Walking into Lynette Yencho’s home in Owatonna, Minn., you may think you have stepped into an eclectic Victorian mansion turned art studio, complete with a nearly mystical mural covering the dining room walls and ceiling.

But that’s because you have.

Yencho’s home doubles as Garden Studio, where Yencho creates and showcases her illustrations, paintings, murals, sculptures, graphic designs and, in partnership with her husband Michael Yencho, photography.

With trellises leading to a patio and garden in the backyard, along with a parrot named Tinker and two cats named George and Newton, Garden Studio certainly lives up to its name.

“I’ve always had my studio in my home except for when I had my studio in Duluth on the North Shore, and I guess it’s just the way I work,” Yencho said. “It’s very much a part of me and my life so I don’t think of it in any other terms.”

At the age of 16, Yencho began her career working for Jostens, where she says she learned a lot about being an artist.

“They are really good technical artists,” Yencho said of her associates at Jostens. “That was really good schooling.”

When Yencho finished her time at Jostens, she moved to the Twin Cities.

“I got extremely bored and that’s when I started painting,” she said. “At great risk, I moved to the Cities on my own.”

Before starting Garden Studio in 1982, Yencho worked in the Twin Cities as the art director for Llewellyn Publications and later as a staff illustrator for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

“I tried and failed a lot of things,” she said. “I didn’t do the Mary Tyler Moore thing very well.”

Although she may not have followed in Mary Tyler Moore’s footsteps, Yencho said she did meet some very influential and interesting people during her time with Llewellyn Publications. Most importantly, she met one of her best friends while working there.

“She was my mentor, mother, sister, daughter and best friend,” Yencho said. “Whenever I have a problem or whenever I’m stuck with something, she is the authorial being.”

Since her stint with Llewellyn and the Star Tribune, Yencho has moved to Duluth, back to the Twin Cities and, finally, back to Owatonna four years ago, making a full circle in her artistic journey.

“There are times that I really miss the Cities,” Yencho said. “I really miss the Whole Foods and the kids that work there with the tattoos on their arms.”

“I just love kids being creative,” Yencho added.

Yencho said that even though Owatonna is not as art-saturated as the Twin Cities, she thinks the Owatonna Arts Center is a good tool for artists and art appreciators.

“We have the most beautiful art center for a small town that I have ever seen,” Yencho said.

Yencho is deeply involved in the Owatonna Arts Center and has been working on a mural for the center since April 2010.

According to Yencho, the mural will be ten by twelve feet and will be on panels so that it can be removed from the Arts Center if the center ever relocates in the future.

Although the design of the mural can be credited to Yencho, she said Art Director Silvan Durben of the Owatonna Arts Center has played a very significant role organizing the details for the completion of the mural, including the construction of the panels.

“Silvan is so much of a rock and a support for the rest of us,” Yencho said. “He is a real supportive figure in this town. He’s just been incredible.”

The mural itself is done with oil on masonite and is based on inspiration. Yencho said that over the several months she’s been working on it, the vision for the panels has evolved because of different artist’s perspectives.

Yencho and the art center have encountered several obstacles on the road to mural completion, including momentary uncertainty about how well the panels would fit in the art center, but Yencho is still looking forward to the end result.

“It’s going to be marvelous, darling,” she joked in a British accent.

Yencho has also been participating in the art center’s monthly art crawl since October. The art crawl occurs the second Tuesday evening of every month from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. and will run until May 2011.

And, as always, Yencho also plans to keep adding onto the mural in her dining room.

“It’s truly a stream of consciousness,” Yencho said about the dining room mural. “It’s a very organic thing — it’s whatever the Spirit moves.”