Putnam: 21st-century artists keep up Capitol's decorative paint in 19th-century style

LANSING – Two modern-day artists are using 19th-century techniques this summer, including mixing beer into pigment, to faux paint woodgrain on trim in the Capitol’s top floor.

The Capitol, which opened in 1879, is known for its nine acres of hand-painted surfaces. You might see rich-looking trim throughout the building, but it is plain pine and cast iron painted to look like more expensive Tennessee marble and English walnut.

It's arguably the best example of Victorian decorative painting around, said Barb Thumudo, assistant director of facility operations for the Capitol Commission, which oversees the building.

And that decorative paint helped earn the Lansing building designation as a National Historic Landmark.

“You’d be hard pressed to go anywhere else and find this much decorative paint in one place. It is a lost art. It really is a jewel for the state,” Thumudo said.

She supervises the decorative artists who are extending the English walnut woodgrain paint visible in the rest of the building to the fourth floor.

Joshua Risner has worked as the Capitol's master decorative painter since January 2016.

His apprentice, Anthony Cairo, has perfected a technique to paint the pine doors, trim and paneling on the fourth floor. He uses seven painstaking layers to make the trim look like walnut.

He's been practicing and perfecting his technique for more than a year, finding the right brushes, materials and layers to match the 19th century work done elsewhere in the building.

The fourth floor of the Capitol has public committee rooms but is more off the beaten path than the lower floors. In fact, the earliest decorative painters never made it to the fourth floor.

Decorative paint was first added there during the 1989-1992 restoration of the Capitol, Thumudo said. And it was more of a place for artists to practice before moving on to more public areas.

During the restoration, the first efforts to recreate the Capitol’s decorative paint were disappointing and a contractor had to bring in Scottish artists to show how it was done, Thumudo said.

To keep up the decorative paint, the state hired Bill Finch, the original master decorative painter, in 1991. He held the job until 2010. That role wasn't filled again for six years, though the state had a tradesman working on the building.

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No record

No one left a written record on how it was done.

Much of that woodgrain practice paint from the 1989 restoration remains on the fourth floor. Some areas don’t have woodgrain at all with just a base coat of paint.

Risner points to some of the paneling on the fourth floor that he said is more like a hobbyist staining the wood than the faux decorative paint.

Capitol lore has it that beer was used, and Cairo was able to recreate that, settling on a combination of Guinness Extra Stout and raw umber pigment.

The artists tried 20 raw umber and burnt sienna pigments from around the world before finding the right one from Cyprus.

“It’s like finding gold,” Cairo said, when they got the right color.

The woodgraining requires a base oil coat, followed by a “ticking” of beer mixed with pigment.

Cairo uses a damp brush to create a graining effect in the beer-and-pigment mix.

After the graining, layers of transparent glaze are applied. It's a slow process. A pair of doors recently finished took two weeks of work, he said.

The pair are taking a break from their usual work of repairing cracks, nicks, chips and banged up walls throughout the building because of an ongoing project to upgrade electrical and mechanical systems.

The fourth floor’s decorative paint quality, or lack of, has bothered the artists.

“I’ve been so itching to take care of that,” said Cairo, 25, who grew up in the Detroit area.

He met Risner, while he was earning a degree at Kendall College of Art and Design where Risner, 42, earned his master of fine arts. Risner is a Ohio native who started his career painting signs.

Eye for color

Risner said that Cairo has an extraordinary eye for color and is able to do the difficult work of matching color and sheen to repair paint that’s more than a century old.

Thumudo said that's important in keeping as much of the original paint as possible. She estimates about half of the Capitol's paint is original.

“In the past we’ve had really obvious touchups that didn’t match that really stood out,” Thumudo noted.

Risner’s been turning over more of the decorative paint work to Cairo as he takes on portrait painting. 

The Capitol lacked a dozen portraits of the state’s 48 governors. Risner has painted two of them as well as the first black lawmaker and the first female lawmaker.

Risner said he and Cairo often field questions from Capitol visitors while they work. He’s talked to the tour guides about creating a special tour for art lovers, tentatively set for the fall.

He said the work at the Capitol combines art with crafts that have been forgotten over time.

“I love that that’s something this building promotes,” Risner said.

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Follow her on twitter @judyputnam.