FARMINGTON – Erin Ashcraft, a muralist and artist who grew up in Monticello, recently completed a new colorful and naturalistic mural in the Farmington City Library’s Jane Vest Children’s Library here.
Ashcraft of Rogers, has finished her four-week commissioned work, a virtual mural over all the interior walls of the Jane Vest Children’s Library, transforming the already well used, child friendly space with its circular reading “bubbles” built into the walls, into an Arkansas natural paradise of color and images.
By Maylon Rice
Saline River Chronicle Feature Contributor
“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Regina Strong Sherwood, a Farmington library board member.
More than 200 – an audience equally split between grown-up and children attended the grand unveiling of the mural recently. The unveiling was just ahead of the June/July Summer Reading Program and was hailed as a major event for the library.
Ashcraft is the daughter of Chester and Debbie Ashcraft of Monticello. Chester Ashcraft has long been associated with the operations of the Physical Plant at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, while Debbie Ashcraft has taught speech and drama at Monticello High School for years.
This mural was not Ashcraft’s first, nor will it be her latest mural – both inside and outside.
She has previously completed a mural for the McGehee Fire Department, often seen in backdrop photos for the department publicity and Facebook page. She is set to complete another mural, this summer, for the McGehee Fire Department.
She has also done other previous outside art works in Northwest Arkansas.
This was, however, her first library mural – a massive children’s library mural, covering walls, doorways, around windows and even a short hallway.
A couple of newspaper stories of her work as it progressed and the final unveiling have appeared in the local Farmington newspaper as well as the Northwest Arkansas edition of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
The mural fills the Jane Vest Children’s Library area, which is about one-fourth of the 5,500 square foot public library in Farmington.
During her work on the mural, Ashcraft said she used over 30 different pints of various color and was often seen hauling the array of paints around in a little red wagon inside the area to complete the scenes, which feature native plants, animals and a little whimsey, such as a yellow submarine, in the tight corners of the children’s library.
