Nelson creates ‘window’ wonderlands

ART BY SHANNA – Shanna Nelson paints the lettering for the winter wonderland window display on her parents’ business.

by ARIEL McRAE | Associate Editor

amcrae@hchronicle.net

All across Gibson County, residents and business owners have been gearing up to celebrate the holiday season. One way they have been showing their festive spirits is by having their windows painted by local artist, Shanna Nelson.

Nelson grew up in Trenton, Tenn. where she went to school at Peabody. During her time at school, Nelson said she never delved into the world of art because art terrified her. However, in 2018, she discovered a talent unbeknownst to her. She and one of her daughters, Kaliyah, participated in an activity known as hide a rock, find a rock, in which the goal is to paint a rock with positive sayings and leave it for someone else to find.

“I was surprised I was good at art,” Nelson explained.

From there, Nelson transitioned into painted and designing door hangers with various themes, especially for the different holiday seasons. She did this for a long while until she found herself growing bored of doing hangers like everyone else. This led her to discover her talent for painting windows.

In May of 2022, Nelson decided to paint her parents’ business with strawberries to commemorate the West Tennessee Strawberry Festival. To her, painting windows quickly became one of her favorite avenues for art because it is constantly changing and the surface is one of the smoothest she has ever painted. Painting her parents’ business put her on the map for others around Humboldt who suddenly decided they also needed strawberries for their businesses. Quickly, her business grew by word of mouth. So much so, she began painting all over Gibson County and even some windows outside of Gibson County, such as Paris, Tenn. and McKenzie, Tenn. During the fall season, Nelson painted over 30 windows.

“Being from a small town helps me because most of the people who have wanted their windows painted have come from word of mouth,” Nelson said. “I am constantly receiving Facebook messages, people talk to my parents or they just stop when I am painting to ask me to do their windows.”

ROCKING AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE – Shanna Nelson’s daughter, Kaliyah Woods puts the finishing details on the Christmas trees for the window display on East End Drive in Humboldt.

While painting for the folks of Humboldt and the surrounding counties, Nelson joined a Facebook group for mural painting. This led her to take the trip of a lifetime to the Dominican Republic with a group of mural artists to help design murals for a resort there. All in all, the group created four huge murals for the walls of the resort over the course of a week. Now, Nelson stated she is in a group chat with some of the girls from the trip and they keep each other updated about the art they are doing in their areas of the world. She mentioned she would love to travel around America as well as outside of the country to continue to paint murals and window displays.

Currently, Nelson has painted or is in the process of painting 40 windows for the Christmas season. She admitted that Humboldt is her best area to paint, but the surrounding towns and counties were quickly catching up. Plenty of people have been wowed by the art Nelson has distributed around Gibson County, but to her, the process to paint is simple. She outlines what she wants to draw in chalk and then uses a base coat to design out what she intends to paint. Then it is just as simple as filling in her designs with the colors she has chosen. Nelson said she would not make a great teacher of art because explaining the process is hard for her, but she does enjoy painting with her daughter sometimes because “she just gets it.”

Right now, Nelson is working on a scavenger hunt throughout her paintings for those who want to participate. She is hiding symbolic emblems within her works significant to the town she is painting in such as strawberries for Humboldt or teapots for Trenton. The goal is to have someone find the most symbols and whoever can find the most will win a free painting at the school of their choice.

If you want to have your windows painted the best way to contact Nelson is on Facebook or by looking up the moniker @artbyshanna731 on Tiktok.