Mothra visits Western Area: Spotlight on chalk artist Jennifer Leon
Local artist marks her 13th halloween mural.
Boomtown chatted with Los Alamos artist Jennifer Leon about her annual Halloween mural project that’s featured on her friend’s Western Area house.
This interview took place on October 28, 2025. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Jennifer Leon: Halloween is my friend Scott’s favorite holiday, and one year he asked, “Do you want to draw something on my house in black-light chalk?” I’d never done anything in chalk before, and so I did it, just a few spiders and bats and things. The next year I did something slightly more involved. 2016 was the first year I spent multiple days working on it. This is now my 13th year of doing this.
JL: I enjoyed doing a large dragon for last year’s mural. This year I was trying to think of large superheroes and settled on doing a mural with [Japanese film superhero] Mothra and exploring the graphic language of Japanese art. Western art is all about form and light and the illusion of three-dimensional space. Eastern art is all about shape and line and pattern.
JL: I think drawing is a great way to learn about things. This year, I got books about Japanese art and about moths. I went to the Bug Museum in Santa Fe, I went to the Albuquerque Aquarium and spent a day drawing fish. I do a lot of studies and sketches, but then I put it all away and work from memory and imagination and figure it out as I go.
JL: This year it’s probably been eight or ten hours of drawing a day for two and a half weeks. And then I’m usually up in the middle of the night drawing in my sketchbook, trying to think out the next step. I’m kind of a perfectionist.
JL: The challenge is making the drawing fit into this broken-up space. It’s on three walls and it’s interrupted by the windows and the vents. How do I make it look like it’s one continuous picture space?
JL: My hands start to get sore. My fingertips are all shredded by the end of it. I usually can’t type for a week afterwards, but having a year in between gives me a year to forget about how much work it is.
JL: The fun things about working on the street is that people stop and ask you questions and you get to know people. I really like that about murals, that they’re just out there for anyone who walks by.
Leon’s mural can be seen at 4949 Trinity Drive in Western Area in Los Alamos. She’ll be handing out candy at a black-light viewing that will take place on October 31, starting around 6 pm. The mural will be up (at the mercy of the elements) through summer 2026.
You can also see her previous mural projects and other artwork at jenniferleon.net.