The Arkansas Cinema Society kicks off 2020 programming with LOVE THEM FIRST documentary

Posted on January 11, 2020 by Scott

Image may contain: 3 people, people smiling, people sitting and text Make plans to join the Arkansas Cinema Society for their first event of 2020, a screening of “Love Them First” with co-director Ben Garvin. It is presented in conjunction with the Clinton School of Public Service.

“Love Them First: Lessons from Lucy Laney Elementary” follows the determination of a charismatic north Minneapolis elementary school principal, Mauri Friestleben, as she sets out to undo history.

But when the school encounters a heartbreaking setback, Friestleben confronts the true measure of student success. It’s a story of inspiration, heartbreak, perseverance and the power of love.

Date: January 11, 2020
Location: CALS Ron Robinson Theatre
Time: Screening at 5:30pm with panel discussion after the movie moderated by State Senator Joyce Elliott
Filmmaker Guest: Co-director Ben Garvin

#2FAN at The Bookstore at Library Square – DebiLynn Fendley plus ASO

Posted on January 10, 2020 by Scott

No photo description available. The Bookstore at Library Square is proud to present the 2nd Friday Art Night reception for “Circus of Imaginings” by Arkansas artist DebiLynn Fendley at this free monthly event #2FAN

DebiLynn Fendley works within cultural subgroups to produce both documentary and conceptual realism pieces in photography, printmaking, drawing, and painting. As a visual storyteller, she pushes the boundaries between fantasy and reality and strives to make work that crosses boundaries between subgroups and mainstream norms. She is a founding member of and active exhibitor with the Arkansas Society of Printmakers and holds membership in the Southern Graphics Council, Audubon Artists Society, Allied Artists of America, and Professional Photographers of America.

She has been published in multiple national publications on photography, printmaking, and painting, including works from North Light Books, and recently completed her first IMBd credit as still photographer on the film Ride Hard, Live Free. This show can be viewed Monday-Saturday 9am-5pm until it’s closing February 6th, 2020.

In addition, members of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s Quapaw String Quartet will be hosting an instrument petting zoo in the Bookstore at Library Square during the 2nd Friday Art Night festivities. Come play with an instrument and meet a musician leading up to the ASO’s January Masterworks concert!

Join the Bookstore at Library Square on the 2nd Friday of every month for 2FAN (2nd Friday Art Night) a free downtown art gallery walkabout in the River Market District from 5-8pm with light refreshments, art show, and bookstore shopping.

#2FAN in the Galleries at Library Square – Art by 5 Artists

Posted on January 10, 2020 by Scott

Image may contain: tree, plant, outdoor and nature

The Galleries at Library Square, inside the CALS Bobby Roberts Library are featuring five different artists.

Concordia Gallery: Into the Woods: Arkansas Champion Trees by Linda Williams Palmer & Turned-Wood Vessels by Gene Sparling

Celebrating the natural beauty of Arkansas’s trees, artists Linda Williams Palmer and Gene Sparling have created works that highlight the unique qualities of these precious resources. Working in Prismacolor pencil on paper, Palmer has created her “Champion Tree” series showcasing the largest specimens in Arkansas. Sparling uses the wood from native trees to create his sculptural turned-wood vessels that provide another viewpoint from which to appreciate the beauty of the trees.

Underground Gallery: Inside and Out: Figurative Works, figure drawings by Robert Bean, Jeremy Couch, and Logan Hunter

In this exhibition of figurative works, artists Robert Bean, Jeremy Couch, and Logan Hunter strive to convey the surface beauty of the human form as well as communicate our inner dialogues and expressions.

The Galleries at Library Square and The Bookstore at Library Square participate in 2nd Friday Art Night (2FAN). On the second Friday of each month, The Galleries at Library Square and The Bookstore at Library Square participate in 2nd Friday Art Night (2FAN), a time, once-a-month, when the galleries, museums and businesses in downtown Little Rock, are open from 5-8 p.m. for an after-hours gallery walk. This event is FREE and open to the public.

Off the Grid: Nature, Black Power, & Freedom on the AR Frontier is topic of today’s CALS Legacies & Lunch

Posted on January 8, 2020 by Scott

Image may contain: tree, outdoor and water Legacies & Lunch kicks off 2020 with a program today at 12 noon, entitled “Off the Grid: Nature, Black Power, & Freedom on the AR Frontier.”

Through images, stories, and botanical specimens from the field, historian Story Matkin-Rawn and ecologist Theo Witsell will share their research on the challenges of frontier life and use of wild resources among newly freed African Americans in the Natural State following the Civil War.

