The ceiling over the paint department at Ambridge Do it Best Home Center in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, has an art installation the staff spent three months developing and hanging.
Store employees took about 100 paintbrushes, dipped each one in a different paint hue, let them dry and then hung them from the ceiling in a colorful cascade.
The staff talked about the project with customers while it was in progress, trying to build suspense and excitement, general manager David Strano says.
Strano got the idea for the art piece from a display in a clothing store and his team made it a reality.
“It’s like a waterfall of paintbrushes,” he says. “It’s a very good focal point in the department and it makes people realize that we’re different from other stores.”
Click through the photos in the gallery below to see Ambridge Do it Best’s process for creating its paint department work of art.
Ambridge Do it Best took inspiration from a clothing store to create a cascading art installation out of paintbrushes. The staff took ownership of the project and spent three months making general manager David Strano's initial vision a reality.
Employees dipped about 100 paintbrushes in various paint colors and hung them to dry.
Employees dipped about 100 paintbrushes in various paint colors and hung them to dry.
Once the paintbrushes dried, Andrea Paradiso and other members of the Ambridge Do it Best staff strung the brushes on red twine to hang from the ceiling.
The staff attached red string to every paintbrush.
Using a scissor lift and ladders, sales associate Mike Toner (left), manager A.J. Harrison (top) and manager Mike Volosh hang the paintbrush art installation over the paint department at Ambridge Do it Best.
Ambridge Do it Best staffers Sharon Marr (left), Terry Boyd (top) and Diana Mengel pose on the scissor lift under their paintbrush masterpiece.
"It's like a waterfall of paintbrushes," says David Strano, general manager of Ambridge Do it Best Home Center.
The paintbrushes hang as a colorful cascade over the paint department at Ambridge Do it Best.
The dangling paintbrushes are an eye-catching work of art.
Ambridge Do it Best employees Sharon Marr (left), Andrea Paradiso (center) and Diana Mengel helped create the work of art over the paint department.
Kate is profiles editor for Hardware Retailing magazine. She reports on news and industry events and writes about retailers' unique contributions to the independent home improvement sector. She graduated from Cedarville University in her home state of Ohio, where she earned a bachelor's degree in English and minored in creative writing.
She loves being an aunt, teaching writing to kids, running, reading, farm living and, as Walt Whitman says, traveling the open road, “healthy, free, the world before me.”
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