Jackson Free Press

Wearing white, paint-splattered pants and a French beret and holding a painting palette, 5-year-old Kristen Ley decided she wanted to be an artist. Her mom had dressed her up as one for career day. "I don't ever remember a time when I wasn't doing art," Ley says.

Now 27, Ley has fine-art watercolor prints of six Jackson monuments for sale online. She painted some of her favorite places: Brent's Drugs, the Standard Life building, the King Edward, Walker's Drive-In, the Mayflower Cafe and Fondren Corner.

Ley did the paintings originally for her dad's birthday gift, but he thought more people would want to see them. Ley did a set of similar prints in 2006 for Mississippi State University Students Association. Now that she has some to sell, she is donating 30 percent of the proceeds to fund Leadership Greater Jackson projects such as the program at Oak Forest Elementary School.

The prints are the first projects of Thimblepress, a combination art, sewing, design, and woodworking studio Ley started about three weeks ago.

"This whole selling-my-prints thing is new to me, so it's overwhelming. But it's also fun, and it's exciting that people want to put my prints in their home or their office," the artist says.

Ley's love for Jackson started when she moved here with her family at age 12. She was born in Houston, but Ley would rather talk about Jackson. "There's so much cool stuff that goes on in Jackson and in our state, and I feel like it sometimes gets overlooked," she says. "Taking the great amazing things about this city and enhancing them and talking about them--I think that's the first step."

Ley loves meeting new people and was excited to attend the Greater Jackson Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Greater Jackson class series.

"The first day I walked into Leadership Jackson, I didn't know a soul, and I was so thrilled," Ley says. She's a member of the forthcoming Leadership Greater Jackson Class of 2012. "They're all so unique and smart and wanting Jackson to be this amazing thing."

Ley attended high school at Jackson Academy where she works now as a graphic designer. She graduated from Mississippi State University in 2007 with a degree in graphic design and a minor in marketing. She also does freelance consulting and design for businesses and is the marketing director for the Mississippi Breast Center, her father's practice.

"I've taken on a whole new appreciation for the city and want to see it blossom and grow. It is an amazing city," she says.

Visit Ley's Thimblepress Facebook page or go to etsy.com/shop/thimblepress to find out more about the company or to buy prints.