Many people in Beacon double as something else. The owner of Beacon Bread Company, Kamel Jamal, happens to be an extremely creative person, both visually and with phrases. He not only doubles the number of restaurants he creates, but enables others to share their talent as well.

It was no surprise when he commissioned one of his Beacon Bread staff, Shannon J. Ramos, to cover the side of the building he leases with an inviting and celebratory “Greetings From Beacon!” mural. Shannon is a muralist and tattoo artist from Poughkeepsie, who developed this design with her boyfriend and fellow artist, Sean who is from Wappingers Falls.

“We met through art,” said Sean. “She’d go to my art shows, and I’d go to her art shows. I love her art. I was in a grumpy mood this morning, but this changed me today. Being able to paint with her is so much fun.”

After 2 months of working for Beacon Bread as a server, Shannon and Sean began researching the design, and after looking at tons of postcards, went with this rainbow connection that “brings happiness,” Shannon said. Painting on the brick wasn’t so much of a challenge, she felt. Shannon used house paint for the hand/detail work, and Sean’s medium is spray painting.

“Murals are a lot of work” Shannon explained. “So it’s fun to have someone to balance off and bring different aspects of art to it. He’s good at spray paint. I’m good at hand-paint. It’s fun to play off each other.” Sean points out that they enjoy the interactive process of having passer-byers walk past to watch them paint. The flowers were left un-colored so that BEACON could stand out. The entire mural took about one day to complete.

Shannon is a full time restaurant server and artist. She has remained at Beacon Bread after starting there in the Spring of 2021, and was surprised to experience the creatively supportive vibe she got from the management. “I got the job, and then…you know…you want to be as available as possible for hours, but then I could only work certain days, and they were totally cool with that and wanted to make it work. It’s cool about them, as they are cool about flexible schedules, and having me do this mural and highlighting what I like to do.”

Follow Shannon at her Instagram.