Accomplished Draper muralist credits mom for letting her paint on walls as a child

DRAPER — When Chelsea Blosil was 8 years old, she asked her mom if she could help paint the nursery in their home in Orem. It was "Winnie the Pooh" themed, and she spent hours painting alongside her mom in a moment in time that would eventually become a decadeslong career painting murals.

"I'm the second oldest of eight children, and my mom designated one of the rooms in our home to be the nursery," Blosil said. "She painted the blue sky with clouds and a white picket fence with Pooh, Piglet and Tigger. She did florals and a scene that went off into the distance. She showed me how to paint a flower and a stem. She let me paint with her many, many hours doing different things. It was the first time I'd seen paint used that way."

Blosil, now 38, said that a year later, she asked if she could paint her own room, and again, her mom said yes.

"That was my first time doing a whole project by myself," she recalled. "My mom just kind of let me do it from the get-go and was like, 'I trust that you can do this,' It was then when I realized that I could do large area design."

Like any child would do, Blosil told all her friends about the walls she painted in her home, and naturally, it turned into a neighborhood endeavor.

"I told my friends all about it, and then we collaborated and started doing neighborhood houses," she said. "That's really where my mural skillset started because people were offering up walls to me."

Walls now became canvases, and Blosil soon started to hone her skills in school. She recalled being in her junior high art class in the early 2000s, when she and other students painted the ceiling to commemorate the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.

"That was my first public installation," she said. "I was in the advanced art class, and I wasn't the best artist, but I was passionate about it and wanted to get better," she said.

People started taking notice of her art and passion for it, and by the age of 15, she had her first paid gig.

"I started making money as a muralist in high school, and I was like, 'You're gonna pay me?'" she recalled. "Then it slowly built from there."

Over the years, Blosil has painted walls inside businesses, scaled large buildings and even painted an entire school bus. Her murals have been the backdrop for celebrities, and she was a featured artist on one of the St. George's newest Canyon-to-Canyon mural, where she depicted Angels Landing. She posts many of her projects on her social media page.

Being a muralist can been "feast or famine," she said, but her dedication to helping other people's visions come to life has kept her afloat all these years.

"Not everybody figures out how to make a profession out of doing art," she said. "I would say the only reason I was able to find a way to do it was the fact that I started off by saying yes to anybody. This diversified my portfolio right out of the gate. I was never married to one particular style.

"I don't take myself too seriously where I need to be the sole designer because at the end of the day, I still love putting something on the wall that someone else is happy about versus me needing to be the one who's designing it," she continued. "I think that more important than needing to be the best, is how passionate you are about this thing you are developing within yourself."

Blosil has recently become a mother, and she said painting with her toddler son around has caused her to reflect on the time she spent with her mother as a child.

"(My mom) was always creating and providing a space for free play and creativity," she said. "I grew up with no TV in my home, and it's still that way. She made space and had us all participate. ... She let us try and try again."

Blosil said that her mom Carolyn Blosil continues to be very encouraging of her as an artist, and in the coming months, the two are working on a special project.

"My mom is an accomplished artist," she said. "This June, my mom and I are going to put together a little art show. I paint for fun at home on canvas, but I never sell the canvas work. ... I'm just going to open up my house and put art in every room. We paint because we love it."

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