For Ann Presley, art has been a regular part of life for over 30 years, a form of therapy, a way to

connect with nature and a way to remember. Recently she presented the mayor and city council
of Sherwood with a painting of the Round Top Gas Station, which local preservationists are
seeking to make a police substation to save it from demolition. But the painting she originally
donated to the group for auction almost fell through the cracks.
She gave the first new painting of the building (she had done an ugly painting of it decades
before) to the group to auction last year, but th 16 by 20 oil on canvas was left out of the
auction, and sold instead for $50, a very low price for a painting of that size and quality. Presley
arranged to meet with the buyer at the church they both attend, and fellow congregant and
former long-time city clerk Amy Sanders saw the work and asked Presley if shed paint another
to present to the mayor and council. Presley agreed.
I just always thought it was a neat building, she said. On January 21st, Amy and I presented
(the second painting) to the mayor and city council.
Presley began serious painting in a high school art class and took the subject on and off during
her college days. About 30 years ago, she started taking regular lessons from Coe Wilson when
the latter lived in Sherwood.
I decided I wanted to enter some contests and might eventually want to teach lessons or make
it a business, she said. I won a few of the Sherwood and other local contests.
She had settled into a sort of routine, doing landscapes and Native American-themed works,
when a national tragedy pushed her in a different direction.
(Hurricane) Katrina came along and I was just emotionally distraught by how badly people were
treated along the Gulf Coast, she said. So I did two collages (paintings with several connected
scenes). Katrina I was set right after landfall, and Katrina II was from (later that year).
I guess (painting) is kind of a mental health therapy for me.
Her next theme was also in response to then-current events, as she began exploring military
themes as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq started. She also sought to highlight womens
expanding role in these conflicts, both in traditional and new roles.
I decided I wanted to show women because they had taken such an active part in Iraq and
Afghanistan, she said. I have one called Careful where a woman is on her knees locating a
landmine, and I have one of a nurse preparing to insert an IV.
An even more traditional image of a woman welcoming her husband home after deployment
represented Arkansas in the national Daughters of the American Revolution oils contest and
won third place. But whatever the subject matter, Presley said its important to remember those
serving in these times.
I think its kind of like Korea, in that its being forgotten or put out of peoples minds, she said.
Presley is a member of The Art Group, which is currently occupying a storefront in the Pleasant
Ridge shopping center in west Little Rock. She is a retired teacher and school librarian, lives in
Sherwood with her husband and daughter, and enjoys regular trips to Malvern to visit her son
and grandchildren.