With a new mural piece, local artist Jessica Jones brings color and vitality into downtown Conway

Conway, Arkansas – A new mural attraction outside city hall will soon provide additional color to downtown Conway.

The mural, according to artist Jessica Jones, will feature fireflies, a large moth, and the recognizable hanging baskets and lampposts that are strewn across the city.

“I estimated that this project will take about a month,” Jones said Friday.

Conway is familiar with Jones. She claimed to have painted over thirty murals in public and private areas across the city.

People [tell me] ‘thank you so much for beautifying our city’ or ‘I see this every day and it makes me happy’,” Jones said. “Sometimes even their personal stories of ‘this has a symbolic meaning to me’.”

She claimed that Conway is where she started her career even if she now paints murals in other locations.

“I didn’t originally go to school to do art,” Jones said. “It kind of started as something I did in my free time.”

She explained that her first painting was actually a drawing she did for a buddy who worked as a graphic designer, and it eventually became her first paid outdoor painting project.

“A couple of days before their soft opening [of the coffee shop], they were like, ‘there’s only so much level of detail that they can get in the vinyl. Can you paint it in the mural?’,” Jones said.

Although Jones wasn’t sure if she would be able to paint a mural, the graphic artist urged her to try.

“Sometimes you just have to do something once to say, this is what I love,” Jones said. “I just stated taking more of those opportunities because I did enjoy working big.”

Since then, according to Jones, she has been able to establish a successful painting career and has observed that art serves as a “huge reflector of a healthy community.”

Support your local artists. Arts are important,” she said. “Artists, value yourself. Just because you love what you doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be paid for it.”