Story Matkin-Rawn serves as vice-president of the Arkansas Historical Association and is an associate professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas, where she teaches courses on Arkansas, Southern, and Civil Rights history. She received her PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin in 2009. Her article “The Great Negro State of the Country: Arkansas’s Reconstruction and the Other Great Migration,” which appeared in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly in 2013, won the Violet B. Gingles Prize. This presentation on African American life on the Arkansas frontier is part of her current project, a book manuscript titled “A New Country: An African American History of the South’s Last Frontier, 1865–1940.”

Theo Witsell is the ecologist and chief of research for the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, a division of the Department of Arkansas Heritage. Prior to that, he served as a botanist for the agency for nineteen years, researching and protecting rare species and habitats across the state. His research interests include the historical ecology of Arkansas and the intersections of human history and our natural heritage.

Legacies & Lunch is a free monthly program of CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies about Arkansas related topics. For more information, please contact 320-5744.

19 LR Cultural Touchstones in 2019. Part 6: ACANSA 2019, Rockefeller Trust gift to UA Little Rock, and Mayor Frank Scott, Jr.’s first year

Posted on December 31, 2019 by Scott

As the 2019 look back wraps up, here are items numbered 17, 18 & 19.

17 – A new format for ACANSA. 2019 was the Sixth Annual ACANSA Arts Festival of the South. This edition has a slightly different format taking place on three successive weekends in September.

The event kicked off on Second Friday Art Night. The opening event was a double bill of the Arts+Culture Commission’s Open Studios preview inside the CALS Bobby Roberts Library and Ballet Arkansas’ Art with a Twist. In the latter, the members of the Ballet Arkansas company created artwork by covering themselves in paint and applying the paint to large canvases stretched along walls on buildings in the CALS Library Square campus.

Other highlights of the 2019 ACANSA included: Hot Club of Cowtown, Stewart Fullerton’s Homecoming Queen, Gina Chavez, Bill Bowers: All Over the Map, the first ACANSA produced play production (Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire), American Guitarist & Composer Bill Frisell, Tenors Unlimited, BODYTRAFFIC, Bette Davis Ain’t for Sissies, Tatiana R. Mann and Friends, author & food historian Jessica B. Harris, and the Dallas String Quartet Where Bach Meets Bon Jovi.

The festival ended with an Arkansas Symphony Orchestra collaboration featuring conductor JoAnn Falletta leading the ASO in Ravel’s La Valse, Higdon’s Concerto 4-3 and Rimsky-Korsakov’s colorful musical telling of the Arabian Nights legends, Scheherazade. That evening also included a performance by Time for Three.

18 – Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust gives $2.25 million to UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture. On September 10, UA Little Rock announced that the Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust (WRCT) had gifted $2.25 million to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture to preserve and educate the public about the history of Arkansas, including the notable contributions of Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller.

The gift will create the Winthrop Rockefeller Archival Fund, a quasi-endowment. It is the sixth-largest cash gift in UA Little Rock’s history. Funds will be used to preserve, house, and catalog historical items of their collections and to support activities related to the Center’s mission.

The Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust donated the Rockefeller Collection to the center in 1980, which was instrumental in establishing UA Little Rock’s archives program. Plans call for CAHC to increase its archives to include collections of underrepresented groups that will complement its collection of records related to state leaders. The Center will also increase efforts to digitize collections housed in the archive, making this historic information more accessible to the public.

Additionally, the Center will offer more educational opportunities for students by granting awards to conduct research and providing experiential learning opportunities. The gift will allow the center to create educational activities, research initiatives, and events associated with the Rockefeller Collection and other collections housed in the Center.

19 – Little Rock’s new Mayor, Frank Scott, Jr. January 1, 2019, marked the swearing in of Frank Scott, Jr., as Little Rock’s 73rd Mayor. Unlike any predecessor, he established a Transition Board to help set goals in a variety of subject areas. One of those areas was Quality of Life. This should not be a surprise since he is a graduate of Parkview Arts and Science Magnet School. The arts, humanities, culture and museums throughout the entirety of Little Rock have been prominent in his first-year initiatives. Additionally, he has:

Established a Zoo Task Force has been studying the needs and plans for the future of the Little Rock Zoo. It is reviewing the Zoo’s current business model, developing an action plan for future funding and also examining the Zoo’s current facilities Master Plan developed in 2014 to look for new opportunities in animal habitat design, guest amenity and park design.
Created the R-3 Task Force to discuss ways of revitalizing lands that were previously municipal golf courses. A survey of the public received more than 11,000 responses with ideas for repurposing the land.
Included arts and cultural entities in discussions of Opportunity Zones as well as recognizing the arts as an important part of education discussions.
Created the Public Affairs and Creative Economy Office to coordinate, collaborate, and maximize opportunities with arts, culture, heritage, museums, and creative entities and industries in Little Rock. Plans are underway for Little Rock to participate in a national study looking at the economic impact of the arts.

