Tag Archives: Arkansas Arts Center

Artful Adventures continue at the Arkansas Arts Center

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arkartsThe Arkansas Arts Center is excited to offer some of the best art classes for children of all ages. Not only are these courses so much fun, but students will learn something too! All classes are taught by area professional artists and educators!

AUGUST 9
Ages 15-18, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. (Bring lunch)
Mix it Up!
Students will use many types of painting materials, such as acrylic and watercolor, and mix them with other types of media like collage and spray paint.
$53 for members and $66 for non-members.

AUGUST 11-15
Ages 10-14, 9 a.m. – Noon
Color! Color! Color!
Students will learn the basics of color theory and paint mixing as they take a closer look at three colorful movements in the history of art: Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Fauvism. Tuition is $131 per week for members and $164 per week for non-members. Class is limited to 12 students.

AUGUST 11-15
Ages 10-14, 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
The Evolution of Picasso’s Selfie
From Realism to the Blue Period to Expressionism, students will spend each day of the week creating their own selfies using one of Picasso’s many art styles.
Tuition is $131 per week for members and $164 per week for non-members. Class is limited to 12 students.

 

For more information, call 501-372-4000 or visit www.arkarts.com

 

Last weekend for Young Arkansas Artists exhibit at Ark Arts Center

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This weekend is the last chance to see the 53rd Young Arkansas Artists exhibition in the Alice Pratt Brown Atrium and the Sam Strauss Sr. Gallery at the Arkansas Arts Center.

“At the Arkansas Arts Center, we believe that the arts have the ability to educate and empower our children while cultivating a positive form of self-expression,” said Arkansas Arts Center executive director Todd Herman. “We strive to promote quality arts education initiatives and achievement in the visual arts and through this exhibition, we are offering a wonderful platform to celebrate artwork created by our very own Arkansas youth.”

First presented in 1961, the 53rd Young Arkansas Artists exhibition is a celebration of both the creative achievements of young artists and the youthful spirits of Arkansans. Now in its sixth decade, this annual children’s art exhibition showcases artwork by Arkansas students from with hopes to ensure learning, inspiration and creative expression are occurring in our state’s classrooms. In 2013, teachers from 127 schools across Arkansas submitted 508 works for consideration. Of those, 102 works were selected for inclusion in the exhibition.

The exhibition is open to all Arkansas students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Art must be original and completed within the current 2013-2014 school year. Original works in all media including drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, collages, crafts, and sculpture are eligible. Teachers may submit only one artwork per grade level per school or program. Entries must be made through a public, private or home school teacher or instructor of an art program. All artists whose works are selected will receive notification on March 18 and the deadline for delivery of all selected entries is April 11.

arkartsWorks will be selected for the exhibition by the Arkansas Art Educators Association. A juror selects one Best of Class and two Honorable Mentions for each grade, and each winning artist’s school receives a monetary award to supports its art program. Selected works from the exhibition travel to schools and other venues around the state as part of the Arkansas Arts Center’s State Services Program. The juror will also select the following awards: one Middle School and one High School level Art and the Written Word Award, the Ray Smenner Best in Show Painting Award and the Mid Southern Watercolorists Best in Show watercolor award.

The 53rd Young Arkansas Artists exhibition is sponsored by Barbara and Steve Bova, Dale and Lee Ronnel, The Philip R. Jonsson Foundation and The Central Arkansas Library System. Awards for the exhibition are sponsored by Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

Today there will be a Family Festival and Awards Ceremony in celebration of the 53rd Young Arkansas Artists exhibition on May 10 from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Activities for kids of all ages will be offered and awards will be presented at 1 p.m. in the Lecture Hall. The events are free for members and exhibition artists, $5 for a non-member individual and $20 for a non-member family. Guests are similarly invited to enjoy a matinee performance of Sleeping Beauty at 2 p.m. in the Children’s Theatre that will also be held on May 10.

For more information, visit arkansasartscenter.org/yaa or call (501) 372-4000.

Susan Paulsen’s photos of Wilmot Ark are featured at Arkansas Arts Center through September 28

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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 from June 27, 2014 until September 28, 2014.

Sponsored by:

Brenda Mize
June and Edmond Freeman

56th annual Delta Exhibition opens tomorrow at Arkansas Arts Center; Member preview tonight

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Mark Lewis, Peoria Avenue #7, 2011, graphite and paper collage, 2013 Grand Award

Mark Lewis, Peoria Avenue #7, 2011, graphite and paper collage, 2013 Grand Award

“As one of the most anticipated Arkansas Arts Center events of the year, the 56th Annual Delta Exhibition offers a unique snapshot of the Delta region,” said Arkansas Arts Center executive director Todd Herman. “The widely held exhibition sanctions local artists to lead and inspire their respective communities through art, education and cultural excellence.”

The Delta Exhibition opens tomorrow. Members of the Arkansas Arts Center can have a sneak peek tonight at a Member reception.  Prior to the reception, there will be a lecture by Brian Rutenberg who was the guest juror for this year’s show.

The Delta Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture was founded in 1956 to feature contemporary work by artists from Arkansas and the bordering states. Today, the 56th Annual Delta Exhibition has grown to encompass works in all media and is a showcase for the dynamic vision of the artists of the Mississippi Delta region. The diversity of their art reflects the region’s strong traditions of craftsmanship and observation, combined with an innovative use of materials and an experimental approach to subject matter.

The competition is open to all artists who live in or were born in one of the following states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. All work must be completed during the last two years and must not have been exhibited previously at the Arkansas Arts Center. This year’s exhibition will be on view June 27 – September 28 in the Townsend Wolfe Gallery.

