STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — If you’ve ever spotted a storefront on Staten Island decked out with bright, cartoon-like characters and lettering with a sticker-like finish, chances are it was hand-painted by Mish.
The self-taught Staten Island artist behind Paint by Mish never set out to become a full-time artist. Though she was always interested in the arts growing up, she became a mother at 21, enrolled in court reporting school while pregnant with her second daughter, and worked a string of jobs to support her family as a single mother.
Between 2012 and 2014, Mish experienced a series of devastating losses that shifted her priorities and career path. In 2012, her grandmother and aunt were killed in a car crash. The following year, a close friend — someone she considered like a brother — died by suicide. Then in 2014, her father died of a rare disease.
“I didn’t want my kids to grow up seeing me doing something that didn’t make me happy and being miserable coming home every day,” Mish told the Advance/SILive.com. “Life is short. You only have so much time here, so you gotta do something that you love.”
That “something” for Mish started with face paint. In October 2013, she painted her and her daughter’s faces for Bloomingdale Park’s Halloween Extravaganza. It wasn’t the first time — face painting had been part of her family’s Halloween tradition growing up, thanks to her mom — but this time was different. Strangers complimented her work, and after everything she’d just gone through, the reaction gave her a spark to start exploring face painting more seriously from there.
She then taught herself henna, airbrush and eventually window painting, the latter of which she learned by watching YouTube videos, especially tutorials from Scot Campbell — an artist she refers to as the “king of window painting.”
Paint by Mish and one of her window displays.Courtesy of Paint By Mish
Mish continued taking on commission-based work under the Paint by Mish name after the 2013 Halloween event, though it remained a side hustle while she worked other jobs to pay the bills. In 2019, she began working overnight shifts at an Amazon facility, working long hours while still making time for gigs during the day, until she quit after two months and decided to go all in on Paint by Mish.
“I couldn’t stomach working as hard as I was and being miserable,” she said. “When I left [Amazon], I said I would never work this hard for anybody ever again in my life. I’ve only worked for Paint by Mish since then.”
Now 38 years old, Mish still takes on party gigs and face painting, but window murals are what keeps her busiest. She freehands every piece, mostly across New York and New Jersey, and finishes each one with her unofficial signature: a crisp white airbrush outline that gives each piece a clean, pop-art edge.
“I used to feel like I never had a style, and now when people see my windows, they’re like, ‘Oh, Mish did that,’” she said. “Anytime somebody says that something looks like a sticker or if they didn’t see me painting it, they wouldn’t have known it was painted, that’s a huge compliment. That means that I do my job right.”
Paint by Mish and one of her window displays.Courtesy of Paint By Mish
Mish is especially in demand during seasonal moments — back-to-school, the holidays, seasonal transitions — but some clients keep her work up year-round. Others call her back every few months for a refresh.
“I don’t guarantee that anything is going to last because it’s outside, right?” she said. “But I have jobs that have been up six years that look completely untouched.”
In a full-circle moment, Amazon ended up reaching out to her in 2020 — this time not as an employee, but as a commissioned artist. The company was looking for someone to paint their windows and found her through recommendations, unaware that she’d once worked there.
She has since painted several Amazon buildings throughout New York and New Jersey, appreciating most the reactions from employees coming in and out of the buildings she had once worked in herself.
“[At the time] it was the hype and excitement and dopamine rush of like, ‘Wow, Amazon came and found me. How cool is this?’” Mish said. “But I like the employees’ reactions. That always meant so much to me because they’re going into a building that is so dreary on the inside, and I know personally, so they’d tell me the artwork really made them happy and uplifted them.”
However, it’s not always glamorous. Mish paints through heat waves, wind gusts, curious (and talkative) passing strangers, and thick humidity that makes the paint finicky. Sometimes, she’s racing against rain, but over time, she’s learned to read the weather like it’s another part of the job.
When the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic brought an unexpected lull in commissions, Mish adapted yet again. During lockdown, she began painting rainbows of hope on fellow Islanders’ front doors. That led to painting residential doors for drive-by graduations and birthdays, commissioned work that met the moment of people finding ways to celebrate from a distance.
Though she loves working with and promoting local small businesses with her storefront art, her proudest project to date is an eight-foot wooden cutout of “Terrifier” character Art the Clown, which she painted for her front yard in October 2023. That year, she turned down her usual Halloween face painting gigs to make something just for herself.
“I was so happy that I actually was painting something I was enjoying. To this day, I think that’s the one thing I’m really proud of. It’s the one thing I did for me,” Mish said. “Sometimes I wish I just painted for me. The grass is always greener.”
Art the Clown from the “Terrifier” film series.Courtesy of Paint By Mish
Mish also began posting more videos online, starting with Instagram and Facebook, where she steadily built a loyal following. Today, she has 277,000 followers on Facebook and nearly 200,000 on Instagram. Earlier this year, she caved in and joined TikTok, and her online following skyrocketed. She’s now at 236,000 followers on TikTok and counting.
“I was very against using TikTok. But this January, I was crazy focused, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna blow up on TikTok,’” she said. “I didn’t know what I was doing, so I started saying, ‘I’m gonna post anything on TikTok. I don’t care what anybody thinks of me. I’m not trying to get business on TikTok.’ And it blew up within a week.”
Now, social media is a business driver and a creative outlet for Mish. She shares time-lapses of window painting, hilarious behind-the-scenes commentary, thoughtful life advice, and honest rants about life as a working artist.
“I’m not faking things for the purpose of social media or an aesthetic. Like, I don’t care about any of this stuff, you know?” she said. “I just want to have fun with it and show a little bit of what I do. And inspire people to go and do whatever it is they want to do in life.”
One of Paint by Mish’s window displays.Courtesy of Paint By Mish
She’s already thinking about what’s next: building out her YouTube channel, painting more wood cutouts, working on personal projects, and eventually traveling with her work to take Paint by Mish beyond the East Coast.
“Motivation, I always say, is not reliable. Motivation is not always there. It’s the discipline, the going after it,” she said. “So stick to the plan, not your mood. It doesn’t matter how you feel. You just kind of have to keep going.”
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