19 LR Cultural Touchstones in 2019. Part 5: Six Bridges Book Fest, Shock the Rock! with Museum of Discovery, and Artspace Rocks!

Posted on December 31, 2019 by Scott

The penultimate look back at 19 Little Rock cultural milestones in 2019 with numbers 14 to 16.

14 – CALS rebrands literary festival as Six Bridges Book Festival. Previously known for 16 years as the Arkansas Literary Festival, this summer, the Central Arkansas Library System announced that starting with the April 2020 event, it would be known as Six Bridges Book Festival.

The four-day event in April celebrates reading, literacy, stories and wordsmithing including musical lyrics. Scores of nationally known authors converge on the city to offer panels on a wide variety of topics, from cooking demonstrations to award-winning comedy to personal stories of tornado-chasing. A slate of programming for children and teens includes hands-on crafts and music, animal visits, poetry contests, and more. Authors also venture out into the community for efforts such as “Writers in the Schools” (WITS), bringing the joy of writing to hundreds of students in the Little Rock area. Concerts, films, readings, and author parties enhance the festive atmosphere across 18 venues in downtown Little Rock.

The continuing success of the festival and its mission to encourage the enjoyment of reading and literacy have led CALS leadership to envision an even larger and more widely appealing festival for the future. By actively soliciting community input from all demographic groups and throughout the region, CALS plans to draw more people to experience the rich atmosphere of the festival and to see for themselves that the Six Bridges Book Festival offers something for everyone.

CALS Executive Director Nate Coulter noted, “The label ‘literary’ doesn’t describe the wide variety of festival offerings available to our community members. And the word can be off-putting to those who associate it with books they were made to read in school, rather than books they like now. The Six Bridges Book Festival is a diverse, energetic celebration of all kinds of stories and topics, both literary and mainstream, and we feel the new name reflects the festival’s nature more accurately. Our goal is to draw a wider audience by removing any barriers of perception that this event is only for highbrow tastes.”

The 17th annual festival now known as the Six Bridges Book Festival will take place April 23-26, 2020. Community organizations and community members at CALS branch libraries will soon be involved in the planning process.

15 – Museum of Discovery “Shocked the Rock” with 40 feet tall Tesla Coil. Thousands of fans of famed inventor Nikola Tesla (or of the Museum of Discovery) flocked downtown on July 20 to witness the world’s largest Tesla Coil in action at “Shock the Rock!,” a Tesla-themed, free event on the grounds of the Clinton Presidential Center. “Shock the Rock!” was powered by Entergy and presented by the Museum of Discovery.

Greg Leyh, a California electrical engineer and scientist, completed construction of the 40-foot Tesla coil tower in October 2018 and displayed its awesome capabilities in Little Rock after his world-record device is featured at a Nikola Tesla birthday party celebration July 13 at the Tesla Science Center in Wardenclyffe, NY.

Leyh’s latest world-record coil was centered on the large concrete pad at the western edge of the Clinton Center grounds cordoned off from the crowd, ensuring zero danger from being on-site to watch the awesome power of 60-foot bolts of lightning.

Pre-“Shock the Rock!” festivities included electricity-related demonstrations and host hands-on, interactive activities with guests.

16 – Artspace Rocks. Over 300 people gathered in July at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center for the Artspace Rocks first public event. It was part-description of what Artspace does, part-celebration of the vibrant Little Rock arts scene, part-networking event, and part-performance. It was all fun!

Artspace is the leading non-profit developer of live/work artist housing, artist studios, arts centers and arts-friendly businesses in the U.S. They specialize in creating, owning, and operating affordable spaces for artists and creative businesses. These spaces include live/work apartments for artists and their families, working artist studios, arts centers, commercial space for arts-friendly businesses, and other projects.

The Windgate Foundation invited Artspace to Little Rock to conduct a feasibility study during the first several months of 2019. They assembled a core committee made up of a diverse group from a variety of facets from the creative economy. The feasibility study process involved tours, focus groups, interviews, and the aforementioned public event. The name given to the Little Rock project was Artspace Rocks.

In September, a Creative Space Needs Survey was launched. It sought specific input from creative people, especially those interested in affordable space. Several hundred responses were received. In October, the preliminary feasibility study was released.

Artspace will be back in The Rocks at the end of January 2020 with more updates. Stay tuned….

19 LR Cultural Touchstones in 2019. Part 3: CALS Bobby Roberts Library, RBG and Nina T, and 15th anniversary of Clinton Center and Clinton School

Posted on December 30, 2019 by Scott

On the penultimate day of the year (and the 2010s decade), a look at numbers 8 through 10 of the 19 Little Rock cultural milestones in 2019.

