Jonesboro, AR – Jonesboro Right Now – Downtown Jonesboro’s newest mural was unveiled with a ribbon cutting Friday morning.
The mural, located on the side of the McDaniel Law Firm building on Main Street, was painted by Cody Crittenden, a muralist from Piggott, AR, who holds a degree in graphic design from Arkansas State University. Crittenden has been painting murals for nearly a decade, with works sprinkled across Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee.
The mural depicts the word “Jonesboro,” with each letter representing a different aspect or industry of the Jonesboro community. Ducks fly overhead, and farmland makes up the mural’s base. What each letter depicts is listed below:
- J – Healthcare
- O – Athletics
- N – Manufacturing
- E – First responders and the legal system
- S – Downtown Jonesboro
- B – Agriculture
- O – Nonprofit organizations
- R – Education
- O – Arts
“The concept is each letter is a collage. The longer you look at it, the more you’ll see,” said Downtown Jonesboro Alliance (DJA) executive director Sarah Doss during the ceremony. “Hopefully, you can kind of see those as you look through it.”
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Doss told JRN the idea for this mural started in 2021, when she pitched it to the DJA’s board of directors. The mural was put out to bid about two years ago, she said, and painting officially began at the end of May.
The mural is painted with exterior latex-based paint, allowing the work to expand and contract with the building’s wall as temperatures change. It has color protection and a base coat for masonry and brick. Crittenden laughed that he used lots of “very, very small, tiny brushes for all the details.”
“I’ve always kind of wanted to paint a mural in downtown Jonesboro. I just thought it would be a big deal, super excited to do it,” Crittenden said during the ceremony. “It’s just kind of a dream come true.”
Doss said she hopes the mural will act as a landmark for downtown Jonesboro, being a place where people can take pictures and be one of the things people “have to see and stop at.”
“Beautification of downtown is so vital,” Doss said. “[We want] to make this just a place that people love.”
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