Newton's Paint Bar Campaigns for a Visit from Zac Efron

The mother and daughter owners of Newtonville’s are on a mission.

Jill Kerner Schon and her daughter, Jackie Schon, want to get film star Zac Efron to come to The Paint Bar for a class.

While Efron has no hometown connection to Newton, they are confident they can make this happen.

“Zac did an interview in the March Glamour Magazine,” explains Jill. “He said that his perfect first date was to go to one of those ‘paint and drink places,’ and the idea just took off from there.”

While one usually associates the High School Musical star with his screaming teenaged fans, twenty-something year old Jackie is showing no less of a determination to get her man.

“I’m obsessed,” she laughs. “I stayed up all night Photoshopping pictures of my head onto (the body of) Taylor Swift when she was on Ellen with Zac yesterday.”

Efron and Swift made a recent appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to promote their upcoming movie The Lorax. Efron is a regular on the popular daytime talk show, and Jill and Jackie think that by bringing DeGeneres into the equation they can further assure Efron’s appearance at The Paint Bar.

They have started a campaign to make both celebrities aware of their crusade.

“We’re collecting signatures,” Jill says. “We want to get 500 people to sign a petition letting Ellen know that we want Zac to come here, and for her to come as his date, and we’ll send them to the show and see what happens.”

The determined ladies are also running a contest to decide who will attend the paint-and-sip class they are absolutely certain will come to pass. Patrons who wish to be at the class must write a letter explaining why they feel they should be in attendance.

Jill and Jackie say that potential class with Efron will raise money for The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for children with life-threatening illnesses.

This all-out sort of focus is very much in keeping with the genesis of The Paint Bar.

A couple years ago, Jill was chatting with a lifelong friend who lives in Georgia, and the friend mentioned going to Sips n Strokes, “a paint and drink” place in Atlanta. Jill had never heard of this sort of activity or location at the time.

“This was really the first time they (Atlanta) had gotten anything ahead of us,” she says. “I wanted to know more.”

The basic concept, which according to Jill is popular throughout the South and is rapidly spreading across the US, is that patrons come to a storefront where they can enjoy purchased drinks and snacks while being guided through copying a work of art. The operation varies from location to location, but the overall approach of fun and encouragement of expression is universal.

Eventually, Jill and Jackie visited their Atlanta friend and saw how successful the model was there. It was then they determined that there was no similar operation anywhere in the Boston area and decided to start The Paint Bar. 

. Classes now regularly sell out, and the ladies are investigating opening a second location.

For those interested in potentially getting to meet Efron and DeGeneres and paint with them, Jill and Jackie are asking that letters be sent to them at The Paint Bar no later than mid-March. 

In the meantime, patrons of The Paint Bar are being treated to painting with a cardboard cutout of Efron.

Patch will follow the progress of the campaign, and if Efron comes to town you will read about it here.