Tag Archives: Clinton Presidential Center

Remembering Betty Ford with Clinton Foundation, Clinton School tonight

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In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Clinton Foundation and University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service will host Remembering Betty Ford, a conversation about the woman who made a positive and lasting impact on our country.

The conversation will include Susan Ford Bales, daughter of President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford, and Lisa McCubbin, author of “Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer,” an intimate and insightful biography of Betty Ford, the groundbreaking, candid, and resilient First Lady and wife of President Gerald Ford. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa McCubbin – with foreword by Susan Ford Bales – the book tells the inspiring story of an ordinary Midwestern girl thrust onto the world stage and into the White House under extraordinary circumstances.

The program starts at 6pm at Sturgis Hall.

Setting a precedent as First Lady, Betty Ford refused to be silenced by her critics as she publicly championed equal rights for women, and spoke out about issues that had previously been taboo—breast cancer, depression, abortion, and sexuality. Privately, there were signs something was wrong. After a painful intervention by her family, she admitted to an addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. Her courageous decision to speak out publicly sparked a national dialogue, and in 1982, she co-founded the Betty Ford Center, which revolutionized treatment for alcoholism and inspired the modern concept of recovery.

All Clinton School Speaker Series events are free and open to the public. Reserve your seats by emailing publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu or by calling (501) 683-5239.

A book signing will follow the conversation. Copies of “Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer” are available for purchase through the Clinton Museum Store online, in store, and at the event. Those who purchase their book through the Clinton Museum Store will receive priority line access at the signing.

Art of the String Quartet featuring ASO musicians tonight at the Clinton Center

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The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Philip Mann, Music Director and Conductor, presents the fourth concert of the 2018-2019 River Rhapsodies Chamber Music season with The Art of the String Quartet, Tuesday, Feb. 26th at 7:00 p.m. at the Clinton Presidential Center.

ASO’s resident string quartets, Rockefeller String Quartet and Quapaw String Quartet, will perform Janáček’s “Kreutzer Sonata,” Mozart’s String Quartet No. 12, along with Puccini and Verdi’s string quartets.

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s Quapaw String Quartet was founded in 1980 as the ASO resident string quartet. Responding to what was clearly a statewide need, the ASO and Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation began a partnership in 2000 to form the Rockefeller String Quartet. The quartets have developed a reputation for providing quality school programming, as well as performing statewide as a chamber ensemble and with the Arkansas Symphony. The quartets’ primary responsibilities include string education and outreach throughout the state reaching more than 26,000 Arkansas school children each year.

River Rhapsodies Chamber Music Concerts are held in the intimate setting of the Clinton Presidential Center’s Great Hall. A cash bar is open before the concert and at intermission, and patrons are invited to carry drinks into the concert. The Media Sponsor for the River Rhapsodies Chamber Music Series is UA Little Rock Public Radio.

General Admission tickets are $23; active duty military and student tickets are $10 and can be purchased online at www.ArkansasSymphony.org; at the Clinton Presidential Center beginning 60 minutes prior to a concert; or by phone at 501-666-1761, ext. 1.

 

Artists

Quapaw String Quartet

  •   Meredith Maddox Hicks, violin
  •   Charlotte Crosmer, violin
  •   Ryan Mooney, viola
  •   David Gerstein, cello

Rockefeller String Quartet

  •   Trisha McGovern Freeney, violin
  •   Katherine Williamson, violin
  •   Katherine Reynolds, viola
  •   Ethan Young, cello

Program
MOZART – String Quartet No. 12 in B-flat Major, K. 172 (Rockefeller)
JANÁČEK  – String Quartet No. 1, “Kreutzer Sonata” (Quapaw)
PUCCINI – String Quartet in D Major (Quapaw)
VERDI – String Quartet (Rockefeller)

Making History: African-American Mayors in Arkansas is topic of noon conversation today at the Clinton Presidential Center

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Clockwise from left: Smith-Creer, Washington, McGill, Scott

Today at noon, the Clinton Presidential Center will host a program featuring four African-American mayors from across Arkansas.

The panel will be moderated by former Little Rock Mayor Lottie Shackelford, who was Little Rock’s first female mayor and second African-American mayor.

The program will feature the newly elected Mayor Veronica Smith-Creer of El Dorado, Mayor George McGill of Fort Smith, Mayor Frank Scott, Jr. of Little Rock, and Mayor Shirley Washington of Pine Bluff, who was first elected in 2016.

Explore “River of Change” with Parkview High School students today at 3pm at Clinton Presidential Center

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Each year, the Clinton Center celebrates Black History Month with a historically-rooted performance by the drama, choir, and orchestra students from Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School.

This afternoon (February 24), Parkview students present “River of Change,” inspired by The Mighty Mississippi, and written by Parkview student, Cooper Sikes.

The program will begin at 3pm in the Clinton Center Great Hall.

The theme of River of Change follows the focus of FUSION 2019: Arts+Humanities Arkansas by focusing on the Mississippi River.

