She’s a wonderful person.”
Family services director Jean Mercyak said the agency was thrilled to accept Adamovic’s offer. “(The mural) really seems to expand the space, and it’s been a wonder for the children,” she said.
Licensing supervisor Barb Crociani added that the agency would be hard-pressed to afford such a mural on its own. Had it been commissioned, Adamovic estimated that the seascape would have cost about $1,000.
Impressed by the compassion of its staff and the scope of its services, Adamovic wants to do more for the agency. Once she finishes the seascape, she plans to paint a window scene in the department’s art therapy room.
“It’s a real pleasure that she’s willing to share her gifts with us,” Crociani said, “and the mural is a gift to every person who comes in here.”
