Tag Archives: Arkansas Arts Council

Artspace Public Survey Launch Party tonight

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No photo description available.The Windgate Foundation invited Artspace, a national nonprofit leader in the field of affordable creative space development, to explore the feasibility of creating an affordable live/work community in the Little Rock/North Little Rock metro region, a region organizers are calling “The Rocks”.

Tonight (9/24) from 5:30pm to 7:30pm, there will be a reception and launch party for a public survey which is an important part of the Artspace process.  It will be at the UA Pulaski Tech CHARTS center.

A series of meetings with the community and local leaders occurred in July and August, setting the stage for this next big step, a Creative Space Needs Survey of creative people, especially those interested in affordable space.

Input will help the local stakeholder group and Artspace determine if there is ample need for new space, what type of space to create, what “affordable” really means to you, where to build, and if this idea should be taken to the next step.

*Complimentary shuttle service to and from the event will be provided by Rock Region Metro. The shuttle will pick up at 5:00 from Mosaic Templars Cultural Center (501 W. 9th Street) and return to this location following the event. Shuttle seating is limited so please make your reservation by calling 816.309.1939 or emailing kennedym@hendrix.edu.

For more information go to https://www.artspace.org/ArtspaceRocks

South Words, a new author series, is announced by OXFORD AMERICAN

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The Oxford American is pleased to announce South Words, a new author series at Ron Robinson Theater (100 River Market Ave., Little Rock, AR 72201) featuring renowned OA contributors.

The inaugural season features Sarah M. Broom, author of The Yellow House (Tuesday, October 15, 2019); Van Jensen and Nate Powell, author and illustrator of Two Dead (Tuesday, November 19, 2019); Silas House, author of Southernmost (Tuesday, February 25, 2019); and Leesa Cross-Smith, author of So We Can Glow: Stories (Tuesday, March 31, 2020). At each event, the author will read from his or her work, then be interviewed onstage by a moderator. The events, all of which are free and open to the public, begin at 6:30 PM, with the doors opening at 6 PM. Books will be for sale onsite and authors will participate in a signing.

The presenting sponsor for South Words is the College of Fine Arts & Communication at the University of Central Arkansas. The series is presented in partnership with the CALS Six Bridges Book Festival. Additional season partners include the Clinton School of Public Service, Villa Vue at SOMA, the Arkansas Arts Council, and the Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism

The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom, who published an essay called “A Yellow House in New Orleans” in the Oxford American’s Spring 2008 issue, is a memoir set in a shotgun house in New Orleans East. The book was published on August 13, 2019, to wide acclaim, including from New York Times critic Dwight Garner, who called it “a major book that I suspect will come to be considered among the essential memoirs” of the decade. In a cover feature in the New York Times Book Review on August 11, Angela Flourney wrote: “[The Yellow House] is an instantly essential text, examining the past, present and possible future . . . of America writ large.” The conversation with Broom will be moderated by KaToya Ellis Fleming, the OA’s 2019-20 Jeff Baskin Fellow.

Little Rock native Nate Powell, the artist of the #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-winning illustrated trilogy March, has said, “I’m always eager to bring my home state to life through comics, and each book doubles as a love letter to Arkansas in all its contradictory beauty.” His next book, Two Dead, a Little Rock noir set in the 1940s, is a collaboration with author Van Jensen, a former crime reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The South Words event with Powell and Jensen will occur on the book’s November 19 publication date. A 16-page excerpt from Two Dead was published in the Oxford American’s Fall 2019 issue. The conversation with Powell and Jensen will be moderated OA Senior Editor Jay Jennings, author of Carry the Rock.

Silas House is a frequent New York Times contributor and the nationally bestselling author of six novels, including Southernmost, which was published in June 2018 and long-listed for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and named a best book of the year by Booklist, the Advocate, Garden & Gun, Southern Living, and Paste. Excerpted on OxfordAmerican.org, Southernmost is the story of evangelical preacher Asher Sharp, who offers shelter to two gay men after a flood in a small Tennessee town. The conversation with House will be moderated by Seth Pennington, editor-in-chief of Sibling Rivalry Press.

Leesa Cross-Smith made her Oxford American debut in 2017 with “Ain’t Half Bad,” her widely read essay about Sturgill Simpson for the Kentucky music issue; in 2018, she was a regular contributor to The By and By, the OA’s online story series. She is the author of Whiskey & Ribbons (longlisted for the 2018 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and listed among Oprah Magazine’s “Top Books of Summer”), Every Kiss a War, and So We Can Glow, a collection of forty-two short stories forthcoming from Grand Central Press on March 10, 2020. The conversation with Cross-Smith will be moderated by OA contributing editor Kevin Brockmeier, who is the author, most recently, of A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip: A Memoir of Seventh Grade.

For more information about South Words, visit OxfordAmerican.org/events

Bladesmith Jerry Fisk to be named Honorary Arkansas Living Treasure by Arkansas Arts Council

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Image may contain: 1 person, sittingThe Arkansas Arts Council will recognize Jerry Fisk, a well-known bladesmith, with an Honorary Arkansas Living Treasure award during a reception 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 23, at the Historic Arkansas Museum.

The honorary award is a first for the Arts Council. Ricardo Vilar, a fellow bladesmith from Nashville, will speak during the reception. Arkansas Arts Council Director Patrick Ralston will present the award.

Fisk, of Nashville, was named National Living Treasure in 1999. He then helped start the Arkansas Living Treasure program in 2002 by working with the Department of Arkansas Heritage and the Arkansas Arts Council.

Outside of his public service, Fisk is a nationally and internationally recognized bladesmith. He creates various styles of knives, including the Bowie Knife – a fighting knife first made in Arkansas.

Fisk’s knives are in permanent museum collections, including the New York State Museum and the Historic Arkansas Museum, where Fisk is an advisor. He also holds workshops on traditional knife-making techniques at various locations.

#5WomenArtists – Marjorie Williams-Smith

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Through their social media campaign #5WomenArtists, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) asks, “Can you name five women artists?

In response to that, this month five artists with Little Rock connections will be highlighted throughout March.  Up next is Marjorie Williams-Smith. 

Marjorie Williams-Smith has worked with silverpoint for over 30 years. Silverpoint is an especially challenging medium, but that is part of the allure. The effect of light on the silver lines creates a shimmering quality that is quite different from any other drawing medium.

She draws with a metal stylus on a prepared surface.  Hatched and cross-hatched lines create values and textures.  The white of the page provides the contrast. Since erasing is not possible with silverpoint, every line has to be premeditated.

Silverpoint is the perfect medium for the subject matter of Marjorie’s work: nature. She uses these natural forms as symbols for the spiritual energy that exists within us all.

Two of her works were included in the recent exhibition: ON THEIR OWN TERMS which was on display at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Earlier this month, she received the Individual Artist Award at the 2019 Governor’s Arts Awards presented by Governor Asa Hutchinson and the Arkansas Arts Council.