Art anyone can make

MOSES LAKE — Krista Courier didn’t start out to become either a painter or a business owner.

“We moved to Moses Lake about four years ago,” said Courier. “We moved here because my 13-year-old son is autistic and he suffered a lot of trauma in school. We came here right before COVID started and needed an outlet. So we started painting.”

Courier, who worked as a certified nursing assistant, an emergency room technician and a hospital administrator during a 19-year career in the medical field, said while she picked up painting to help her son, it turned out she was the one who stuck with it.

“That’s how this whole thing got started. I started painting and realized how helpful it was for me, and started teaching other adults to do it and it kind of grew from there,” Courier said.

The “whole thing” Courier is referring to is her business, The Creative Studio by Rustic Girl Painting, which has gone from being an online and in-home party business where people can get together, drink wine and paint home decorating projects as varied as hanging welcome signs to painting wine glasses and even painted hats. Courier said she started with friends, and then moved to arrange paint parties at various venues – such as the Seed Cupboard Nursery in Royal City – with a group of moms on Facebook and then to schools across the region.

Finally, she moved to a business space at 1001 W. Broadway Ave. in Moses Lake, which she has – of course – repainted a bright, cheerful white on the inside and painted one of the windows with flowers.

“I’ve been asked many times to have someplace where people could come and have things like parties or bridal showers or things like that because people were having a hard time getting out,” she said. “They wanted a more central location where they could come in. So that’s when we decided to do walk-ins.”

Courier said that just about anyone can make a work of art at a painting party. In fact, she has a number of projects to choose from, most with fairly detailed instructions. Customers, however, can choose the colors or even make their own projects if that’s what interests them.

“It’s almost like a coloring book,” she said of her painting projects. “I get a lot of people saying, ‘Well, I’ve never painted, I don’t have a clue, I’m not going to do that.’ Well, you don’t have to know how to paint. Anyone can walk in and they will walk out with something that is completely recognizable.”

Group painting is fun and therapeutic, Courier said, and something most anyone can easily get lost in. Projects range from $8 to $50, Courier said, so there’s something for just everyone.

Rustic Girl has a full slate of events in both May and June, everything from family tree painting to sip-and-paint night at Gård Public House in Royal City to three summer camps for kids – a dollhouse design camp, a mixed-media camp and a superhero camp. She also has date night painting parties and painting parties for teenagers, complete with black lights.

“They really like that,” Courier said.

Courier said she’s had a large customer base for quite some time. The unknown, now that she has actual business space, is just how many walk-in customers she’s going to get.

“Our events are doing pretty good here,” she said. “But the walk-ins, though, we’ll see. I don’t have a clue how that’s going to go.”

For more information on The Creative Studio by Rustic Girl Painting, check out Courier’s website at rusticgirlpainting.com or follow her on Facebook and Instagram @Rusticgirlpainting.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.