The BIG
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olding a cell phone
in one hand and a
paint brush in the
other, muralist
Nancy Illman takes a quick
break from the make-believe
rainforest she's creating in a
child's room.
"There's a leopard staring
me in the face from behind a
banana tree," says Inman, 33,
who recently moved from
Cincinnati to Farmington Hills

with her husband, Paul
Newman, and son, Max, a
kindergarten student at Hillel
Day School of Metropolitan
Detroit.
"This is great. This is so
e says. am
ikay,into
als that have

Akuetz soul into
artwork. As a kid, she painted
expressive animal faces on
rocks. As an adult, Illman uses
imagination and paint to trans-

form !;! inarooms into fan-
ciful flin 1 %gardens, beaches,
pirate's ,hdise farms and the
pages storybooks.
"I art Oda at helping peo-
ple art ul4te what they want,"
IlirnanNays, adding, "I want
kids to learn from my art-
work."
Benjamin and Stephen
Freiberg of Ann Arbor learned
much about sailboats and rain-
forests recently. In November,
" their mom Dee hired Illman to
create special spaces for each
boy's bedroom. Stephen, 8,

1)in.
skrequestecl
elected the
a
cussing his
rain
with Inman.
interest
renvhis.
"M
Ben even got boo eori\iicY
to read," Dee Freiberg recalls,
"Nancy has an eye for this, She
gets a thought and, as soon as
she conceptualizes something
in her mind, the mural just
comes out of her paintbrush. It
is incredible. It just flows from
there. And it looks so real."
Every night, Stephen sleeps

chose a

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1/28

2000

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