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Work, play ... for artist, it's all the same

Jeff Monsein sold his business seven years ago and followed his calling. Now, his paint company is among the most respected around.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published October 27, 2006

Jeff Monsein's funky and colorful studio is all about creativity.

The 1,000-square-foot building - a post-World War II cottage in the heart of South Tampa - sports sky-blue floors, matching adult-size bean bag chairs and a papier-mache tourist wielding a vintage Instamatic camera and wearing plaid tennis shoes.

Monsein, who lives around the corner in another house with his wife and family, bought the studio a few months ago from a neighbor.

"What's neat is that I don't have to work out of my garage anymore," says Monsein, 48, a former trucking school owner with a chemistry degree who in 1999 answered his lifelong calling to be an artist.

Today, his business, Splat Paint, is among the most respected artistic painting companies in the Tampa Bay area. Last year, Monsein and his team were chosen to paint the restored dome and vestibule for the historic Centro Asturiano Hospital in Ybor City.

Monsein paints commercial and residential spaces with faux and artistic finishes that resemble everything from weathered stone to old Italian wood. His paintings, trompe l'oeil, murals and exquisite Venetian plaster work inspire pauses.

And stares.

At Woodrow Wilson Middle School in South Tampa, he has transformed the media center into illustrated chapters from an Elizabethan tale: Juliet leans out a window bracketed by red shutters; perched on one knee, Romeo gazes up at his betrothed from below. The faces in the paintings belong to Monsein's son Tyler, 15, and daughter Jillian, 18. In the cafeteria, trompe l'oeil windows reveal Tuscan farm fields while a life-size chef holds a garlic plant. A baker peeking out of a shop window is really the face of the school janitor.

"The kids have been so intrigued by it," he says. "I wanted to paint something that would make it a much more enjoyable space."

His vision inspired a commission for a 20,000-square-foot home in Belleair Bluffs. It also prompted another commission by the owner of a seaside mansion in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. And he's especially proud of the job he did covering the walls of a 5,000-square-foot home in Odessa with Marmorino, an old world marble and limestone.

At his new studio, the converted cottage at 1504 Arrawana St., Monsein keeps his extensive art library and large selection of paints.

Here, he hosts meetings for art groups or just hangs out with his family in the evenings. His son plays the guitar. His wife, Michelle, works on beading projects. Typically, Monsein does research on new painting techniques, paints or plans his next project.

Most of the time, though, he's perched on scaffolding or a lift truck, as he was not too long ago at a Pasco County country club.

It's a far cry from what he used to do. After graduating from the University of Florida in 1980, his dreams didn't quite follow fate.

When he didn't get into medical school, his father offered him a $5-an-hour job and a company car to work for the family's school for truck drivers and diesel mechanics in Maryland. Monsein moved to Tampa and opened a branch of the truck-driving school in Ybor City.

"I was always good at art," he recalls of that time, "but I hated my job."

He sold the business in 1999, retired, and decided to paint for a living. Though he never went to art school, he had a talent for drawing and painting. He read "incessantly" about artistic and faux painting and launched Splat Paint.

His work is mostly high-end residential, commercial or for charity, but he still takes on a fair amount of small jobs if he thinks the work is interesting. He recently painted a metal garage door at a Temple Terrace house to look like an old wooden carriage door.

It looks so real it's hard to imagine it hadn't been there for years.

His technique, he explains, is derived from intense scrutiny of the world around him.

He's constantly photographing clouds, touching everything, and studying skin tones. Because he doesn't need the jobs to pay the bills, he says, he only works with clients who share his vision.

"I only like to work for people I really click with. That way, it's fun," he says.

His exuberance is palpable: While painting a 12,000-square-foot mural at the Florida State Fairgrounds - an Old Florida scene of palm trees, sky and birds - Monsein just smiles.

"It was so much fun," he says, "I could have kept going and going and going."

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com.

[Last modified October 26, 2006, 20:35:48]