CityView Magazine

18 | May/June 2017 Arkansas, for a day—to faux paint a panel damaged in shipping—just in time for a grand opening of a new Pink Store. Historically, faux painting reaches back 5,000 years to Mesopotamia, proceeding along a timeline from Egyptian interiors to Renaissance cathedrals to the palace of Versailles to Victorian homes with their wood graining, marbleizing and stenciling to the Art Deco styles of the 1920's. Faux painting is currently experiencing a revival in the wake of wallpaper's diminishing popularity. Use what you've got Growing up in Dunn, Pandy has always loved design since she was 11 or 12. She just liked doing things with her hands such as needlework and stenciling and was always making something. Aer graduating from UNC at Chapel Hill, she married George Autry, a livestock agent and later director through NC State University's Agriculture Faux painting or faux finishing comes from the French word for fake. Faux painting isn't one technique, but an assortment. Extension. She taught elementary school in Hoke and Cumberland Counties for thirteen years. In the classroom, she applied her imagination and keen eye, using one of her favorite refrains: "use what you've got." She created bulletin boards, board games (inventive down to the spinners) and work centers to enhance her students' learning experience. "If we were studying bears, we sponge painted bears! e children were happy. ey were excited." Projects galore In '92, with her youngest of three in kindergarten, Pandy decided to stay home to manage her household's many schedules—and to explore her passion for design. One of her first projects was to stencil a star quilt pattern on her dining room floor. Pleased with the outcome of this project and others, she created samples, taking them to local interior designers and to Owen Garden Center & Nursery, where her faux brick and flagstone were a hit, resulting in commissions. Her oldest daughter, who came in third in Season Nine of Iron Chef, commissioned her to stencil bathrooms in a restaurant in Miami. She was duplicating wallpaper of the 60s. With the exactness needed in taping multiples of the mosaic design, she remembers this job as "blue mosaic hell!" Pandy's projects are as diverse as the techniques she employs. She will create a leather surface using glaze and a stipple brush then layering and layering again and again. Using ragging, she'd paint a wall or object then take off paint with a crumpled rag. Sponging demands much blending. When marbleizing, she creates positive and negative veins to simulate the dri found in natural marble. She has produced checkerboard floors, Del-patterned tile, light switch covers, cradles, even cupboard shelves to match a granite kitchen counter. Patterns & textures Recently, Pandy has extended her use of materials to metal—copper, brass, iron and recycled tin. She has created a new line of unique night lights, lamp shades and lamps. She says, "I have always been particularly fascinated by pattern and texture: in nature, textiles and even in very ordinary objects. I have been experimenting with decorating lampshades for some time through paint, fabric and papier mache, but did not feel I had it 'quite right' until I added metal." Her metalwork includes brass etching, metal folding and incising. e linen forming the shade is on the inside of the frame, offering contrast to her decorative metal designs. She even uses photographic slides to form shades, creating a back-lit contemporary theme.

• Cover