After Mall Mural, Overall Paint Co. Looks to Leave a Mark

BOARDMAN, Ohio — Patrick McGlone stands in a scissor lift, dressed in white overalls as bystanders marvel at his work. Armed with a bucket of paint, a couple brushes and a roller, the Youngstown firefighter turns a yellow-shaded brick wall into art.

Outside Southern Park Mall, as he painted an oversized version of a design created by tenant Youngstown Clothing Co., friends, family and shoppers walked over to compliment his work. Others took photos with the painting while he was putting his brush to brick.

McGlone is the founder of Overall Paint Co., a business he started in January after working as a personal trainer at Train Station Fitness in Boardman.

He works one day for the fire department and receives two off, and the cycle continues throughout the week. The schedule allows him time to balance his time between jobs.

McGlone’s older brother, Dan, convinced him to sign up for the fire department. The older McGlone is a smokejumper — expertly-trained firefighters who travel across the country, parachuting to sites to assist with wildfires.

“It was a blessing in disguise because I’m very thankful to be doing it now,” McGlone said.

McGlone’s passion for art started while attending Cardinal Mooney High School. He credits his teacher, Sean Butler, for developing his skills. After graduation, McGlone attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, but painting wasn’t his area of study. He honed his skills as a residential and commercial painter.

He got his first shot at creating professional art while eating at Sweet Melissa’s Good Eats in Boardman. In October, he met with Youngstown Clothing owner Matt McClure, who asked him to paint a small mural in the back of their store at the mall.

“The money that I was making from doing a couple murals was outweighing the money I was making training, and it just became a no-brainer to make that switch from training to doing the wall murals,” McGlone said.

With the concept in mind, McGlone needed to find a name. As a child, he wanted to start a landscaping company and call it “Overall Landscaping.” He thought it would be a recognizable uniform for potential customers. While trying to think of a name for his painting business, he realized the theme worked.

McGlone hasn’t advertised for Overall Paint Co. He doesn’t want the business to grow too fast, leading to an overload of requests. But word quickly spread of his work through social media, with clients making requests through the company’s social media pages.

When the pandemic started, various businesses took advantage of the time off to renovate their facilities. For some, that meant calling McGlone to add a little personality before reopening.

Soon, Overall Paint Co.’s work was placed in children’s bedrooms, on the sides of buildings and even inside St. Dominic Roman Catholic Parish in Youngstown. Since taking his first job with Youngstown Clothing Co., McGlone has completed approximately 30 jobs, and he still has more in the works.

“With the power of social media these days, if you can put some good work out there, you can gain some traction,” McGlone said. 

“It’s just incredible [that] you can make something out of nothing,” McGlone said.

McGlone, however, needed to focus on the Southern Park Mall.
The project was a challenge. The mural, which sits between Sawa Japanese Cuisine and Escape Boardman, is roughly 20 feet tall and as wide as one of the mall’s exterior storefronts.

McGlone freehands much of his work. For the Southern Park Mall mural – a recreation of Youngstown Clothing’s “Yohio” design” – he calculated the proportions using the bricks as a measuring stick, and applied a chalk outline as a sketch.

He’d rotate or exit the lift to see how it appeared since he was too close to get an accurate vantage point. After returning to his position, he started to apply paint. He continued the same ritual through the painting process to make sure everything was to his liking.

“I’ll tell you what, if this was a flat wall, I would have been done [a lot sooner],” McGlone said as he filled in the creases in between each brick.

With the sun setting McGlone, exited the lift, another 10-hour day in the books. He’ll return to tweak some details and he’ll await his next call, whether it be a fire alarm or another client.

“[I’m] starting to just take more drives around Youngstown and seeing little stores or businesses that I’ve had a hand in making just a little bit better has been the coolest part because I love Youngstown,” McGlone said. “I love this hometown and just to have a small part in everything that’s going on here is pretty cool.”

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.