By Sandi Kahn Shelton, Register Staff
sandishelton@comcast.net

HAMDEN — Some people may feel that art is an important part of life, but consider it something to be viewed in museums, where they can admire it and then go back to their real lives.

Others — like Mary Lou Pellegrino of Hamden — have a different view. They believe that art has a place in everyday life and that its presence enhances even the most mundane parts of our lives.



Take the lowly placemat, for instance. Pellegrino, an accomplished, award-winning painter, has placemats that are actually created from oil portraits of her five kids and nine grandchildren. While she’s eating her ambitious, gourmet meals — which her friends describe as art in and of themselves — her family members are smiling up at her around the edges of the plates.

And it’s not just placemats: Her art flourishes in the couch she reupholstered, the portraits she’s painted, hooked rugs that are actually portraits she’s created, handbags, draperies — just about everything you could pick up in the house is something that she herself has lovingly made.

In fact, evidence of Pellegrino’s taste in art is everywhere in her home, a home she bought seven years ago and has had fun redoing, from top to bottom. She has it decorated with antiques and whimsical art objects — everything from a life-size toy soldier to miniature chests of drawers to dolls to large oil portraits and a room-dividing screen with fashion models painted on its surface. Every inch of her house is a work in progress, always susceptible to change if it’s time to make room for a new artistic expression.

“I buy whatever makes me smile,” she says. “I go to estate sales. I love china. I love glassware. I love marble. I even like old toys. I adore going to the Brimfield antiques show. There are always a lot of things there that make me smile.”

Her theory of decorating, she says, is a simple one. “If you buy something you like, it will always go with the other things you already have and love.”

On a recent morning, Pellegrino’s friend from early childhood, Dale Chodos, was visiting. (“Don’t put that I’m her oldest friend, just say that I’m her most longstanding friend,” says Chodos. “I’ve known her since she was 4.”)

The two grew up in Westville, where their families were good friends, and according to Chodos, Pellegrino was just as artistic then as she is now. “We would play with dolls, but we didn’t have doll furniture, and so she would design the houses for the dolls,” she says. “A turned-over crystal ash tray might be a table. Pieces of fabric were the couches and chairs. Even then she was doing oil paintings for our dolls’ houses, real oil paintings, and sewing. I was the one who would make up the stories.” Continued...

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Chodos, who now lives in Woodbridge, describes Pellegrino as a human dynamo. “We play mahjong every week with several other women, and whenever we hold our games at her house, we always find that the rooms have always been painted a different color. If she doesn’t have anything else to do, she paints the interior of her house. She does it in an hour or two.”

Pellegrino laughs. “My cousin said my house will stand on its own just from the amount of paint on the walls. But I love to paint. Just think: For the cost of a gallon of paint, you’ve created a whole different atmosphere.”

Pellegrino says she didn’t study art until after she was married, and then she attended Paier Art School and over the years took every class they offered. For a short time she had her own interior design business, but she discovered the bookkeeping part wasn’t to her liking, and the business became just a big headache. Now, she only decorates for herself, her children and her dearest friends.

Pellegrino’s work has been on public display at times. She restored the baby Jesus statue in front of Our Lady of Pompeii Church in East Haven and painted the walls of the Clifford Beers Clinic in New Haven, showing children doing fun, constructive activities. She belongs to and has won awards from the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, the New Haven Brush and Palette and the North Haven Art Guild.

But she says she doesn’t care about awards. Her true passion these days is creating portraits in wool and then fashioning them into handbags or rugs.

She buys used wool clothes at Salvation Army or Goodwill, cleans them and then puts them through a special machine that cuts them into thin strips. In her basement, she has bins of color-sorted wool strips that she then uses to create portraits from photographs.

“At first I did floral pictures, but then I started doing portraits of my grandchildren,” she says. “It was just a challenging idea, something new to explore.”

But now she loves it. “I do them at night — this is my night job,” she says. “I’ve done some of them on commission. Each one takes me probably five weeks.”

She’s a tireless gardener and loves entertaining.

“Whatever I can do myself, I love to do, whether it’s painting a room or painting a portrait or cooking. I’m often cooking while I’m painting and eating while I’m cooking while I’m painting,” she says. “I love entertaining and finding new things to do. I loved raising my children, every minute of it. But I love my life now, when I can do what I want.” Continued...

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“If I ever get stranded on a desert island, I want to be stuck with Mary Lou,” says Chodos. “She would design us a house from the trees, then fashion us some clothes from the big leaves and make us gourmet meals from whatever was growing around. We’d be living in style.”

For more information about Pellegrino’s work, or to commission an old painting or a portrait in wool, contact her at mlpellegrino@aol.com.

Sandi Kahn Shelton’s latest book is “Kissing Games of the World.” Check out her blog at http://www.sandishelton.com/blog.

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