Professionally Silly Art brings fun, color, and nostalgia with new mural

By Willis Patenaude

If you wander around Elkader, whether it’s down Main Street or taking a detour through the alleys, you’ll encounter murals. They’re everywhere and serve as a foundation of the beautification efforts of Main Street Elkader (MSE) to give the city a bit of a facelift, turning the sides of buildings or business windows into colorful attractions for locals and tourists alike. 

They are talking points, picture opportunities, and a source of pride for the committees and artists behind them, so when outgoing MSE Director Amy Holst inquired about working on a collaborative unveiling for a new mural involving Jillian Finley, I jumped at the opportunity. 

I’ve worked with Jillian before and found her to be a very upstanding person embodying the quality of character that is highlighted as a main tenet of Central students, and on a side note, I’ve spent entirely too much time driving around town after work knocking her mom and brother out of Pokémon gyms. I see you GrundyCat! How about letting someone else win a showcase! An 1,100 Gothita! Why the audacity! 

I have digressed, but to the point at hand, the Finley family has been extremely kind over the years, so of course I wanted to be involved. After all, it was just a year ago when I wrote an article featuring Jillian and her Professionally Silly Art business and her first trip to Des Moines Con, and I was eager to catch up and see how far her art journey had blossomed. 

Originally, the article was supposed to be published back in early-June, but installation of the mural was delayed, and then timing being what it is, deadlines being what they are, and factors beyond my control contributing, the all-at-once planned unveiling got upended and things are happening a bit out of order, but this isn’t just an article about a mural. It’s also about a local artist carving her own path and fully recognizing it. 

Since her first appearance at Des Moines Con, Jillian has been showcasing, selling, and seeing the fruits of her labor pay off. She has sold art at three conventions in the last year, as well as at the student’s tent at Art in the Park. She was also an artist alley vendor at Animate Des Moines, Twin Cities Con, and Des Moines Con for a second time back in May, and even if she doesn’t make a sale, those conventions could lead to someone following her on social media or recognizing her work at future events, all of which help promote and grow the business. 

“Running a small business means that only you are in charge of marketing yourself so I try my best to post about my art as much as possible to advertise to people who wouldn’t have seen my art in person,” Jillian explained. 

Outside of conventions, she participated in the Upper Iowa Conference art show in West Union as a senior this year, taking second place in sculptural, third place in digital, and an honorable mention in colored drawing. While selling an array of products from stickers to key chains, buttons, and stationary are always a focus; the highlight of Jillian’s art journey over the last year hasn’t been product sales. Instead, it’s been the connections she’s made with other artists. 

“When I started selling my art for the first time at Des Moines Con in 2024, I didn’t know anybody there and this year, I was able to talk with other artists and even make some new friends. Everyone in the artist community has been really kind and welcoming to me, which I am very grateful for,” she said. 

One of those connections was with KatzeKreations, another young, self-taught artist from the Midwest “specializing in anime-inspired artwork with bright colors and cutesy flair.” Jillian met KatzeKreations through Instagram last year at the Twin Cities Con, and the connection led to Jillian being asked to be part of what’s called a “stamp rally” where multiple artists created a cat themed sticker, and if a customer made a purchase from all six artists who participated in the stamp rally, they would return the filled out stamp card to get a prize of six free stickers. 

“This definitely helped us combine audiences and bring customers to our booths who normally might not have shopped from us before,” Jillian said. 

She also had the chance to collaborate locally, working on other projects in her final year of school, like the sticker she made for the Elkader Dog Park fundraiser while also experimenting with some new products, like debuting some beanies with her designs embroidered on the front last fall and printing her art on decorative washi tape and notepads. 

“I’m always willing to try new things with my art in hopes of standing out and reaching new audiences so I’m open to trying new types of apparel and stationary,” she said.

When it comes to what inspires her art, she finds it in the 90s, where all of the best things come from. Back when MTV still showed videos, Blockbuster was more than a store in Oregon, and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” wasn’t a deodorant commercial. You know, the good times! It’s in that era, as well as the 2000s that Jillian finds toys, games, animation, and other “colorful and nostalgic aesthetics” inspirational. 

Deep down, there is another source of inspiration, and that is her family. “They always support me in everything that I do and I wouldn’t have been able to pursue my passions without their help and guidance,” she said. Maybe she could tell Catlego7 to stop stealing all the shiny Pokémon. 

As for the pieces that stand out, she doesn’t have a favorite, since she is more focused on and interested in how a piece of her art makes someone feel. Like the happiness someone gets when they see a piece of art she created like when my son, Bennett, saw all the Star Wars stickers or the Sharkuterie board sticker that made my shark loving wife smile when we attended Jillian’s graduation party at Fennelly’s. 

“I’m the most proud of whatever piece is currently making someone happy. Whether it’s because art of a specific fandom is hard to come by, something I created reminded them of a friend, or one of my stickers made them laugh, the face to face engagement motivates me to keep going,” she said. 

Speaking of engagement, this brings us to the massive butterfly mural that went up last week on the side of Olson Appliance. The idea was brought to Jillian through her art teacher, Carlyn Lechtenberg who was contacted by MSE, who was looking for an artist, specifically, a Central art student, to create something similar to the “wings” mural in Nashville that was shared by a volunteer on the Promotions Committee. In thinking about it, Lechtenberg thought of Jillian, who she believed would be a “good fit” to design the mural because of her fun and colorful style. 

The next step was designing the mural, and according to Jillian, MSE was looking for something that incorporated the most iconic aspects of Elkader into butterfly wings, an idea she found “fun” because she loves “cramming as many details and references” into her art as possible. It also helps that she was born in Elkader and has lived here her entire life, so she had some basic idea of what iconic imagery to include, like the bluffs, sweet corn, the Turkey River, local small businesses, and lest we forget, the Keystone Bridge. 

In total, Jillian said the drawing portion of the project took her around four and a half hours to make and from there it was onto ThINK to be printed, before finally being installed with the phrase “Meet Me in Elkader” and the social media handle for Professionally Silly Art. 

“The people at ThINK, Main Street Elkader, and my art teacher all helped this project come to life. They have all done a fantastic job in making this a smooth process for me and being patient with a high school student who had never done anything this big before,” Jillian said. “I hope this mural brings joy to locals and people visiting Elkader looking for a fun photo opportunity.”