Cat inspires color, painting contest for Humane Society

Alice Neel sat perched on an office chair in Pygmalion’s Art Supplies, watching as people hurried down Grant Street, their faces turned from the cold February air.

Pygmalion’s, in conjunction with New York-based Williamsburg Art Materials, recently released a custom color called “Alice Pink,” in honor of Alice Neel – one of the two cats residing in the store.

All the profits from the sale of the Alice Pink paint will go to the Monroe County Humane Society, where Alice lived before coming to the store.

In March, Pygmalion’s will also sponsor a juried painting contest for any piece that uses the Alice Pink color.

Paintings can be submitted from March 15 to 31, and the winner will receive $200 worth of Williamsburg paints.

All paintings submitted for the contest will be on display in the store during Bloomington’s gallery walk in April.

Local artist Jamie Combs mixed the unique color last fall to match the petunias in front of the store.

“Alice kept playing with the petunia as we were mixing the color,” said John Wilson, the owner of Pygmalion’s. “So that’s how it came to be Alice Pink.”

Combs, who has worked at the store since 2006, said she created the color from two different shades of red – one with a blue tint and one with an orange tint – and, of course, white.

Once Combs mixed the color, Pygmalion’s sent a swatch to Beverly Plansky at Williamsburg, who then began the process of making the paint.

“It’s like cooking,” Plansky said. “You add a little of this and a little of that until you get the right color.”

Wilson said Plansky approached the store last fall about creating a custom color.
“They usually do it for larger stores, but because we really promote their paint well and it sells well, Beverly at Williamsburg decided to do it for us,” Wilson said.

Plansky, who deals with about 120 retailers,, said she offers to make a custom color for one of her stores every year.

“I love Pygmalion’s,” she said. “They’ve been very good to us and we’ve been very good to them.”

While Wilson said he was excited about the color, he wasn’t expecting to have quite so much of it.

The store was supposed to receive 40 to 60 tubes of Alice Pink, but they ended up with 126.

Combs said when Wilson assumed ownership of the store, he had the staff go to the Humane Society and pick out Alice and the store’s other cat, Kiki Smith. Both of the cats are named after 20th-century artists.

“The cats are very welcoming,” Combs said. “It makes it very home-like to come into a store and there are cats. And Alice is such a big part of the store ... She comes right up to people and tries to get them to pick her up. She’s really a big part of what people talk about at the store.”