Jess Spires was born in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1973. Spires is mostly a painter, alternating between watercolor and acrylics, but also enjoys photography and sculpture. Owner of Guitar Parts Factory she is a serious businesswoman by day. When she isn’t working, she spends her time cooking, gardening, boating, listening to live music, loving her family, and creating colorful folk paintings signed with her nickname, BunkoJess.
In her whimsical paintings, she often blends guitar and music symbols with nature themes, such as owls, flowers, suns, and moons. When Spires started painting in junior high, she knew she’d found a life-long love. After high school, she began working for Longaberger Basket Factory, enrolled at Ohio University-Zanesville. She kept painting on and off until a favorite art professor told her no matter how much she loved painting; it was impossible to earn a living as an artist. She was earning more at the factory than he was teaching, a job he struggled to like and thought she, too, would. Although he meant well, she drifted from painting, changed her major to political science, and didn’t pick up a brush again for a decade. Instead, she focused on business. When she met her husband, David, she began painting again, and he encouraged her in every attempt. She remembered love.
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