Nancy Van Curen awoke Sunday morning to a few text messages on her phone.
It’s a common occurrence, one Van Curen didn’t believe would be this consistent some 10 years later after the Cadiz resident started hosting paint-and-sip parties as a side gig.
“We thought it was going to be a fad when we started about 10 years ago,” Van Curen admitted. “People are still incredibly interested in them. I had two messages this morning. I started doing it as a hobby but we never thought it would last this long.”
Consider this. A decade later and Van Curen still averages 1-2 parties per week; this despite never coming up with an official business name. No catchy names, no play on words, not even Paint-n-Sips by Nancy.
But people across the Upper Ohio Valley know to contact Nancy to set up a fun evening filled with wine and artistic expression.
Van Curen experienced a brief moment of respite Sunday when a planned event needed to postpone at the last minute. However, she awoke to a couple of messages from new customers looking to plan an event.
This after doubling up on Saturday with two parties. Van Curen keeps busy, but even she’s tried to dial back the number of events. Saturday was an exception.
“The winery uptown, there was a private party scheduled with a bunch of work friends, but they were working on try to decide on a date,” Van Curen said. “When they decided, I already had one schedule for my niece, but we found a way to make it work.”
Van Curen has hosted events in numerous locations but admits that having that aforementioned winery, Ohio Valley Winery in Cadiz, has been a benefit for both her and the facility.
“Ohio Valley Winery is a smaller, family-owned place but it works out perfectly as a place to hold the paint and sips,” Van Curen said.
Van Curen procures, puts together, and brings all of the necessary supplies to each event, save one – the sip portion of the paint and sip. That’s left up to the host, whether that be a private individual, a business, or an organizer of a fundraiser.
So when the location of said paint and sip happens to be a winery, it’s a win-win.
Putting it All Together
There’s a lot more to putting on a paint and sip than just showing up, grabbing a goblet (or more) of wine, and starting to paint.
That brief description is for the attendees. Van Curen, however, has quite a bit of legwork prior to in order to make sure everything is ready.
“It’s a lot more work than people think,” she admitted. “You have to be able to wear a lot of hats. You have to come up with the designs, purchase and prepare all of your supplies, market the events, you have to paint your sample, make patterns for everyone and just do all sorts of stuff to get ready.”
Van Curen uses different surfaces depending on her customers’ preferences, including wood, canvas, slate, and even glass.
When she and her husband Alan and daughter Brooke first started out, however, the main component was slate.
“This really has been a whole family affair,” Van Curen said. “When we first started, we’d only work on Slate and Alan would go out and purchase slate anywhere we could. We’d even buy an entire roof if we could get one, and he’d bring it home, clean it, put sealer and other stuff on it to get it ready to go.
“And my daughter always went with me and helped back in the beginning.”
The designs are set up so that anyone can paint and create something they can be proud of, no matter the budding artist’s experience level. There’s also the time factor to consider, something Van Curen admits is one of the more difficult parts of the job.
“These are geared toward everyone being able to paint, but also, it has to be something that can be done with a couple of hours—even if they are drinking,” she offered with a laugh. “We try to make it as easy as possible so if you can color in a coloring book, you can do this.
“Everyone goes home with a painting that they can be proud of.”
Now, Van Curen’s paint and sips can be found anywhere within a 50-60 mile radius of Cadiz.
They’ve put on small events and even been a part of large fundraisers. Two years in a row, Van Curen held a paint and sip as fundraisers for different divisions of the Pittsburgh Police Department.
“Those events were packed with like 50-60 people.”
That size crowd is even more impressive given how Van Curen prefers to put on her events. She doesn’t take the lecturing teacher approach, standing in front of the “class” whilst detailing which strokes to make and where.
She instead prefers to give instruction, but also walk around to all of her patrons, helping with with suggestions, offering pointers, and providing a more up-close experience.
“I don’t teach let’s do this stroke and now this stroke,” Van Curen said. “I walk around to everybody and help where needed, so that they can finish with a painting they are totally happy with.”
Hobby Born of Love
Van Curen loves to paint, though it wasn’t something she really got into until the late 1990s.
Like most Americans, she worked her daily 9-5 in a stressful environment and needed a way to relax and unwind.
“It was something I tried on a whim,” she said. “I was working a job in corporate America and I started doing art as my therapy.
“I walked by and thought ‘I’d like to try that’ and that’s kind of how it all started. I don’t have any formal art training.”
Formal? No. But once Van Curen discovered this new interest, she set out to learn and experience as much about it as she could.
She’s taken a ton of classes, met up and interacted with groups of similarly interested art people and painting groups. She networks, she learns, and even has been introduced some international teachers.
“I’ve taken a lot of different types of classes and worked with different types of artists,” Van Curen said. “I (myself) paint in acrylic, oil, do oil portraits and mural, but I don’t dabble in pastels or pencils. I don’t do a lot of drawing.”
She’s grown to love all things painting and works to instill that type of appreciation in the attendees at her events.
“I always encourage people that they can change it up,” Van Curen said. “I have some people that will come and sit, but paint their own things instead of the pattern, and that’s fine.
“I’m just tickled to keep the art and interest in it moving. I’ve had a couple of folks go on to do fine art pieces and that’s really what it’s all about.”
For more information, or to schedule your own party, contact Van Curen on Facebook at the above link or by calling or messaging her at (740) 491-2304
