Melissa Griggs Hendricks and her assistant, Candace Chao, have mastered the art of painting windows for the Oklahoma City Thunder. The pair have finished windows at more than 100 locations since the last day of April.
“We’re just two moms — still got to pick up our kids — and we’re getting all this done,” she said. “So, really it’s been a challenge, but it’s been so great.”
Hendricks said the pair can crank out a finished product on a standard two-pane window in about an hour, which explains how quickly the windows have seemed to spread across town.
And, although the Thunder is already three rounds into the playoffs and now facing off against Minnesota in the NBA’s Western Conference Finals, they are still painting windows.
With 113 locations complete and more to go, Hendricks said it helps that she and Chao get “heckled with kindness” by people when they are out painting.
“I think the part I love the most about it is I get to meet so many nice people,” she said. “I just get cheered on with kindness all day.”
Hendricks went to school to study art and started her career as a children’s book illustrator and product designer, even designing products for companies like Hobby Lobby. After having her daughter, she began using her art to design custom shoes, which is how she gained a following and where the name she’s known for in painting, SoledByMelissa, comes from.
“It doesn’t really make sense anymore now that I’m doing different stuff, and so I’ve been painting windows for about eight years,” she said.
‘I’ve always loved the Thunder’
Window painting started with doing work for Sonic, and continued into projects for Amazon and several local businesses. For the last seven years, Hendricks has been painting windows for the Thunder.
“I’ve always loved the Thunder,” Hendricks said. “Whenever the opportunity came to start painting for them, it just made me even more aware of them because I got to be around a lot of the Thunder stuff. I got to go to games more. It’s just been really awesome.”
Hendricks works with the Thunder Marketing team to develop a variety of designs — complete with approved wording and phrases — for customers. When businesses call to have their windows painted, they get a list of available designs, make their choice and Hendricks and Chao get to work.
In past years, the Thunder had a predetermined list of businesses where the organization paid for the windows to be painted. Starting last year, the demand for window painting really began to grow, so the organization began to share Hendricks’ information with others.
“Then this year they gave it out again as basically saying, ‘If you want your windows painted, this is our authorized painter. We’d like you to use her,'” Hendricks said. “So then each company would then contact me and they would pay individually.”
And chances are if you’ve been anywhere in or around downtown OKC during the playoffs, you’ve seen Hendricks’ work.
“I have been so fortunate. It’s just the Thunder has been so amazing and they’re so good about trying to spread everything out and try to, even like small places, trying to get them covered and take care of them.”
The whole city unites through OKC Thunder and art
Hendricks said she’s grateful to the Thunder organization for continuing to shine a spotlight on herself and other local artists through its Thunder Artists Group or TAG program, which commissions various works of art for events and programs from artists throughout the state.
Whether she’s painting postseason Thunder windows or painting windows, playgrounds and murals for schools and other businesses the rest of the year, Hendricks is happy to be contributing something that makes the world a happier, brighter place.
“When there’s so many yucky things, it’s just so nice to just have something that everybody can agree on and be happy about and kind of come together on,” Hendricks said. “And with us being a city that has one team, it’s really nice that everyone can come together.”
She said a recent encounter with a man experiencing homelessness while she was painting some of those Thunder windows drove that home and deeply affected her.
“He really kind of took me aback because he said, ‘I just want you to know that seeing your Thunder stuff, even though it’s about the Thunder, it gives me hope and gives me something to look forward to,'” Hendricks said. “And so that just really touched me. It showed me that people are resonating with it and that it brings some joy and happiness and excitement to people.”
