When the girls came home with $27 after a particularly lucrative afternoon (especially since the stones were priced from a nickel to a quarter), an artist was born. Of course the $27 included a few tips.

By age 12, her plan was to be an author/illustrator of children’s books – a dream that came to fruition recently as Kirwen illustrated the whimsical storybook God Picked Me, written by her friend Louise Andreae.

After achieving a degree in fine arts from Central Michigan University, where she was instructed to embrace a “style,” Kirwen walked a winding artistic road, but never felt completely at ease, as she kept searching for that style.

The mural in the dining room at Kitty O’Reillys Irish Pub.

Bethany and husband Scott Kirwen were, for seven years, successful puppeteers, creating Kirwen’s Kids Puppet troupe, composed of hand-made, child-size puppets dressed in children’s clothing. Following next was a contract painting business, Paint a New Image, specializing in faux finishes and custom murals.

But now, Kirwen has truly begun to live her philosophy, which she summed up while we visited Kitty O’Reillys Irish Pub in Sturgeon Bay to discuss her beautiful customized mural that dominates the dining room. “If someone sees something in my art that inspires or sparks them,” she says, “this is my dream.”

When Buster and Amy Crook renovated the former Stein tavern two years ago, a group of relatives, pals and craftsmen labored with them to rehab the old building, while Kirwen spent around 120 hours crawling on scaffoldings and hauling painting equipment in order to meticulously render a mural that combines old Sturgeon Bay (populated by friends and family of both client and artist) and an Irish landscape in the background,

“People comment on that mural all the time,” says pub owner Amy Crook, “We watched it all emerge from a white wall into this.”

Two thin vertical pipes along the wall turned into three-dimensional old-fashioned iron streetlights that support real lanterns. The red brick of the painted buildings ties into the red brick wall adjacent to the mural. And more than 40 shamrocks are deftly hidden in bushes and building facades.

An acrylic orchid.

Kirwen says that her creation of murals in private homes was almost a kind of “closet art.” When we first met in Sister Bay in the summer of 2010, she was exhibiting at her first Door County art show with a beautiful display of local lighthouses painted on glazed ceramic tiles and encased in wooden trays and frames. That demanding art form, although striking, required extensive processing, and she has moved on to evocative landscapes, beautifully rendered acrylic blossoms, and scenes enhanced by metal elements.

A type of Renaissance woman, Kirwen, who has sculpted and welded, is unafraid of bold technique. The engaging A Quiet Place of Reflection focuses on bare-branched trees, part of a woodland scene, in torched, rusted steel set out just a bit from the canvas and casting their own shadow on the scene.

“Affordable art is important to me,” adds Kirwen. “I do my own matting and framing to keep prices down.” What else? Funky Christmas ornaments feature waxed nautical charts on origami-like cubes (Kirwen’s husband worked with similar charts during his career in the U.S. Coast Guard). Open or plein air painting provided the opportunity to win the first People’s Choice award at the Paint the Bay competition during the 2009 Boat Festival for Dreamin’ at the Docks, a stunning array of sails on water. She recalls her astonishment at winning: “It was an epiphany -- huge for my confidence -- in a humble sort of way.”

A couple of months ago, her moonscape with a single pine tree, The Chosen One, graced a holiday cover of the Arts Section of Door County’s Peninsula Pulse.

"Dreamin’ at the Docks" won the People’s Choice Award at Paint by the Bay in 2009.

"A Quiet Place of Reflection" is highlighted with torched steel.

"The Chosen One".

So who has she become, this little girl who was a traveling salesman for rocks? Liberated now from the search for a single style (she says it was a noose to creativity), pastels are her latest passion. She finds time to teach classes in collage and in gourd painting through programs at the YMCA Summer Art Camp, as well as to exhibit with other artists at the popular Greco Gallery on Third Avenue in Sturgeon Bay.

“I’m not a goal setter,” she declares. “That’s because I look for windows of opportunity. My faith is very important to me; I want to be a positive influence and to encourage others.” 

Visit Bethany Kirwen's Website