Decorating retaining wall unites family – Wineries, events are detailed on the site
Published 6:41 pm Monday, November 24, 2008
By Cody Ellerd
Suzanne Skinner wanted to do something about the drab concrete partition wall stretching across 32 feet of her lakefront back yard on Mercer Island. A friend suggested painting a dragon. The idea stuck and the project began. Little did Suzanne know her dragon would not only brighten up her wall, but would become the good fortune to usher her family through a coming crisis.
Suzanne’s sister, Patty, arrived with her husband, Washington, D.C., artist Bradley Stevens, the first week of August for a visit. That day, Suzanne and Patty’s mother, who lives in Bellevue with their father, fell ill with a serious heart ailment. With Suzanne, Patty and their father spending all their time at the hospital, a professional painter sat at home alone with a dragon that had yet to be created.
“There was only so much I could do, besides sitting around twiddling my thumbs,” Stevens said.
He went to work, and the dragon began coming to life.
The expert quality of her brother-in-law’s initial sketches, Suzanne said, made her realize that this was to be no ordinary Chinese dragon. Its image began to awaken inspiration for many in the Skinner family — for father Joe Skinner, who had been born in a Shanghai rickshaw factory and was raised in China; for Suzanne, who lived in China for three years when her husband’s work took them there; and for their daughter Lucie, 16, who has begun studying the Chinese language at school.
As Stevens, who normally does realist portraiture and landscape painting, got deeper into his study of Chinese dragons and muralism, the family became more involved in the effort.
“The great part of this is how it became a family project while we were going through a tough time,” Patty said. “We would all be sitting in the hospital room talking about the dragon. It was therapy.”
The Skinners learned that dragons are believed by the Chinese to be protectors, symbols of perseverance and the ultimate harbingers of good fortune. They also learned that, according to tradition, dragons’ bodies are a combination of parts from nine other animals. Chinese folklore did not, however, tell them how to enlarge a notebook-sized pencil sketch and transfer it onto a 32-foot retaining wall.
While they were struggling with this, Stevens said that his wife’s father “who likes to solve problems,” took the sketch to Kinko’s and had it blown up to its maximum enlargement. He then had it blown up again and again. In all, the image was re-created to 800 times its original size. Finally, by outlining the dragon in charcoal and rubbing the enlargement as it was held up to the wall, they transferred the dragon to its permanent home.
“Each person used their strengths,” Patty said. “Dad, with his meticulousness, Brad, with his expertise.” The whole family took up paint brushes and filled in their dragon in vivid colors of red, orange and gold.
Suzanne and Patty’s mother is home now, continuing her recovery. Soon, her family will help her down the hill to the waterfront to show her the dragon she has heard so much about. Then they’ll put a paint brush in her hand, dip it in gold and tell her that this good luck dragon is dedicated to her.
