Category Archives: Visual Art

First Full Day of ACANSA Offers Poetry, Visual Art, Theatre, Music

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acansaThe ACANSA Arts Festival gets going with its first full day of activities today.

 

LUNCH AND LEARN
12:00 pm to 1:00pm
Central Arkansas Library System
Free

Chris James, Arkansas native and member of the Foreign Tongues Poetry Troupe, will be presenting about his career as a spoken word poet.   Chris will perform his original spoken word and share information about his upcoming ventures.

Sponsored by: Anita Davis, Delta Trust and Bank, and JPMS Cox, PLLC

 

ACANSA LindquistPOET IN COPPER: ENGRAVINGS BY EVAN LINDQUIST
5:30 pm to 7:00 pm
Arkansas Arts Center
$20

Evan Lindquist was selected by Governor Mike Beebe as the first Artist Laureate of Arkansas 2013 – 2017.  He creates original prints in his private studio in Jonesboro, Arkansas.  Most of his prints are engravings developed by his own original ideas and designs.   Lindquist has had more than 60 solo exhibitions and has received more than 80 awards in about 300 competitive exhibitions.  At the reception, Mr. Lindquist will speak about his works, technique and career.

Sponsored by William and Kay Patton, Nabholz Construction

 

ACANSA Central Arkansas's Own.CollageCENTRAL ARKANSAS’S OWN
6:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Great Hall of the Clinton Presidential Center
$20

The Arkansas Chamber Singers is a 65-member vocal ensemble dedicated to performing and promoting classical and contemporary choral repertoire.  Arkansas’s newest professional opera company is Opera in the Rock, with a mission to produce main stage professional opera and showcase talented performers from the state and region.  The Muses are performers with The Muses Creative Artistry Project, blending vocal and instrumental art songs from the Baroque period to the present.  Refreshments and a cash bar will be available throughout the event.

Sponsored by James B. Conner

 

ACANSA BowersIT GOES WITHOUT SAYING
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Scottish Rite Masonic Temple
$20 to $50

Compared to the work of David Sedaris, Claudia Shear and Augustin Burroughs, IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING is a uniquely crafted autobiographical tour-de-force in which Bill Bowers shares funny, heartbreaking, and unbelievable true stories from his career as an actor and mime, and his life-long exploration of the role silence plays in all our lives.

IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING takes you on a scenic tour of Bill’s life thus far; from his childhood in the wilds of Montana, to outrageous jobs as a performer across the country, to the whirlwind of Broadway and studying with the legendary Marcel Marceau.

Sponsored by:  Legacy Termite and Pest Control, Inc.

 

symphony low resKEEPING ON THE SOUTHERN SIDE
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
$30 to $50

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra will present a variety of small ensembles at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. This ”Informance” includes the ASO Brass Quintet, a solo by the ASO violin and strings, a Little Rock premiere for the oboe and clarinet, as well as dueling banjos. The performance is followed by a VIP reception.

Sponsored by:  City of North Little Rock, North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, North Little Rock Economic Development Corporation & North Little Rock Visitors Bureau

ACANSA Festival opens tonight with reception at the Governor’s Mansion

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acansaSeptember 23, 2014 (5:00 pm to 7:00 pm)

The ACANSA Arts Festival officially opens during a cocktail reception at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion. First Lady of Arkansas, Ginger Beebe, will host and welcome guests to enjoy cocktails and heavy appetizers.

Presenting artist, Matt McLeod, will finish a painting to be auctioned during the event. Music will be provided by The Muse Project, with additional surprise entertainment.

The ACANSA Arts Festival aims to inspire public appreciation for the arts and enrich the economic and cultural vitality of Central Arkansas.  The festival promotes positive collaboration between regional arts organizations, local businesses, government, and civic groups.  It is committed to increasing audience participation in the arts and generating opportunities for local commerce.  ACANSA seeks to broaden public access to the arts, provide educational opportunities, and encourage and cultivate emerging artistic talent and local artists and art groups.

Final weeks of “Piranesi and the Perspectives of Rome” at UALR Galleries

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Piranesi_First-Edit_AO1The prints of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) have contributed much to defining what Europeans and Americans think of the as “ancient Roman glory.” An exhibit of several of his prints is currently on display at the UALR Art Galleries through October 5.

In approximately, architect Edwin Cromwell (1909-2001) was going through the papers of  his late father-in-law, architect Charles Thompson (1868-1959). Included in this was a loosely bound volume of 30 prints by Piranesi. In 1999, Cromwell approached the UALR Department of Art to suggest that research might be done on this set of prints. In fact, it provided the basis for the MA thesis project of Olga Elwood. In 2010, the three daughters of Edwin Cromwell donated the prints to the Department of Art.

