Photo courtesy of Claire Cormany.
Graphic designer and painter Claire Cormany, poses with some of her Mountain Brook nightscape paintings.
When Claire Cormany arrived in Birmingham in 1990 to attend Samford University, she had no way of knowing that it would become her forever home.
Growing up in Winter Park, Florida, Cormany decided after graduating from her private high school that she wanted the small, liberal arts college experience — something that was in short supply in her home state. She also knew she wanted a college with a strong arts program. After meeting a Samford recruiter at her high school and a visit to the university’s suburban campus, “I was sold,” Cormany said.
At Samford, Cormany majored in graphic design and minored in painting.
“I’ve never not painted,” she said. “For my whole career, I’ve been a graphic designer by trade, but I’ve continued to paint all along.”
After taking her first post-college job as a designer for the company that became United Healthcare (“I got them through the name change,” Cormany recalled. “That was a bear!”), she assumed that she would eventually return home to Florida.
“But I fell in love with the people here,” she said.
She also fell in love with the neighborhood around the 800-square-foot cottage that she rented just off Euclid Avenue, in Mountain Brook.
“At night, after work, I would go for walks in the neighborhood,” she said. “I became captivated by the way Mountain Brook’s villages looked at night. It was magical.”
Inspired by the twinkling lights and glowing storefronts, Cormany began painting her popular village nightscapes. “I was so inspired by walking around the villages. They’re just lovely,” she says. “People don’t normally paint nighttime scenes, but I just loved the way the light and the sky looked at night.”
Cormany has painted Crestline Village, Mountain Brook Village and English Village, where she worked for eight years as the designer for Portico magazine. From the vantage point of her second-floor office at the corner of Cahaba Road and 20th Avenue South, Cormany saw people coming and going from the area’s restaurants and shops, further inspiring her artistic vision.
“The village paintings are very local and very personal,” Cormany said.
Three of Cormany’s paintings hang at Church Street Coffee & Books. While the popular paintings are often sold out on her website, Cormany takes commissions for the paintings from people wanting to give them as special gifts.
“I came for college, but I stayed because it’s lovely and artistically inspiring,” she says. “It’s home.”
Cormany will be showing her acrylic and oil paintings on Spray Pond Walk at Sloss Furnaces during the 41st annual Magic City Art Connection on April 26-28. For more information, visit her website, clairecormany.com, or find her on Instagram @cormanybyclaire.
