At first glance, Applied Research Technologies looks like a "Dilbert" kind of place, full of cubicles and computers. But there's a surprise visible through the company's window on Regent Street -- a ceiling full of cherubs and winged creatures.
You don't find many murals being painted on ceilings these days, especially in Utah. Ceiling murals are hard work (and, too, it's hard to paint a mural on acoustic tile).They say that Michelangelo developed calluses on his back when he painted the Sistine Chapel. He got so used to looking up, they say, that after a while, when he tried to read a letter, he had to hold it over his head.
Try to paint a mural on a ceiling and you're either going to get a sore neck or a sore arm or both. If the ceiling is really high, you'll need to paint from scaffolding, lying on your back.
So, when artist Carolyn Toronto agreed to paint a mural on the ceiling of Applied Research Technologies, she soon discovered all kinds of obstacles she never learned about in art school.
For starters, when you're lying on your back just a few inches from your painting, all you can see is a small section of the bigger picture. To try to get the proportions right, Toronto had to climb down from the scaffold many times a day, and that meant first sliding on her stomach through a 12-inch opening between two metal bars. And, since she was wedged up so close to the ceiling, there were also paint fumes to deal with; when the fumes got really bad, she had to wear a gas mask, which further limited her view.
The ceiling mural was the brainchild of Applied Research Technologies owner Brad B. Buxton ("the consummate romantic," says Toronto). His only requirements were that the ceiling have a Renaissance feel to it and that it include depictions of his three deceased dogs -- Bungie, Trouble and Shammy -- wearing angel wings. The dogs hover in the southwest corner of the mural. The rest depicts the myth of Apollo and Daphne.
The total effect, with the Greek gods and the cherubs and clouds and dogs, is both sublime and camp.
Applied Research Technologies designs global networks for Fortune 500 companies like Netscape, Oracle and Charles Schwab. When Buxton moved the company's headquarters, several years ago, to the 108-year-old former Felt Electric building, at 165 S. Regent St., he vowed to restore the building to its original grandeur.
At the turn of the century, the building housed Salt Lake's most famous brothel, with a cigar store on the bottom floor. In those days, Regent Street -- then called Commercial -- was a dirt road. Legend has it that the dirt was red, leaving dusty proof in many a man's trouser cuffs; and that's why it became the city's first paved street.
Like Michelangelo, Toronto is something of a Renaissance artist. She recently finished her first CD, "Juliet Convention," which she composed and performed (singing and playing keyboards).
It took Michelangelo four years to finish the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Toronto finished hers in a month.
Pictures of the ceiling will eventually be available at Applied Research Technologies' Web site www.applied-research.com.