8 – Dedication of the CALS Bobby Roberts Library. Though the name change had been approved months earlier, there had never been a formal naming event for the Central Arkansas Library System Bobby L. Roberts Library. In April 2019, in conjunction with the inaugural Maurice Smith Distinguished Lecture, CALS rectified it. In the presence of Roberts and many longtime library supporters, President Bill Clinton gave remarks at the event which was a tribute to his former staffer. (Roberts was on Clinton’s gubernatorial staff.)

The event took place in the CALS Ron Robinson Theatre, a component of the Arcade Building, which is adjacent to the Roberts Library. The two edifices make up the Library Square complex which rose in phases during Roberts’ more than two-decade tenure as director of CALS. Formally known as the CALS Bobby L. Roberts Library of Arkansas History & Art, it opened in 2009 as the Arkansas Studies Institute. The building consists of a new portion as well as the repurposing of the Geyer & Adams and the Porbeck & Bowman buildings. It houses the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, CALS’s Arkansas history department, meeting rooms, offices, and five galleries that feature art depicting the state or created by artists living in or from Arkansas.

In HIS remarks that evening, Roberts was his usual self-effacing persona who used his time to pay tribute to current and former CALS staff and trustees as well as to his family and his colleagues from his Clinton administration days. In so doing, Roberts demonstrated why the naming of the facility in his honor was appropriate with it being a home to historic documents and art as well as a place to facilitate conversations.

9 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Nina Totenberg. The Kumpuris Distinguished Lecture which took place on September 3, 2019, set records for Clinton School, Clinton Center, and Clinton Foundation programming.

Due to overwhelming ticket demand, the event’s locale was shifted first to UA Little Rock’s Jack Stephens Center and eventually the then-Verizon Arena. Before a crowd of an estimated 13,000 (with probably that many on the waiting list for tickets), Justice Ginsburg conversed with NPR journalist Nina Totenberg.

Following comments from Clinton School Dean Skip Rutherford and Clinton Foundation Executive Director Stephanie S. Streett, the pair were introduced by President Bill Clinton. In his remarks, he noted that only one individual present had appointed her to the U.S. Supreme Court, and that only one person present had voted to confirm her (U. S. Senator David Pryor, who was in attendance). The crowd contained a who’s who of the Arkansas judicial and legal community as well as many state and local political officials from across the political spectrum.

Justice Ginsburg spent a great deal of time discussing her affection for two former colleagues who were her polar opposite on the court – Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Antonin Scalia. It was a reminder for the audience of the importance of being able to strongly disagree on political beliefs but to be able to value the person and treasure their friendship.

(And as someone who met Nina Totenberg in the late 1980s, it was remarkable to realize that she has not aged. At all. She obviously has a painting in her attic which IS aging.)

10 – 15 years of the Clinton Presidential Center and Clinton School of Public Service November 18, 2019, marked the 15th anniversary of the opening of the Clinton Presidential Center. This year also marked the 15th anniversary of the U of A Clinton School for Public Service.

Since opening its doors 15 years ago, the Clinton Center has welcomed 4.8 million visitors from around the world, and 430,000 students and educators have been inspired through educational and civic engagement opportunities. Likewise, the Clinton School has featured hundreds of speakers which have been seen by hundreds of thousands of attendees.

In conjunction with the 15th anniversary, the Clinton Foundation hosted the Domestic Policy Conference on Economic Inclusion and Growth. It brought together leaders and bipartisan representatives from state and local municipalities, nonprofits, and the philanthropic and private sectors to discuss the evolution and successes of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI), proven approaches for urban and rural economic revitalization, supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses, and how to further economic growth in underserved communities.

Little Rock Culture Vulture

Cultural events, places and people in the Little Rock area

Tag Archives: Central Arkansas Library System

The Arkansas Cinema Society kicks off 2020 programming with LOVE THEM FIRST documentary

#2FAN at The Bookstore at Library Square – DebiLynn Fendley plus ASO

#2FAN in the Galleries at Library Square – Art by 5 Artists

Off the Grid: Nature, Black Power, & Freedom on the AR Frontier is topic of today’s CALS Legacies & Lunch

19 LR Cultural Touchstones in 2019. Part 6: ACANSA 2019, Rockefeller Trust gift to UA Little Rock, and Mayor Frank Scott, Jr.’s first year

19 LR Cultural Touchstones in 2019. Part 5: Six Bridges Book Fest, Shock the Rock! with Museum of Discovery, and Artspace Rocks!

19 LR Cultural Touchstones in 2019. Part 3: CALS Bobby Roberts Library, RBG and Nina T, and 15th anniversary of Clinton Center and Clinton School

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