Thompson and Cromwell were both leading architects of Little Rock in each of their eras.  Among Thompson’s many designs are both the 1908 Little Rock City Hall and the 1913 Central Fire Station which is now the City Hall West Wing.

The exhibit, was designed to accompany a special topics art history course taught at UALR this semester by Dr. Jane Brown and Dr. Floyd Martin.

There are two upcoming lectures this week in conjunction with the exhibit:
September 25, 10:50 a.m., room 161 in the Fine Arts Building
Dr. Carol C. Mattusch, Professor Emerita, George Mason University – Pompeiian Dreams: Myths and Realities about the Ancient Romans, a lecture to the students enrolled in the course “Piranesi and Perspectives of Rome.

September 25, 6:00 p.m., the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Building

Dr. Richard S. Mason, Lecturer, University of Maryland, Baltimore County – Reliving the Ancient World: Rediscovering Herculanium and Pompey

Celebrate Dale Chihuly’s Birthday by visiting exhibit of his work at Clinton Presidential Library

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chihuly2

 

Today is Dale Chihuly’s birthday.  Those in Little Rock have the chance to see many pieces he has designed and created as a way to celebrate his birthday.

Dale Chihuly is credited with revolutionizing the Studio Glass movement and elevating the perception of the glass medium from the realm of craft to fine art. He is renowned for his ambitious architectural installations around the world in historic cities, museums, and gardens.

The exhibit includes new and early works representing the breadth and scope of the artist’s vision over the last four decades. The exhibit features four installations designed specifically for the Clinton Presidential Library. One installation is on-view in the temporary exhibition space, one in the Garden View Room, one in the Sky Lobby and one in the outdoor fountain.

The exhibit will run  to January 5, 2015. The Clinton Presidential Library & Museum is open Monday-Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 1-5,

Late Night at Arkansas Arts Center tonight – Evening Lecture and Extended Hours

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AAC LinesTonight the Arkansas Arts Center is open until 9pm with a lecture, galleries and dining at Best Impressions.

From 6pm to 7pm, Ann Prentice Wagner, Curator of Drawings at the Arkansas Arts Center will present a lecture entitled “New Lines: The 12th National Drawing Invitational.”

Drawing lines is one of the oldest and most enduring of characteristically human endeavors. Ann Prentice Wagner will discuss how the 12th National Drawing Invitational challenges us to reconsider the nature of drawing. The exhibition includes distinctive graphic works by eight artists from the Mid-Atlantic region. Each artist finds a different way of imbuing marks on paper, or on Mylar, or walls, or vinyl, with meaning.

The lecture is free for members, $10 for non-members. Tickets are required.

To make reservations for dinner at Best Impressions, call 501-907-5946.

New Illustrated Arkansas History book launched tonight

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cals launchArkansas in Ink: Gunslingers, Ghosts, and Other Graphic Tales, a special print edition of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture (EOA), edited by Guy Lancaster and illustrated by Ron Wolfe, provides an entertaining look at Arkansas’s history through stories and cartoons.

It will take place in the Darragh Center inside the CALS main building on Rock Street.  The party will start at 6pm.

At the launch party, Lancaster and Wolfe will speak about the book and sign copies, which will be available for purchase at the event. A “drawing for a drawing” will also be held, in which one attendee will win a signed, framed, original illustration by Wolfe from the book. Beer, wine, and light refreshments will be served.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact 501-918-3033.

Final Weeks to Visit Wilmot Ark at the Arkansas Arts Center

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Susan Paulsen, Wilmot, 2011, photograph, courtesy of the artist

Susan Paulsen, Wilmot, 2011, photograph, courtesy of the artist

Wilmot is a little town in Ashley County, in southeast Arkansas. . . .A few years ago, Susan Paulsen set out to tell a kind of story, to chronicle a place in Arkansas through evocative photographs taken there over the course of many visits, in all seasons of the year. . . . Together, they form a picture of a place. For the artist, that place has a personal importance—part of her family comes from there, and for generations it has been a kind of homing place for them. Through her photographs of this particular place, she wants, as she has said, to make a sort of poem about all such places; to find commonalities among these individuals and people in other places. Her goal, from the outset, has been to evoke all the Wilmots, wherever they might be. But still there is this town, these people. . .”  –

From the essay by George T. M. Shackelford, Susan Paulsen: Wilmot.

The evocative visual poetry of Susan Paulsen: Wilmot comes to the Arkansas Arts Center in the form of more than 70 photographic prints and groupings of photographs that she took in Wilmot, Arkansas between 1995 and 2012. Most spectacularly, one large wall is covered by a grid of 90 photographs. Susan Paulsen: Wilmot was organized by Maison européenne de la photographie, Paris. The images are coming home to Arkansas for their American debut.

They will be on view in the Townsend Wolfe Gallery until September 28, 2014.

Sponsored by:

Brenda Mize
June and Edmond Freeman