New Clinton Center exhibit celebrates “Cultural Heroes”

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The Clinton Presidential Center’s new temporary exhibit, Cultural Heroes, a collection of seven larger-than-life clay sculptures created by Nashville artist Alan LeQuire, debuts on February 23, 2019, as part of the Clinton Center’s Black History Month celebration.

Each sculpture represents a musician who shaped the soundtrack of the Civil Rights movement: Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Lead Belly, Paul Robeson, Woody Guthrie, Marian Anderson, and Josh White.

The artist’s inspiration for Cultural Heroes is two-fold. One of LeQuire’s favorite museums is the Cluny Museum in Paris. The museum displays the heads of the Kings of France, which were broken off the facade of Notre Dame during the French Revolution and rediscovered during the 1970s. These larger-than-life stone heads made a lasting impact on the artist. Second, he wanted to memorialize to the musicians who put their careers on the line and became the “grandparents of the Civil Rights movement.”

LeQuire is one of the country’s foremost figurative sculptors and is best known for his colossal masterworks, Athena Parthenos, the largest indoor statue in the western hemisphere and Musica, one of the largest bronze figure groups in the world.

The exhibit runs through May 5, 2019.

The Clinton Center’s Black History Month programming is sponsored by First Arkansas Bank & Trust; Mays, Byrd & Associates; and Wilbur Peer, Sr., Farmer and President KKAC Foundation.

Happy Birthday George Washington

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George Washington (Lansdowne portrait) by Gilbert Stuart, oil on canvas, 1796

George Washington (Lansdowne portrait) by Gilbert Stuart, oil on canvas, 1796 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Acquired as a gift to the nation through the generosity of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

Though Monday the 18th was the Federal George Washington Birthday holiday, today is his actual birthday.

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, in Westmoreland, Virginia. He is one of only two American Presidents to not have any authority over the land now known as Little Rock. Washington never ventured west of the Mississippi River, so never visited Arkansas.

As the first President and Father of his Country, he has many things named after him. In Little Rock, Washington Street is named in his honor.

The Washington Inaugural Bible

In 2013, two Little Rock museums highlighted George Washington artifacts. Historic Arkansas Museum displayed the Washington family Bible for several months. At the start of that time, they also showcased the Bible on which Washington swore his first oath as President (the inaugural inaugural?).

A few months later, the Clinton Presidential Center featured Washington’s personal annotated copy of the 1789 “Acts Passed at a Congress of the United States of America.” This artifact had been purchased by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association in 2012.

In 2004, the Arkansas Arts Center exhibited the 1796 Gilbert Stuart Landsdowne Portrait of Washington. This was on display a few months before the opening of the Clinton Presidential Center.  In 1976, they had an exhibit dedicated to 18th and 19th century portraits of the Washington, Custis and Lee families. Five years earlier, the museum had displayed prints of Washington in April 1971.

Contemporary Craft: A Conversation tonight (2/21) at the Clinton Presidential Center

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Image may contain: textJoin the Clinton Center on Thursday, February 21 at 6 p.m., for a discussion with three nationally-acclaimed, Arkansas-based artists for Contemporary Craft: A Conversation, moderated by Brian Lang. The panel will discuss contemporary craft art in Arkansas, the evolution of their work, how craft art is different than traditional fine art, and the role they think craft art plays in reflecting culture.

Brian J. Lang (moderator)
Brian Lang is the chief curator and Windgate Foundation curator of contemporary craft at the Arkansas Arts Center.

Linda Nguyen Lopez (Panelist)
Linda Nguyen Lopez is first-generation American ceramic artist of Vietnamese and Mexican descent. Her abstract works explore the poetic potential of the everyday by imagining and articulating a vast emotional range embedded in the mundane objects that surround us. She is currently an Instructor and Interim Head of Ceramics at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

James Matthews (Panelist)
James Matthews is a documentary artist with a bias toward the human-made landscape, manual processes, and the physical object. His Eviction Quilts series features works made from clothes and bedding left curbside after an eviction. Matthews lives in Little Rock.

Leon Niehues (Panelist)
From Huntsville, Leon Niehues has been making baskets, sculptural baskets, and bentwood sculpture for 36 years. While using traditional materials and techniques, he adds innovative ideas, methods of construction, and new and unique materials to his pieces. Niehues, and his wife Sharon, were included in The White House Collection of American Crafts.

This program is FREE and open to the public, but reservations are required.

This program is held in conjunction with the Clinton Center’s current temporary exhibition, The White House Collection of American Crafts: 25th Anniversary Exhibit. The collection was originally assembled in 1993, at the request of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The White House Collection of American Crafts was created to coincide with the year designated “The Year of American Craft: A Celebration of the Creative Works of the Hand” by a Joint Resolution of Congress and a Presidential Proclamation by President George H. W. Bush. The collection includes 73 works created by 78 of America’s foremost craft artisans.