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Photography by Alise O'Brien
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a cool blue bedroom with an antique iron bed
Theresa Disney harbors devils inside her South St. Louis duplex.
She guards angels there, too: angels with blue-shadowed eyes, ruby lips and buxom bodies draped in flirty fashions.
Commingling with the cheeky cherubs and duplicitous devils--duplicitous because their laughing eyes resemble those of a beloved grandpa, not a hell-burning demon--is the Virgin Mary. Or make that plural, as in an estimated 200 Virgin Marys lovingly adorning Disney's walls, shelves and tables. To save her from "getting too holy," Disney mixes in big, lovable, huggable sheep, dogs and birds.
Disney's clay sculptures, bold paintings and mixedmedia pieces blend magically in the artist's home, an otherwise standard brick facade that once served as a dry-cleaning business on a busy street in the city's unglamorous Clifton Heights neighborhood.
At first glance, her home's exterior fades into the blandness of surrounding small businesses. One might even drive up and down the street four times, searching for the house that's supposed to be superbly spellbinding.
Then, beneath a black awning, one notices something peculiar on the windowsills: 16 hands, in white and gray, ceramic and metal--16 hands that once served as glove molds.
Some might say the hands are strange; others, refreshingly funky. Soft-spoken, sensibly dressed in jeans and baggy shirt and looking a decade younger than her 40 years, Disney appears neither strange nor funky.
The artist is the mother of two grown sons and used to live in a traditional house in leafy Clayton; she earned her living painting portraits and big pieces of furniture in bright colors. Then, at age 30, she was diagnosed with lymphoma, or cancer of the lymph nodes.
She's in remission, but the illness inspired her to move into an urban space that reflected her unconventionality and creativity. The cancer also morphed her artistic muse. "It's mind-boggling," Disney says. "My colors changed. My art became more intimate, more sensual and spiritual."
Raised Roman Catholic, Disney practices her own spirituality but embraces the religious icons of her upbringing, particularly the Virgin Mary. "She is an inspiration," Disney says. "She dealt with a lot of bumps in the road."
Disney inspires her fans, who pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for her artwork. Her pieces are sold in galleries in the South, where patrons just can't get enough of her. Eventually, she plans to open a showroom in St. Louis.
Her home could be an art gallery. "The environment is astounding," says Rick Ege, owner of R. Ege Antiques in Soulard and a Disney fan (Disney the St. Louis artist, not the mouse empire, to which Theresa Disney is not related). "Theresa has freshness," Ege says, extolling the artist's bold juxtaposition of decorating with antiques, contemporary pieces and folk and graphic arts. "She has an amazing eye. Her house is the most unique installation I have ever seen."
The quirky quotient is high inside Disney's 2,000- square-foot first floor. Metal chairs, curvilinear frames, bikes, guitars, a trumpet, a subway sign from France and an old toy piano (emphasis on old, Disney says, as in "old, old, very old") dangle from the rafters in her large private studio/retreat/inspiration room.
In every corner, on just about every surface, live sculptures and paintings of Disney's devils and angels. Folksy in flavor with graphic punches, Disney's selfdescribed "saints-and-sinners" art infuses the otherwise dark room with enlightenment. Just who are the saints? The devils? Who does that make the angels? The sinners?
Disney smiles at the paradox. "I call it being human," she says.
Devils and angels also tint the room with humor, as do other objects, such as her wood painting featuring a big-headed poodle with a mischievous expression; underneath the catty canine is the caption "Beware of Fifi the French Bitch." The velvet "Last Supper" blanket that slipcovers a gold-rimmed, Baroque-style sofa is also good for a smile, although the seemingly garish combination works beautifully.
Beyond the studio/retreat/inspiration room, just past a 7-foot wood-and-clay statue of a crucified Jesus that Disney created last summer, rests the artist's true sanctuary: a converted one-car garage with uneven concrete floors.
Close the old salvaged door flanked by 9-foot columns and enter the celestial chamber: Fresco blues caress the walls and ceiling, textured with seven layers of plaster that conjure images of a secret room in a European castle. Depending on where one stands and the light's reflections, shades of purples, pinks and peaches shimmer off the walls.
Old Mexican metal paintings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary ornament the room's walls. Weathered shutters encase the interior sides of the window.
