What does a painter do when their latest painting is too big to paint?  

That was the dilemma faced by Central Ohio artist Paul Hamilton. In 2014, Hamilton agreed to paint a piece intended to occupy a large space at the soon-to-open James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute at Ohio State University—one of several pieces Hamilton provided to the facility.  

This painting came into focus one day when Hamilton received a text message from his friend, Annie Cacciato, who had been contending with lung cancer. “It said, ‘Paul, I’m in complete remission. God has healed me completely. And from here on out, it’s all blue beautiful skies,’” says Hamilton, 59, a longtime Granville resident now based in Hebron. 

Hamilton had his title—“Blue Beautiful Skies”—and, glancing outside, he began to foresee the piece itself: 96 panels that, when arranged in a pattern, would meld into a majestic landscape showing countless clouds against heavenly hues of blue.  

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The problem: Hamilton did not have sufficient space at his then-home studio to create the work. He set up shop at the Granville Studio of Visual Arts, where he taught and which Cacciato had co-founded. Now known as the Bryn Du Art Center, the studio is on the grounds of Granville’s Bryn Du Mansion.  

Hamilton took over not the main area for students, with its stainless steel tables, easels and paint-speckled floor, but a large separate gallery room. He did so with the approval of the woman who was the space’s “heart and soul.” “I ended up telling Annie that I’m going to use that room, and she said, ‘Paul, it’s all yours,’” he says. “I took two pieces of 4-by-8 plywood and I built a rack—kind of like an easel.”  

Cacciato died in 2021. Hamilton continues to draw inspiration from the studio he once shared with her. “I’m going to start teaching again,” he says. 

This story appeared in the February 2025 issue of Columbus Monthly.Subscribe here.