IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Michelle Black
BY RAY VAN COR
The Greenville Standard
Meet Mrs. Michelle Black. Michelle was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, lived in Germany for the first two years of her life and was raised in San Antonio, Texas.
San Antonio is where she fell in love with art, taking multiple art classes in middle school, trying to learn she could.
Uprooted again, her family moved to Atlanta, Ga., when she was 14 years old. While attending Duluth High School, she once again took all the art classes she could manage.
Michelle says art and basketball were her two loves throughout high school. She became a parent after high school.
She said, “My senior year of high school was working two full time jobs struggling to make ends meet, working in restaurants and warehouses and finally a customer service job which led to sales selling everything from engraving machines, dental equipment and from personal protection equipment safety supplies to environmental sampling supplies.”
She met her husband Danny in 2007. She added, “By then, I was a single mother of two, with a daughter 15 and son nine.
The couple were engaged on Christmas morning 2007, and married on June 20, 2008.
The week of their honeymoon, they spent most of their time working around the house.
She jokingly added, “Yes, he owes me a honeymoon. We painted the kids’ bedrooms and decorated all that we could to include my son’s room. He wanted a soccer ball on his wall with his name on it and begged me to paint it for him. Sitting down at her table she drew and drew until she got the soccer ball down pat. Then I went up and painted my son’s mural; after many experiments and errors later, he had a custom art piece – a mural to be exact.”
Michelle said, “I had so much fun painting that soccer mural and decorating his room! My husband saw the mural and thought I could do this for a living and that’s how the mural business started.”
Advertising on Craig’s list “Custom Murals for Sale” and “Let’s talk about what you would like to see in that special space.” People started emailing.
Her first official mural project, a paying gig, was for Zoo Atlanta, incredible enough that the zoo had her paint eight more murals.
Still working a full time job as a sales rep, she quit her job to become a full time artist. A professional muralist and to this day, she still holds that title.
Michelle has survived a heart attack in July 2023, spending 68 days in the hospital and rehab.
Michelle said, “I had to learn to write, draw, walk and talk, basically everything all over again.
Michelle and Danny reside in Georgiana with their three dogs these days where her and her husband Danny Dwight Black, II own and operate A Color Affair.
The Classroom – Michelle says, “Which we hope is ready to open next week – is a relatively new venture for us. We’ve been working on this since those days in the hospital. We made a lot of plans there! I’ll teach the arts and crafts, and Danny will tell the jokes.”
When Michelle is not busy, she is on the Planning Committee Board for Georgiana, a member of the Georgiana Cares Group, Downtown Georgiana Group, and was the official Graphic Artist and I.T. for the 2025 Alabama Veterans Ball Association.
