She’s the perfect example of someone who just needed the chance.
That is why these days Mindi Yarbrough’s name has become well known in Wheeling’s art community, and with the unveiling of her latest work at Carlito’s Soul Kitchen in North Wheeling, the artist has earned a solid reputation in the Friendly City.
“But it all happened totally by accident,” Yarbrough said with a laugh. “I really don’t think I ever planned on becoming a muralist, but it’s art, right? I’m an artist and murals are art … a much larger form of art, but still art.”
That was her logic after her friend, Carrie Eller, called her out of the blue one day.
“I have been a big fan of Carrie’s and her shop (Under the Elder Tree) since it first opened by the Hall of Fame Café, and now that she’s kept growing and evolving her business by adding new things, her shop now is located in Centre Market,” Yarbrough recalled. “Well, she found out one day the front window in her building was in need of work, and the temporary fix had this big open space to it.
“She asked me to fill the space with a mural, but I had not painted a mural before,” she said. “I was nervous, but I did it and she loved it so much she changed her idea for the front façade of her building. Plus, the community has embraced it and now it’s a part of that historic district and that means a lot to me.”
But wait, there will be more.
“After I was finished with Under the Elder Tree, another friend approached me and asked me if I was a muralist,” Yarbrough explained. “So, I have been involved with a lot of the murals in the city, and now private businesses like Jeramie (Alvarado) from Carlito’s Soul Kitchen commissioned me to do one of his back deck area, and the response to that painting has been tremendous.
“I have three or four requests for next year now, and that’s great because my mural painting season is very short,” she explained. “There’s the weather to consider, plus I do have full-time job that I love, so I can only do so much each year.”
Starving Artist
The Tiltonsville, Ohio native took every art class she could at Buckeye Local High School before taking off to Pittsburgh after she graduated in 2000. Two years later Yarbrough was toting an Associates Degree in graphic design and then went into survival mode once returning to the valley from the West Coast.
“Trust me, it was very expensive there in San Francisco,” she said. “So, coming home made sense after the two years (2008-10) we (her husband Trevor Langford) lived there, and that has turned into a very good thing.”
Yarbrough now is the art director at Beyond Media, and long-time public relations firm in Wheeling that represents large and small clients throughout the Upper Ohio Valley, after several years of earning her proverbial stripes in the industry. She’s also suffered through the usual doubts and difficulties that come with a career in creation.
“I went through a time when I didn’t have much confidence in my artwork because I always thought that each piece had to be this kind of perfect I had in my mind, and that was difficult for me,” Yarbrough explained. “Finally, I arrived to this point to where I just decided to do what was coming to my mind and that opened me up again. And then, during the pandemic, I adopted a project involving the creation of coloring books, and while I was working from home, I had extra time because I was just getting out of bed and working. That let me have like two extra hours a day, so I used that time to work on the coloring books and that style.
“I loved color books when I was a kid and it’s very relaxing to my mind,” she said. “So, I just decided that there were no reasons why I couldn’t create my own coloring book. And now that I self-published them, they are both on sell at Clientele and at the Wheeling Artisan Center.”
The picture book was yet another dream come true.
“I’ve been painting and drawing since I was five years old and I come a family of artists,” Yarbrough said. “My mother and her side of the family always have been artistically inclined so I grew doing art with them. I grew up around and they also say it’s a talent that could be genetic so that could be helping me, too.
“I’ve just kept with it and in high school I took every Art class I could. When it came to college I chose graphic design as a my major because that’s when the internet was going mainstream and a lot of my counselors thought graphic artists would be in high demand,” she continued. “That has been true, but it also depends on where you live and on the demand there is. I’ve worked very hard, and I’ve been lucky, too.”
What’s a Jay-Peg?
Sure, we now live during days when access to the internet simply is resting in our pocket or in our purse, but that wasn’t the case just a couple of decades ago. In fact, the thought of owning a desktop computer at home was something of champagne wishes and caviar dreams.
Such machines were in school labs only, and before gaining access to something called the World Wide Web, funny noises prevailed.
Pshhhkkkkkkrrrrkakingkakingkakingtshchchchchchchchcch*ding*ding*ding*!!!!
“My family didn’t even own a computer yet when I decided to go into graphic design so that was a very interesting time for me,” Yarbrough said. “The only computer I worked on was at school so it was a scary time for me because no one knew how accessible the internet would be in a short amount of time. It all moved very, very quickly.
“I was graduated from Pittsburgh Technical Institute in 2002 with an associate degree and then got into the industry I’m still in today,” she said. “I did my art when I had time, but for the most part I was concentrated on surviving. Eventually, though, I got back into it and for the past five-or-so years I’ve been painting a great deal and that makes me very happy.”
And that brush of hers will continue splashing her painter’s palette as often as blank canvases need covered in the Wheeling area whether it’s a commissioned image or a creation of her imagination.
“Where my art will take me next is a great question. Of course, I’d love to just get up and do art all day, every day, but that’s not my reality right now,” Yarbrough said. “I’d love to get to the point to where I am a full-time artist, but I know that’s not going to be possible for at least five or 10 years. But I am also open to whatever comes my way.
“I do know that in the next couple of years I would like to convert my garage into a full-time, private art studio and maybe do some classes because I feel the arts helped me through a lot of traumatic experiences,” she explained. “So, for me to be able to do some workshops on improvisational painting, I believe it could be very therapeutic for a lot of people. Maybe it could be an alternative to a paint-and-sip type of event, but more of a therapeutic setting with someone just going after a canvas with some colors to work out an emotion. I know it’s helped me in the past.”
