Today’s trip to the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden features Lorri Acott-Fowler’s Conversation with Myself.
This bronze sculpture depicts a taller figure bent over at the waist and looking down at a smaller figure who is looking up at the taller figure. The figures are gender neutral. The sculpture was featured in the 2008 Sculpture at the River Market show.
The artist has said that there are times she feels like the larger figure and other times she feels more like the smaller one.
Once again, Friday the 13th will be lucky for patrons who venture out to explore 2nd Friday Art Night in downtown Little Rock. It takes place from 5pm to 8pm and is free. Several downtown galleries are open with special events and exhibits. A free trolley runs between the various sites.
Here is a sampling of what can be found.
Historic Arkansas Museum (200 East Third Street) hosts the opening reception for BARBIE: The 11 1/2-inch American Icon, the newest exhibit in the Eclectic Collector series. There will be live music by Steve Bates and an ice cream tasting with Loblolly Creamery. Loblolly makes small batch ice cream, fizzy sodas and other treats from local organic ingredients.
Butler Center Galleries (401 President Clinton Avenue) will feature The Civil War in Arkansas as a part of the 150th commemoration of this pivotal event in American History. Also still on display are Arkansas Arts Educators State Youth Art Show 2012 and Small Town: Portraits of a Disappearing America
Christ Episcopal Church (509 Scott Street) showcases artists from the Arkansas Pastel Society. In addition artwork from students who are participating in a Christ Church summer youth arts program will also be on display.
studioMAIN (1423 South Main) opens its latest exhibition, Quality + Quantity: a Conversation on Modern Furniture. It exhibits furniture designed by local UALR Applied Design students and pairs it with several timeless furniture pieces that are being provided by Workplace Resource and Herman Miller.
Quapaw Quarter Association at Curran Hall (515 East Capitol Avenue) is showcasing LVB Designs…cuff bracelets by Linda Bradley, local designer and artist. Each piece is custom made. See and try on these unique cuffs in their many styles and designs.
Today’s Sculpture Vulture feature is Michael Warrick’s Coral which was installed in the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden in 2010. Using bronze, Warrick highlights the many facets of that material in an abstract piece. It features roughness, smoothness, broad surfaces and delicate tendrils.
Warrick is a longtime faculty member at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and has sculptures placed as far away as China in addition to appearing in many public and private collections in Arkansas and throughout the United States.
Today’s Sculpture Vulture is Kathleen Caricof’s Beginning Life. This abstract sculpture was purchased in 2009 for the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden. Caricof has shown at the Sculpture at the River Market invitational.
Kathleen Caricof has gained many accolades for her stone sculpture and reliefs over the years including a ‘Purchase Award’ and ‘Best of Show’ at the 2007 Sculpture at the River Market Invitational in Little Rock, AR. Her interest in sculpture developed from a background in designing for space. Caricof earned a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design from the Art Center College of Design emphasizing in graphic design, packaging, environmental planning and transportation.
Past professional experience has included being an Associate Designer for Schorer & Associates and owner of Caricof-Burns Designs, primarily in the areas of Graphic/Packaging and Interior Design. Specific projects included working with Buckminister Fuller in product design and with PPG Glass in developing a next generation of products.
Caricof works in a variety of materials specific to each artwork and site; including steel, natural stone, composite stone, wood, and glass. Most recent public placements are ‘Stars and Stripes’ a 30ftx40ft intertwining stainless steel sculpture as the Veteran’s Memorial for the War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, AR.
For more than 20 years, Caricof has carved with sculptors from around the world as an instructor at the MARBLE/marble Institute of Colorado. She also teaches at the Art Students League in Denver. Since 1996 she has been a member of the National Sculptors’ Guild
One of the sculptures in the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden is Bryan W. Massey Sr.’s Uptown Saturday Night. This bronze sculpture depicts a couple dancing the night away.
Massey, on the faculty of the University of Central Arkansas, received one of the top 10 Best of Show awards at the 2009 and 2010 Sculpture at the River Market Invitational Show and Sale. Though primarily a stone carver working with a variation of stone, Massey also casts in iron, bronze, and aluminum as well as fabrication of steel sculptures.
Uptown Saturday Night was purchased in 2009 and installed in the Vogel Schwartz Garden when it opened.
Charlotta Kotik, guest curator for the Arkansas Arts Center exhibit 11th National Drawing Invitational: New York, Singular Drawings exhibition, will lead a gallery talk. Ms. Kotik is the Curator Emerita at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The program will be this Sunday, June 24 at 2pm in the Jeannette Edris Rockefeller Gallery.
Ati Maier
The 11th National Drawing Invitational continues the Arkansas Arts Center’s commitment to collect and exhibit drawings of all periods. The Arkansas Arts Center began its collection of drawings in 1971 when AAC Director and Chief Curator Townsend Wolfe purchased Willem de Kooning and Andrew Wyeth works on paper. Today the drawing collection includes over 5,000 sheets. In 1986, Wolfe created the first National Drawing Invitational to further advance the Arts Center’s commitment to collect and exhibit drawings and to focus on living American artists and their work. Guest Curator Charlotta Kotik puts together an exhibition that features drawings by New York artists whose work borders on obsession.
The exhibit runs through September 9. It is sponsored by Friday, Eldredge and Clark, LLP.
Little Rock Culture Vulture 