For Ambie Hay and Tommy McDonnell, art isn’t something you do in your leisure time; it’s a way of life.
The two painters, each of whom has a distinct approach to picture-making, share an open-air studio under the shady eaves of McDonnell’s beachside home.
They also share a passion for thrift shopping. They buy – and sell – clothing, leather goods, and jewelry, as well as collectible pottery, glass, and furniture.
The pair intends to take their show on the road this winter in a teardrop-shaped camping trailer that they have refit as a vintage shop and art gallery. They will initially set up shop here and there around Vero before traveling throughout the state in search of discerning collectors.
“We will have everything – if it’s got great design,” says Hay.
“From 1900 to 2000,” adds McDonnell, pinning down the era.
People from Vero may remember Hay from her store, Azaleas, where pre-owned furniture and accessories for the home were presented along with shabby-chic reproductions as the very latest in decor. Hay displayed her Florida-themed paintings as well as McDonnell’s abstract canvases there. They sold well, according to Hay. The store’s last incarnation (it closed in 2014) was in the Miracle Mile shopping plaza.
“I did sell a lot of art. It was a little tricky because, owning the store, I had to be there, and didn’t get to paint as much. That’s one of the reasons I closed my shop. Now I have more time to paint and travel.”
Fifteen years ago, Hay and McDonnell met in the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store downtown.
Hay was there with her mother, whose first name is also Ambie.
“Mom introduced us,” says Hay. “She was playing matchmaker.”
McDonnell adds, “Ambie’s mom was looking at a pair of Ferragamos, and I told her, ‘I’ll give you the three dollars. Buy them. They’re $400 new.’”
Since that time, Hay and McDonnell have been prowling thrift stores and flea markets together, preferring the art of the find to socializing in the local art scene.
McDonnell arrived here 20 years ago from Baltimore, where he grew up. His college years were spent at Johns Hopkins University.
“I studied things that I was fascinated with,” he says. That included Japanese language and culture, and archeology. McDonnell did not seek a degree in those subjects, deciding after a while that he “just wanted to work.”
He came to Vero to oversee his family’s citrus operation, McDonnell Properties of Indian River. He left farming about five years ago to spend more time in Baltimore with his elderly mother. She died last year. McDonnell says that he owes his aesthetic sensibility to her.
Although he hung out with artist friends in Baltimore, McDonnell did not himself begin painting until shortly after settling here, in a mid-century modern house that still boasts its original cork floors, cove lights and built-in cabinetry.
Walking one day past a construction site in the Floralton Beach neighborhood, McDonnell spied a small piece of discarded wood in a trash pile. He took it home and made his first painting on it.
Looking back, McDonnell says that his decision to make art out of the find was not a conscious one.
“I just wanted to paint. It was like a light going off, or a spark, or an inner voice telling you, ‘Paint! Try it!’ You know?”
At first, his habit was to paint only on salvaged wood. “There’s always another house being built,” he says. But he grew tired of working on such small supports.
When he decided to go bigger, McDonnell headed not to a pricey art supply store, but to the local thrift shops.
“I just started buying bad old paintings; big, bad, old paintings – five bucks – and painting over them, and doing new paintings.”
Today he works on pristine canvases using artist’s acrylics. That is, he mostly does. For pigment he is not averse to using anything he can get his hands on, he says, including unwanted custom-mixed house paint and chalk paint mixed by Hay for use on her furniture refinishing projects.
McDonnell’s painting style is intuitive. To begin, he lays colors on his canvas cheek by jowl and one atop the next, later carving compositions from the riot by blocking out areas with white paint. Over that he may spread, drip or stain additional color.
“He paints right over the ones I most love,” protests Hay.
“Not true,” says McDonnell. ”The point is that I don’t like busy.”
His results might remind some of the paintings of Franz Kline, though more colorful; of the late Dekooning, though more labored; of Arshile Gorky, though less deliberate. McDonnell, whose work can be seen during season at Koman Fine Art on Cardinal Drive, adamantly denies artistic influences.
Ambie Hay, on the other hand, is a lighthearted chameleon, painting in impressionistic, naturalistic realism or folk art styles as her mood – and the demand for her art – changes.
Born and raised in Kentucky, Hay began drawing and painting as a little girl. Her mother encouraged her by staging painting parties in their home for the neighborhood kids, then organizing “showings” to which the kids’ parents would be invited. Hay retains a child-like enthusiasm for art-making to this day.
“I feel you have to be excited about what you are doing. One-hundred-fifty percent. If you’re not, if you’re kind of bored with it, and you’re not inspired, and it feels a little bit too routine, it’s time to shake things up. And do something different.”
Her current series of folksy mermaid paintings rely on the precedent of Cape Cod artist Ralph Cahoon (1910-1982), a painter of beguiling mermaids who cook, court, gossip and marry on terra firma in much the same way that bipedal women do. Except with more charm.
“I was very much inspired by Ralph Cahoon,” admits Hay, who opened her first vintage store in Nantucket in in 1989.
“Living in Nantucket, I was able to see a lot of Cahoon’s artwork. It was so whimsical and so fun. So I decided to do a Florida-style Cahoon. I love the whimsy . . . [and] makes people laugh.”