Tag Archives: CALS

Read a Book

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It’s a Monday.

Snow is starting to blanket Central Arkansas, most museums are closed on Mondays, most theatres are dark this day as well.

This is a good evening to read a book either as God intended (holding paper, cloth and cardboard in your hands) or electronically.  Thanks to Central Arkansas Library System participating in Inter-Library Loan, I am currently reading the plays My Three Angels and Scapino!

I also have a stack of books I’ve purchased over the year that haven’t been read.  Before this year’s Arkansas Literary Festival I must make headway on this stack or I’ll be on a self-imposed book-purchase ban.

2nd Friday Art Night – At the Heart of Art in Little Rock

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For art lovers, 2nd Friday Art Night is a great way to explore the visual arts in Little Rock.  This month there are twelve stops the free trolley will be making between the hours of 5pm and 8pm.  Some highlights of this month’s offerings include:

Christ Episcopal Church (500 Scott Street) is highlighting its new exhibit: “The Cross” which features interpretations of the cross in a variety of mediums by several artists including Wes McHan, Melverue Abraham, Sister Maria Liebeck, Janet Copeland, Susan Peterson, Lynn Frost, Betsy Woodyard, Jai Ross and Mark Alderfer.

Hearne Fine Art (1001 Wright Avenue) is featuring “Southern Spirit: An Exhibition of Southern Folk Art” through March 3.  This gallery has consistently championed African American artists for two decades in downtown Little Rock.

Historic Arkansas Museum (200 East Third Street) will be featuring the opening of new exhibits by Bryan Massey, Tom Richard and Doug Stowe.  Serenading visitors will be award-winning musician Bonnie Montgomery.

Mosaic Templars Cultural Center (501 West Ninth Street) will be a first time participant in 2nd Friday Art Night. The featured exhibit is Daufe 1 by LaToya Hobbs.  Visitors can also explore the many other galleries and exhibits in Little Rock’s newest history museum.

studioMAIN (1423 South Main Street) will have its grand opening.  This design collective focused on encouraging collaboration in the creative fields  including architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, urban design, furniture design and public art will have exhibitions during each 2nd Friday Art Night. This month is an exhibit of Pettaway Park designs.

Other locations include Old State House, Butler Center Galleries, Canvas Community, Courtyard by Marriott, The Green Corner Store, Dizzy’s Gypsy Grill and Copper Grill.

CALS Launches Music Festival

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Earlier this month, the Central Arkansas Library System announced plans to create an annual music festival featuring Arkansas music and Arkansas artists. The tentative launch for the festival, which would last a couple of days, would be in the fall of 2012.

This would be a project of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.  CALS has started advertising for someone to be the coordinator.  The intention is that the music festival would eventually be self-sufficient, though CALS would make a loan for start-up money.

CALS Executive Director Bobby Roberts told Arkansas Business, “If I were going to pick some area where Arkansas has excelled it is in music,” Roberts said. “It’s just a great heritage.” He cited musicians and composers such as Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty and William Grant Still. “I’d like to see us do all kinds of music,” Roberts said, from classical to country to rock to gospel.

 

As this develops, the LR Culture Vulture will be sure to follow this exciting news.

Sculpture Vulture: FUSION

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For 23 years, Vernon C. Johnson, Sr., worked as a security guard at the Central Arkansas Library System’s main branch.  Following his 2006 death, his friends and colleagues at CALS commissioned a sculpture as a memorial to him.

Michael Warrick’s Fusion is a limestone orb atop a pedestal.  Etched into the orb are handprints of various sizes as well as scallops and ridges.  As a befitting memorial to a man who helped everyone with whom he came into contact, the handprints are of various sizes representing both children and adults.

Sitting at the corner of 2nd and River Market (formerly Commerce) Streets, Fusion anchors the southeastern corner of the CALS campus downtown.  Tucked away into a landscaped area, it greets visitors on foot as well as in cars waiting at the nearby stop sign.  In so doing, it quietly interacts with visitors in the same way that Johnson did for over two decades at CALS.

CALS encourages Winter reading

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The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) invites you to snuggle up with a good book and participate in Hot Reads for Cold Nights, a winter reading program for adults.

Hot Reads for Cold Nights will run from Monday, January 9 – Saturday, February 25.

Participation is easy. Read or listen to a book, then complete a short review of the book. For each review that you turn in to the library, you are entered into a prize drawing.

Don’t know what to read? Your library branch has bookmarks that list 2011 prize winning books, books to help you go green, beach reads to take you away from cold nights, and many other topics.

 

CALS – A Great Place for an Epiphany

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Today is Epiphany. As celebrated by Western Christian churches, it represents the date that the Wise Men visited the Christ Child.

Epiphany can also mean a realization or a grasping of a concept. It is a true Eureka! moment.

A great place to learn more and to have epiphanies is the branches of the Central Arkansas Library System.

The Wise Men are sometimes referred to as Kings.  CALS is a great place to read books about Kings.  In 2011, the Culture Vulture checked out at least three books from CALS which had “King” in the title.  These “Three Kings” were Exit the King by Eugene Ionesco, King Hedley II by August Wilson and King Richard III by Shakespeare.

There are many books about Kings as well as Epiphanies.

Sculpture Vulture: DAEDALUS AND ICARUS

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Happy 2012.

With the end of the holiday season, the Sunday Sculpture Vulture feature returns. 2012 marks the 45th anniversary of Raymond Rebsamen giving the sculpture Daedalus and Icarus to the Little Rock Public Library (now Central Arkansas Library System). Rebsamen, a local businessman and philanthropist, had served on the Library board. It was originally displayed in a courtyard at the corner of 7th and Louisana Streets on the site of the original Carnegie library building. When CALS moved to Rock and 2nd Streets, the statue was moved to a new courtyard where it is more visible.

The statue depicts a scene from the Greek myth of hubris where Daedalus is trying to keep his son from flying too close to the sun. It is created by EvAngelos W. Frudakis. This was one of his first commissions; he is still active with a studio in Kerrville, Texas.