New Murals Downtown
Good murals improve city, and can bring joy
by Renee Fite
City of Stilwell Director of Public Relations and Media
Murals can enhance the appearance of a business and community.
Some towns have mural tours or visitors can pick up a brochure and do a self-guided tour. A town may feature several with the same theme such as the railroad, Bigfoot, strawberries or an event, based on agriculture, arts or any subject that is historical to the area or a new interest the city wants to promote.
Stilwell has a new mural on a downtown business, with an ancient theme of cave drawings.
Attorney Jeff Jones decided cave art would be just the right decorative touch for the outside of his office on Second Street.
“On the north side is the Uffington Horse, as it’s called in England. Or it’s a prehistoric representation of the dragon St. George killed. It has fangs in the original drawing,” said Jones.
The original drawing is more than 100 meters, or about 300 feet, with the layer of sod stripped away to the lime or chalk layer, Jones said.
The south side of the office building features guys hunting buffalo or deer.
Jones was inspired by the cave art paintings such as those found in the Chauvet Caves in France.
Sean Bradford and son Kegan paint the murals on attorney Jeff Jones office building downtown in Stilwell.
On the north side of attorney Jeff Jones' office building is a cave drawing replica of the Uffington Horse or the dragon St. George killed.
photo: Renee Fite
“I like cave art. It’s simple,” said Jones.
He saw a mural he really liked while attending a steam tractor show in Pawnee.
“I saw a mural of Dick Tracy. The cartoon artist who created him was from Pawnee,” said Jones.
Chester Gould created Dick Tracy and Tulsa artist Ed Merberg created the mural in the style of Gould’s art.
Jones said, “People say they like it.”
Murals are popular, said Mayor Jean Ann Wright.
“Everywhere I travel I see murals. They’re beautiful and bring so much vitality to a town,” Wright said.
Some towns have mural trails, said Wright.
“I hope this is the beginning of many, many more murals in Stilwell,” said Wright.
The art was painted by Sean Bradford and sons Aiden and Kegan Bradford.
“Jeff wanted to go with cave art, and he likes the European, but also wanted Native American art too, so we looked them up online and showed him some sketched ideas,” said Bradford.
He’s done murals since he was little with dad, Mark.
“It’s fun and murals make things interesting and brings a plain wall to life,” said Bradford. “We did a lot with my dad to brings schools to life, Westville, Watts, Stilwell, Zion. A couple of years ago dad painted the Indian head at Stilwell football field.”
If anyone is interested in murals, the Bradfords are available.
“We can do murals for others, Stilwell really needs something to bring pride back to their town,” Bradford said. “Fort Smith with all the murals is wonderful, those are intricate by real artists, and they’re pretty cool.”
There are two murals in Tahlequah that cost $20,000 each, rendered by Northeastern State University art professor Lance Hunter and a summer mural class.
Jones said his mural, “wasn’t that expensive.”
“The arts are something people don’t take full advantage of and if people can dive more into the art they can find the joy in it or inner peace,” said Bradford.
