Adjacent to pristine stores like Diamond Concepts and Kay Jewelers in the Manassas Mall lies a place where you hurl paint at the walls.
Walking into Splatter Paint Room in Manassas, I was greeted by employee Rachel, who wore a very apropos tie-dye shirt, although it might have originally been white.
She handed me coveralls, snow boot–style footwear, and protective goggles. Then, she provided me with six squeeze bottles of paints — red, yellow, blue, green, black, and white — along with a paintbrush and mixing cup to combine colors. Finally, she bestowed me with a 16-inch-by-20-inch canvas.
Before beginning, she laid out the ground rules, plus some helpful tips.
“No throwing paint at the windows or ceiling,” she says. Casting my eyes skyward, I could see that rule had clearly been violated before, judging by several paint streaks along the overhead lights.
“Try throwing and squeezing the paint bottles like a tennis swing. That produces thicker streaks,” she suggests. I’m not sure this is how my childhood tennis instructor imagined me utilizing that skill in adulthood. Maybe I’ll start using the same motion at restaurants when I want thicker ketchup.
Then, I was off to the races. In a way, the experience felt similar to the rage rooms or smash rooms that took off a few years ago, except I actually felt constructive instead of destructive. I was legitimately creating, not demolishing.
One of the songs playing in the background was Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal,” which oddly fit. I began conjuring a scenario where I was illegally spray-painting graffiti on an underpass.
The Splatter Paint Room can let you unleash your pent-up creativity — or inner hooligan. You can book the room for up to 25 people, which makes it perfect for extended-family outings, bachelor and bachelorette parties, and art-class field trips. “We recently had a group from a local nursing home,” Rachel says. “We had to cover up their wheelchairs so they wouldn’t get paint all over them.”
Best of all, you can take your artwork home. Jackson Pollock’s Number 17A is the fifth-most-expensive painting ever. It sold for $200 million in 2015. I’m not going to lie. I think my painting looks almost exactly the same. I’ve titled it Number 18B.
But don’t worry, I’ll sell it at a discount — $190 million, max. 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday–Saturday; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday; 8270 Sudley Rd., Manassas, splatterpaintroom.com
Feature photo courtesy Jesse Rifkin
This story originally ran in our June issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