The sanctuary's centerpiece is a rusted iron bed ensconced with fluffy pillows and cloaked in a neutral faux fur blanket from Pottery Barn. Suspended above the bed is an iron medallion that will soon feature hanging votive candles. Nearby sits an antique church pew and another old door; this one, its blue paint chipped, is being used on its back as a table with carved architectural relics serving as its legs. Religious artifacts loll atop the door table.
"You can walk in here and have no idea where you are," Disney says. "For me, it's heaven."
In her small back yard, a classic 1955 International delivery truck stationed on her brick patio serves as her "garage" for storing tools and building materials (she parks on the street). "Driving" the vehicle is a light-up plastic Joseph from a lawn nativity set.
Old metal tool chests stacked against the truck's exterior act as a buffet for use during alfresco soirees. "It's my personal serving cabana," Disney says. She painted faux bricks on a top portion of the truck to trick outsiders into believing it's just another brick building.
Rusty industrial found objects combine with sweetsmelling flowers, folk art and bold murals of nosy white sheep and a serene, golden-winged angel with purple hair. An old library ladder turned on its side boasts blooming white mums, pink petunias and lush ivy. A bright blue rooster sculpture watches over a rusted creamer, which Disney plans to turn into a fountain. A worn welder's cart is nearly filled to the brim with bottle caps that Disney's bartender friend routinely gives her. "I don't even drink," she says, laughing.
Disney's upstairs living quarters equally enchant. Her foyer is about the size of a generic coat closet, but it hints at delights to come. A "paintbrush graveyard"-- that is, a row of dried-up brushes on which Disney painted expressive faces--greets visitors. A blue school globe juts out of the wall. A vintage wood suitcase sits atop a washed robin's-egg blue blanket chest and serves as a set of vertical nesting tables with lots of hidden storage.
Beyond the foyer, eclecticism abounds in the 800 square feet of mostly open space. Circular metal ducting hovers above Disney's living room, where coexisting in harmony are contemporary couches from Value City, a rugged, rusty bluish Amish cupboard from the 1800s and light-wood Z chairs from the 1960s that were once displayed at the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Sprinkled into the mix are sculptures such as the zinc angel with the cracked face and missing wing standing on an old steel cart. "It would be boring if it were perfect," Disney says.
In her kitchen—so small it calls for a European-sized refrigerator—an oversized potato peeler sits atop a glass block, which sits atop her birch IKEA cabinets with the "fancy" brushed chrome pulls Disney added for sophistication. A slate backsplash, grayish black granite countertops and a pendant-pulley light fixture from Restoration Hardware keep the kitchen sleek and minimal, blissfully not detracting from the home's capricious decor.
Frosted French doors lead to Disney's sage green bedroom. Floating above her bed is a resin canopy of sorts—a Renaissance-style sculpture of a nose, lips and chin. Disney bought the piece, which she calls David because it reminds her of Michelangelo's famous creation, as a gift to herself when she had cancer. Hanging near David is one of her paintings: soft, sea-inspired colors that represent the sky, water and sand of Half Moon Bay in Northern California. Her bedroom also houses antique bottles, costume jewelry, books of fables and poems, a leopard-print chair and a lawyer's metal filing box with the inscription "The Estate of the late George Heaven."
Facing Disney's plush bed is the room's piece de resistance: a 4-by-9-foot oil painting of a naked, black-eyed coquette whose wispy light locks drape her bosom. The woman glows. She seduces. She teases. She appears to be dancing, or impishly posing, or tiptoeing across the darkness of the painting's black background.
The gold-framed piece came from an old gentleman's club on Laclede's Landing. The painting's etherealness and mysticism mesmerized Disney. She named the woman Angela, because she reminds her of an angel.
Angela is an unlikely angel to most. But the incongruity speaks to Disney. "Most people aren't too saintly, or too much of a sinner," she says. "It's all about finding the balance in being human. The beauty is in that balance."
brilliant. steal it.
Doors open the possibilities to endless decorating options. "I love their size," Disney says, "and they're already cut and ready to go." In her home, Disney uses several doors as tables. Turn the door horizontally and screw in legs, which can be anything from porch ballustrades to metal piping to "anything your imagination comes up with." Don't worry if you're not handy with power tools. When Disney entertains dinner guests, she might pull out a sturdy door, set it on top of sawhorses and cover it with a canvas cloth. For added pizzazz, she pairs the inexpensive ensemble with museum-quality Z chairs given to her by her architect father. A door can also serve as an artistic canvas to be hung on the wall.
