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ArtsRevive’s Pocket Park has recently been enhanced by a new Mural from artist Michael Vaughan Sims.

The brightly colored mural, an homage to Selma’s status as the butterfly capital of Alabama, was the result of a collaboration between ArtsRevive and Sims.

ArtsRevive Executive Director Becky Youngblood became familiar with Sims’s Art through ArtsRevive’s annual Roots and Wings art show and selling his works at Gallery 905.

Youngblood said that it is the level of detail in Sims’s works that make them so compelling, leading her to think he’d be the perfect artist to complete the mural.

“The level of detail is incredible,” she said. “We knew he’d be a perfect fit.”

The butterfly mural in Pocket Park is Sims’s third, the other two located in Columbus, Georgia.

Sims said he is an artist that works in many mediums, but his background is in stage and set design.

“That’s why I like murals,” he said. “They’re very similar [ to stage backgrounds].”

Sims said competing the mural took him 12 days and consisted of careful planning to ensure the mural holds up to the elements for the next several years.

Sims started by scrubbing the bricks with a chemical solution to clean of the years of grime that had accumulated before priming the area, sketching the design with Sharpie markers and finally, painting the mural with a collection of paints developed in Los Angeles specifically for outdoor murals before apply a UV protective varnish to the final product, ensuring its longevity.

Sims said he was pleased with the way the mural turned out and happy to have been asked to create it.