ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, September 20, 1996             TAG: 9609200089
SECTION: FALL HOME & LANDSCAPE    PAGE: 3    EDITION: METRO 

UNDERNEATH THE PAINT, ARTIST LIKES WHAT SHE FINDS

Vera Silcox said husband Larry's co-workers joke with him about their home's front door. They kid him and offer him money to replace it.

But Vera Silcox likes it just the way it is, thank you very much, and she ought to. She created the look herself.

"I have a restless spirit," she said. She makes her living painting designs on furniture, walls and anything thing else, including her own threshold, which is a very realistic rendering in faux marble.

As for the front door, she changes its color as her mood suits her. This winter, after she painted it red for Christmas, there were so many coats of paint on it, that she decided to sand it down before doing it over again.

As she worked, "all the colors came through," she said, and she liked it so much that she hung it back up just as it was.

A few years ago, she added a Victorian iron knocker she picked up at a flea market and had been using as a paperweight. The knocker is in the shape of a fist holding a stick. A laurel wreath with a lion's head in the center hangs from the stick.

If the combination of symbols ever had any meaning, it has been lost now, she said.

Although she is a professional artist, anyone who wants to can do what she did to her door, Silcox said. "Desire is the biggest thing. If you want to do it, you can."

LENGTH: Short :   36 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:      Larry and Vera Silcox's front door had been painted 
          many times. When Vera sanded it down to remove the red she had it 
          painted for Christmas, all the colors came through.  color