Artist of the Week	Lori Desormeaux by Lauren N. Maynard

(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Why you should know who she is: The versatile and creative Lori Desormeaux has been a painter and interior designer for 15 years (not decorator—she doesn’t do pillows). Her beautiful and intricate design projects and commissioned artwork can be found on the walls of residential homes, and in commercial and retail spaces throughout the Buffalo area. She bases her business, Lori Desormeaux Decorative Arts, out of her home studio in a Black Rock house that she is carefully renovating from top to bottom, but she has also worked with clients in Florida and New York City. In 2004, her work was featured on the cover of Builder/Architect magazine, a career highlight. Her “bread and butter” is fine artistic wall finishes, like painted marbleizing and textural effects on plaster, but by far her favorite and most stunning creations are her large-scale landscape murals and frescoes as well as glass and tile mosaics. Each project is painstakingly done by hand; she mixes all of her colors and cuts her own glass, using local suppliers whenever possible. Her work can be seen online at www.loridesormeaux.com.

Hometown: Syracuse, NY

Education: B.S. in design from SUNY Buffalo State College

Were you an artistic child? “Yes… I was always drawing. My grandfather worked at a paper mill, so he’d bring home unlimited quantities of paper. It never seemed like enough, no matter how much he gave me.”

How did you discover the decorative arts? “After college I thought about what I wanted to do with my degree, and began working for an decorative painter. From there I learned a lot about interior design, and in 2001 I started my own business.”

How do you find clients? “Through word of mouth, mostly.”

Current project: A mural for the board room at CTG, a business located in the Knox Mansion on Delaware Avenue.

Where else you can see her work: In the chef’s room of 800 Maple, a new restaurant in Amherst.

Best part of the job: “Making my own schedule, and the creativity of the work.”

On her mural-making process: Desormeaux usually paints on canvas in her studio, then uses adhesive to affix the mural to the client’s wall. “Then the mural can be moved, changed or saved if the client decides to move. And I’d hate to be there painting away while people are having dinner… at the studio, if I want to work at midnight, I work at midnight.”

Who comes up with the designs, you or the client? “People have an idea of what they want, but they usually give me free rein to be creative. I come up with the designs and give the client a presentation of several to choose from. Then I paint the chosen design to scale, using lots of design, painting and architecture books in my studio as reference.”

Most challenging project to date: “I think it’s this current project, which is a mural of the Knox Mansion, in the mansion itself. It’s intense, beautiful architecture, it’s not free-form. I think painting architcture is difficult. But there are a lot of books and information online about Buffalo architecture, which is helpful.”

What’s more important to you: color or design? “To me, a project is only as good as the color used in it. I guess I’m known for my use of color… people always comment on it about my work or when they see colors I’ve used in my house. I like to mix my own colors rather than use pre-mixed.”

Favorite design tool: “I’d have to say the pencil. I’ve always loved sketching, and I can do it quickly.”

Artistic pet peeve: “That people think it’s easy… that I’m just having fun. It’s fun, creative work, but it can be very difficult, especially the architectural painting. But I like that challenge the most, really—trying to figure out how to fit a design into a given space, how to paint architectural details accurately.”

Strangest job: “One woman asked me to paint a mural inside her shower, which was inside a customized R.V. She was a high-powered real-estate agent and loved to take the little free time she had to jump in the R.V. and go camping.”

What was the design? “It was a landscape… mountains, I believe. I had to use special canvas and paint that wouldn’t get ruined by water. It turned out really well.”