WATCH: Bar owner's trip to Argentina inspires artist's latest work

Artist Karla Parker signs her mural at the Argentinian Coffee & Wine Bar on Wednesday. - Photo by J.P. Ford of The Sentinel-Record
Artist Karla Parker signs her mural at the Argentinian Coffee & Wine Bar on Wednesday. - Photo by J.P. Ford of The Sentinel-Record

Local artist and author Karla Parker signed her new mural on the back patio wall of the Argentinian Coffee & Wine Bar on Wednesday, artwork that is based on the places that owner Amy Esner saw during her travels to Argentina, her husband's home country.

"It's inspired by La Boca, Argentina," Esner said, which is a neighborhood in Buenos Aires, the capital.

"So this is where all the immigrants actually migrated to the country originally. That was the start of the entire country," she said. "When I was traveling, we went here and I was watching them dance the tango, and I love the bright colors."

Esner said she is hoping that coming to the patio will make "you feel like you stepped out of Hot Springs, kind of like a way to take you away from the city for a moment."

Parker said she has painted other murals for Esner before this one, including one at the former Thai-Me location on Highway 7 south.

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"We've known each other for a while. We used to work together. I was a massage therapist for a while, until my arthritis got too bad. She had seen some of my artwork. When she needed artwork, she called me," she said.

Outside of working with Esner, Parker said she has painted many other murals in and around the Spa City. Her first was at Lanny's Cycle World Kawasaki dealership on Lacey Street back in the early 1980s. She noted she painted bright, slightly abstracted Kawasaki products on each of several cemented-in windows.

Parker described the second mural she painted as her "first big project," which can be viewed at the Tower Motel, the Short-Dodson House on Park Avenue, a two-and-a-half story historic house.

"I did a 6-by-10 (foot) painting of Moses at the summit of Sinai. It's on the second-floor landing," she said.

Parker has also painted a mural on a ceiling in a dining room at Windsong Farms in Bonnerdale of cherubs with roses and grapevines, painted to coordinate with a Michelangelo print in an adjoining room.

Her largest mural is of the Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto.

"That one was 20-by-60 feet of DeSoto in the Valley of the Vapors," she said. "It showed Hot Springs Creek with the downtown mountains in the background. On the left bank was part of a Native American village, with people cooking fish. In the middle, DeSoto spoke with the chief, and on the right, on the opposite bank, part of DeSoto's entourage waited with the horses."

She said the mural at the Argentinian took her six months to complete, due to unexpected weather, and would be her last big mural piece.

Parker also paints sets for the Pocket Community Theatre, including its recent production of "Murder on the Orient Express," which wrapped last Sunday. She created a winter scene, which audience members could see through the windows of the train.

Parker is also an author. Her latest series is about a detective named Scootch, set in 1940s Hot Springs. Scootch McCulley gets her "private investigators license to help her uncle in his law practice ... like taking pictures of cheating spouses in the hotel, that kind of thing. And the real case falls in her lap," Parker said.

Her books can be purchased online at http://www.amazon.com/author/karlaparker.

Argentinian Coffee and Wine Bar owner Amy Esner says she was inspired for the mural at her business by her trip to Argentina. - Photo by J.P. Ford of The Sentinel-Record
Argentinian Coffee and Wine Bar owner Amy Esner says she was inspired for the mural at her business by her trip to Argentina. - Photo by J.P. Ford of The Sentinel-Record
Amy Esner, Argentinian Coffee and Wine Bar owner, left, shakes hands with mural artist Karla Parker. - Photo by J.P. Ford of The Sentinel-Record
Amy Esner, Argentinian Coffee and Wine Bar owner, left, shakes hands with mural artist Karla Parker. - Photo by J.P. Ford of The Sentinel-Record

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