Anita Davis has founded a museum, a sculpture garden and nurtured an eclectic retail community which has transformed Main Street south of I-630 into a thriving SOMA with its own unique identity.

Starting in 2004, she began to acquire property along Main Street in the teen blocks.  After attending a conference and learning about “placemaking” she started to envision ways to transform South Main through various artforms.

On the site of a burned out fast food restaurant, she devised the plans for the Bernice Garden. This sculpture garden and community gathering spot has become a hotspot for festivals (including the annual Cornbread Festival – another of her projects – this year it will be November 3), community events and a farmer’s market.

More recently, she opened the ESSE Purse Museum.  ESSE grew out of a traveling exhibit selected from Davis’ extensive collection. From 2006 to 2011, “The Purse & the Person: A Century of Women’s Purses” (curated by Curatrix Group and managed by Smith Kramer Fine Art Services) traveled the country. The collection was exhibited in Concord, Mass.: Little Rock, Ark.; Edmund, Okla.; Columbia, S.C.; Pasadena, Calif.; Rockford, Ill.; Logan, Kan.; Fullerton, Calif.; Baton Rouge, La.; Dallas; Sacramento; and Seattle.

Now Davis has brought her handbags back to Little Rock for good and given them a home worthy of the part they have played in women’s lives and history. ESSE is housed in a historic building in SoMa, an up-and-coming, hip neighborhood in downtown Little Rock.  The Huffington Post declared it one of the hot museums for 2014.