Chances are, your favorite fast food restaurant in town is decked out for the Christmas season, not with wreaths or garland, but with a whimsical window painting featuring tumbling snowmen, a jolly Santa or a red-nosed reindeer.
Most of you can thank artist Heath Migliore for those magical windows. He's the one who's been zipping from all corners of Hall County to metro Atlanta to the North Georgia mountains with his paintbrush in hand the last few weeks.
Migliore, who is a retired narcotics agent, owns Mind's Eye Tattoo & Salon in Flowery, but for the past 25 years, he's taken some time between Thanksgiving and the first of December to spread a little Christmas cheer with his public artwork.
Migliore said he's been drawing since he was a kid, but he painted his first Christmas window for a business in Oakwood just after he graduated from high school.
"It was a franchise restaurant that asked me to paint the window, so I came out...and I painted it and I guess the payment for doing that was about $75," said Migliore. "So, I thought I'd get in my little Ford Festiva and go up and down Mundy Mill Road and hit all the other restaurants...and I ended up with 10 stores."
Migliore said he made enough money for Christmas gifts that year and besides that, it made him happy. So, every year since then, he's taken his paint brushes on the road just before Christmas.
"I'm kind of a Christmas nut," Migliore said. "It really gets me in the mood for Christmas. I see a lot of families who are out at the restaurants with their kids and when they see these paintings, they just light up."
Migliore said with the responsibility of owning a small business, he's toyed with the idea of no longer doing the window painting. He changes his mind when the customers call, though.
"The stores start calling, the customers start calling - the ones that know me - and then I get back out there and do it for about two or three weeks," Migliore said.
For Christmas 2018, Migliore said he will have painted as many as 30 stores in locations as far away as McDonough south of Atlanta to Clayton in the North Georgia mountains. He said he relies on his twin brother Damon, who is also an artist, to help him when there's a time crunch.
He also said he appreciates the staff at Mind's Eye Tattoo & Salon, who realize the boss is going to be out-of-pocket at the onset of the holiday season.
"They know it's my therapy to get out of the chaos of the tattoo world a little bit and go paint windows...it's worth it."
Editor's note: Be sure to check out the video and see Heath Migliore as he works on the windows at Riverside Pharmacy in Gainesville.
