The theater’s mural is the New York state segment of Marcus’s 50 in 50 project. She has the goal of painting a mural for one small business in each of the 50 U.S. states. This is her 12th mural so far. She started in her hometown of Covington, Virginia before moving on to West Virginia, Wyoming, Idaho, Iowa, Nevada, California, South Carolina, North Carolina, Illinois and Massachusetts and finally coming to Jay, husband Jordan and husky Tao in tow. She is trying to focus on New England this summer.

Marcus said on Tuesday that she was still working on the mural’s background piece but expected to complete the mural on Wednesday. She started work on Monday.

The plan was for the painting to depict the logo of the Jay Entertainment and Music Society, which runs the theater. Marcus said that the logo, which is a picture of the gazebo on the Jay Village Green outside the theater, is going to be featured in the painting below lines of sheet music, paired with the JEMS welcome slogan and a mountainous Adirondack landscape in the background framed by flowers and a starry sky above. There are also going to be objects, such as ballet shoes and instruments, to represent some of the entertainment that the theater offers.

JEMS gave Marcus the outline for what they wanted her to have in the painting — “something that welcomes people as soon as they walk in the door” — and she took it from there.

Muralist Cheyenne Renee Marcus poses with her truck outside the Amos and Julia Ward Theater in Jay Tuesday. (Enterprise photo — Galen Halasz)

“I think image-wise, (JEMS) really wanted to represent all the things the theater does. So, between dance and music and theater and then the local events that they host, they want to represent all of that,” she said.

When asked why she decided to do the 50 in 50 project, Marcus said that she’s always loved painting, but she’s been passionate about painting murals specifically since she was 19. She did some internships in her local community in Covington, Virginia around that age that got her interested in tourism and small business development, which she said inspired her to start 50 in 50, going around the country and painting murals to try to “focus on small towns or small businesses that maybe deserve a little bit more recognition.”

Marcus originally was supposed to paint in a different location this week, but after they canceled, she had an opening in her schedule. She came across JEMS online and decided it was a good fit for her project, being a small community-oriented non-profit organization. She reached out to them with the idea of doing a mural for them and JEMS President Rance Bloom said they were interested.

Marcus is doing the 50 in 50 project as part of her business, working as a full-time painter. Usually that means she gets paid by the organizations she paints for, especially with more complex designs, but in this case, because of the impromptu circumstances of scheduling the mural, she is doing the mural in the theater entirely as a donation. This the second state where she has donated the mural rather than charging for it.

Marcus is aiming for the 50 in 50 project to be done by the end of 2025 but she said it might end up going into 2026 unless she can get 25 done by December. She started in 2022.

Muralist Cheyenne Renee Marcus works on her mural in Jay’s Amos and Julia Ward Theater Tuesday. (Enterprise photo — Galen Halasz)

Marcus said the main challenge of doing the project is trying to locate businesses that are a good fit.

“The travel and the meeting people and the business of it is — that’s the fun part for me,” she said. “The biggest setback has been — I can complete the projects and I can do the work quickly, but finding locations for each state has been really challenging. I’ve had a lot of situations where I get good connections with people and they either have a really hard time finding a wall or a business that will let a mural — like public art — not everybody’s open to that … (or) they don’t have any funding to pay for it.”

On Marcus’s website, people can nominate a small town that might fit the parameters of “any community that either has, like, the scenic beauty … (and) an organization that’s doing something important.”

It will help her process of finding locations if people submit nominations.

“I can only be so many places at once,” she said.

Muralist Cheyenne Renee Marcus poses with her still-in-progress mural in Jay’s Amos and Julia Ward Theater Tuesday. (Enterprise photo — Galen Halasz)

Marcus never went to art school; she’s self taught. She cited her top influences as “Youtube and Bob Ross.”

Marcus will head to Morristown, Vermont on Thursday for the next segment of her project.

Upcoming JEMS events this summer include an all-ages contra dancing workshop on Aug. 7 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in the Amos and Julia Ward Theater, with a $10 per adult and $5 per child suggested donation; 7 p.m. Monday movie nights featuring “Goonies,” “Toy Story,” “E.T.” and “Ratatouille” through August with a $2 per person suggested donation; All Without the Bass on the Jay Green on Aug. 10 at 6 p.m. and Damaged Goods in the Jay Green Gazebo on Aug. 17 at 6 p.m.; “Pooh Sticks,” a children’s play presented by Mountain to Mountain Theater company, on Aug. 24 from 6 to 6:30 p.m. in the theater and a performance by the Piotr Barcz Trio on Sept. 21 in the theater with a $10 suggested donation.