Guest juror Brian Rutenberg of New York selected works for the exhibition in addition to a Grand Award, with a cash prize of $2,500, and two Delta Awards, with cash prizes of $750 each, for the top works in the show. Juror Rutenberg earned his Master of Arts degree from New York’s acclaimed School of Visual Arts and went on to become a Forum Gallery artist in 2001. He has since had three successful solo exhibitions and actively exhibits throughout the United States and Canada.

For more information, visit arkansasartscenter.org/delta or call(501) 372-4000.

Final weekend of Carroll Cloar Exhibit at Arkansas Arts Center

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Carroll Cloar, The Smiling Moon Cafe, 1965, casein tempera on Masonite, 25 in. x 36 in., Private Collection, ©Estate of Carroll Cloar

There are only three days remaining to experience (or experience again) The Crossroads of Memory: Carroll Cloar and the American South exhibit at the Arkansas Arts Center.  It runs through June 1.

The paintings of Carroll Cloar (1913-1993), rank among the most haunting and beautiful evocations ever made of the American South. Drawing upon family stories, photographs of ancestors, rural scenery, small town life, and memories of his childhood on an Arkansas farm, Cloar captured the quiet richness of a simpler world.

Marking the centenary of the artist’s birth, The Crossroads of Memory: Carroll Cloar and the American South will include approximately seventy paintings, ranging from early Realist masterpieces to the poignant pictures of his later career.

An exhibition organized by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and the Arkansas Arts Center curated by Stanton Thomas, Curator of European and Decorative Art at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the exhibition will feature works from major public collections as well as rarely seen pictures still in private hands.

Presented in Arkansas by: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Lisenne Rockefeller; Stella Boyle Smith Trust.

Sponsored in Arkansas by: Anonymous; Bailey Foundation; Sandra and Bob Connor; Terri and Chuck Erwin; Friday, Eldredge & Clark, LLP; Eileen and Ricardo Sotomora; John Tyson & Tyson Foods, Inc.; Arkansas Farm Bureau/Agriculture Council of Arkansas; Capital Hotel; Cindy and Greg Feltus; Munro Foundation; J.D. Simpson; Don Tilton; Gus and Ellis Walton.

ROCKing the TONY AWARDS – Clinton Library Opening with Spacey, Streisand and Hipp

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Rock the Tonys KS BS PHKevin Spacey, Barbra Streisand, Paul Hipp

Little Rock connection: All three were in attendance in Little Rock for the opening of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in November 2004.

Tony Awards connection: Spacey has a Tony Award for Featured Actor in a Play for 1991’s Lost in Yonkers. He has also been nominated for Actor in a Play in 1999 for The Iceman Cometh.

Streisand was nominated for Tony Awards in 1962 (Featured Actress in a Musical – I Can Get It for You Wholesale) and 1964 (Actress in a Musical – Funny Girl) and received a Special Tony in 1970.

Hipp was nominated for Actor in a Musical in 1991 for Buddy- The Buddy Holly Story.

While Bono and The Edge played at the Clinton Presidential Center opening and also penned the score for Spiderman, they failed to win a Tony nomination.

(The Culture Vulture met Spacey at a reception at the Arkansas Arts Center and had a conversation with Hipp and his girlfriend at a reception hosted by the Downtown Little Rock Partnership.)

Little Rock Look Back: J. V. Satterfield Jr., LR’s 48th Mayor

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SatterfieldOn May 14, 1902, future Little Rock Mayor John Vines Satterfield, Jr. was born in Marion.   He grew up in Little Rock and Earle. J.V. was a star quarterback for the Earle football team and is featured in a painting of that team by respected painter Carroll Cloar.  That painting is currently on display through June 1 at the Arkansas Arts Center as part of their exhibit of the works of Carroll Cloar.

Following high school, J.V. taught and coached and sold Fords.  He then moved to Little Rock and sold insurance and later securities.  In 1931 he opened his own business; that same year he built a house at 40 Beverly Place in Little Rock, which would serve as his home until his death.

J. V. Satterfield was elected to serve as Mayor of Little Rock in 1939 and served one term, until 1941.  He was credited with saving the City from bankruptcy because of his fiscal policies. Among his efficiencies were the creation of a central purchasing office and using grass moved from the airport to feed the Zoo animals.  Though as a private citizen he had voted against the creation of a municipal auditorium in 1937, Mayor Satterfield fought valiantly to ensure that Robinson Auditorium opened to the public once he took office.  Shortly after he became Mayor, it was discovered that there were not sufficient funds to finish the construction. After the federal government refused to put in more money, he was able to negotiate with some of the contractors to arrange for the building to be completed. He also oversaw a successful special election to raise the money to finish the project.

Satterfield was a staunch supporter of the airport and worked to expand it.  He would serve as the chair of the first Municipal Airport Commission.  He also established the Little Rock Housing Authority (on which he would later serve on the board).  Mayor Satterfield also served as President of the Arkansas Municipal League in 1941.

Following the outbreak of World War II, Satterfield enlisted in the Army and was given the rank of a Major. He later was promoted to a Colonel and worked in the Pentagon during its early days.

In the late 1940s Satterfield became president of a small Little Rock bank called People’s Bank.  The bank changed its named to First National Bank when it moved into new offices at 3rd and Louisiana in 1953.  By focusing on smaller customers and courting corporate customers, Satterfield grew the bank into one of the state’s largest banks.  He maintained his desk in the lobby of the bank so he could interact with the customers and ensure they were having a positive experience.

Due to chronic health issues, Satterfield retired from the bank in 1964. He died in March 1966.