Outside, the day carries a chill, and the soft noise of people passing by seeps through the windows of Presley Bergmooser’s downtown Detroit apartment. The Michigan State University alum moves to the tan cabinets, takes a wine glass and pours herself an energy drink steadily. She moves past her counter, passing by a McDonald’s medium cup with orange paint inside.
“Do you guys know I'm not drinking on the job?” she said in an in-person interview.
“It's not mixed, but it does look like a nice little cocktail,” she laughs. “It's more fun if you just drink it in a wine glass.”
Bergmooser settles into her orangey-brown leather couch – the spot she finds the most solace in. Resting her drink on the windowsill, she lets her gaze drift over the city.
When Bergmooser was younger, she would sell duct tape wallets at her hometown’s art country fair. She said she had always been creative and described her senior year of high school as the time when she would find her love for studio art and painting. Here, she came up with innovative ways to get her friends' graduation gifts, like painting their school’s mascot on the backs of jean shorts and jackets.
Since then, she has thrown herself into studio art, mural painting, and, most recently, a live painting business that garnered widespread online attention for its portrayals of authenticity and paint stains on “fancy” dresses.
“I am a very firm believer that social media is an opportunity to simply connect with other people. And I want to use that to connect with clients, but also with artists, (and) with young women,” she said. “You know, any artist who is trying to make a career, or if it can somehow have a positive impact on people.”
The idea for Bergmooser’s live painting services began in 2024 with a “repeat offender” client who often commissioned her work. One day, the client shared a Facebook reel of an artist painting a wedding scene in real time. Inspired, she asked Bergmooser if she could do the same for her wedding day.
“I remember genuinely thinking about it,” she said. “I was like, ‘I don't know. I've never done this before, but I like you. So let's meet, let's talk about it. If you're okay with this being my first time ever, I'm willing to do it for you.’”
Bergmooser showed up to the wedding with no practice, an oil-stained green dress and the mindset of saying yes to everything, even when you’re scared.
“Everything in my life has paint on it,” she said. “I've just always been that type of artist … So I was like, ‘I'll wear this because I know I'm gonna get it dirty, and it already has the stain, so I'll cover it up with paint.’”
Bergmooser has six dresses she keeps in rotation for her live painting events. One of them was a hand-me-down dress, and the others she buys from clearance racks or TJ Maxx.
“The only dress that I have ever thrown away is because it ripped when I was putting it on,” she said, adding that she will be getting a new line-up of dresses this year and putting together an art exhibit over the summer of old dresses to show at IHM in Monroe.
She said IHM is a living place for women who used to be nuns. It has a gallery every year and is connected to where she grew up and went to school.
“I always wanted them (the dresses) to become art,” she said. “You know, despite what the comments say, the dresses do not get thrown away and have never gotten thrown away because they have paint on them.”
During Bergmooser’s time at MSU, she studied advertising management and said she wouldn’t change a thing. She thought her professors genuinely cared about the students and the work they did, highlighting her relationship with MSU advertising professor Dave Regan, who gave Bergmooser a plethora of old advertising books he considered giving away.
“I gave her my entire collection. Every illustration, photography, creative design book I had from back in the early ‘80s and even from my college years,” Regan said, adding that he thought Bergmooser would be one student who would appreciate the collection.
“Presley did what I wished every student would do. And that is come and chat with the professor after class once in a while … She really has some incredible talent, and she works hard.”
Bergmooser begins her live painting by recording the couple before she paints. She takes a video to get a few different angles before getting the “money shot.”
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Then she draws all over the canvas, incorporating techniques she used for murals, and writes a message before the reception, where she spends about three to five hours chatting with guests, listening to a myriad of different music ranging from Elvis to Metallica and painting with acrylics. After, she calls the bride and groom over for the big reveal.
“People are always so enamored by it … I have the privilege of capturing something that is, I mean, probably, or they want (it) to be, 100% the most special days of their life,” Bergmooser said.
“Moms cry all the time. Brides scream. The grooms are always like, shocked.”
After the process is over, she takes the painting back to where she’s staying in the area, whether it be a travel wedding or in Michigan, and puts the finishing touches on the canvas. She mails the final product out to couples within two weeks of their special day.
Bergmooser's prices start at about $2,500. Her packages go up to about $4,000, but she painted her first client’s piece for only $750.
Derrick Diza, Bergmooser’s mentor and the founder of Influential Walls – an artist mentorship program – noted that, because of the demand for live painting, the price increase was necessary.
“She's so emotionally bought into the weddings, and it's so beautiful to have a business that you're so passionate about and see the passion from the entrepreneur,” he said. “It pours out at Presley. You just see how stoked she is about it.”
