December 2022: You may have seen the festive window paintings around Old town Clovis, on businesses down Pollasky and Clovis Avenues.
Just to name a few: Sandy’s Country Junction, The 500 Club, DiCiccos, and Clovis Appliance all tend to sport TnT’s handpainted standard of bold and bright characters year-round to match the season.
If you’re lucky, you might catch Terry Clarkson or her husband Tim when they start bright and early, at 9AM, painting the windows in town.
“Art has always been a part of me,” Terry Clarkson said, “I remember getting in trouble in kindergarten because I wouldn’t put my arts and crafts away.”
In 1988, Clarkson’s brother-in-law Dan owned a business called Dano Signs. “At the time, I worked for the state and my husband was in law enforcement,” Clarkson said, “and Dan asked if we would like to make some extra money during the holiday season.”
“This is our full-time gig now,” Clarkson said, nearly 35 years later. When Terry and Tim broke off in 2000, they renamed the business. “My husband’s Tim and I’m Terry, and therefore TnT.”
The signature style of TnT Window Graphics’ paintings started out with the “Dano look”, with doe-eyed cartoony characters with toothy grins, and big bright bubble letters. Clarkson said, “I’ve totally revamped it to be mine.”
When asked about her process, Clarkson said that a lot of it comes naturally, after painting window displays for so long. “But there’s a lot of time that goes into my job before I get here, that’s up here,” she said, indicating her mind, “in my little computer.”
Clarkson said TnT likes to give each business a personal touch, because each one is special. Parasien Bakery has “Joyeux Noël”, and DiCiccos has “Buon Natale”– “Merry Christmas”, in French and Italian respectively.
While working on the windows at Clovis Appliance, Clarkson pointed to a painting of two snuggling snowmen with wings. “The owners here, Bonnie and Glen, were amazing people and so I always do a little tribute.” Bonnie and Glenn Skinner passed away close to one another, in 2019.
Clarkson added, “When it’s done, I might put a little statement like ‘love is forever’ because, you know, they’re still together.”