Tag Archives: Creative Class 2016

Creative Class 2016: Tobi Fairley

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cc16-fairleyTobi Fairley is the namesake and creative drive behind Tobi Fairley & Associates, a full-service consulting and design company.  The company provides custom-tailored education, enlightened mentoring, and common-sense tools to help companies and design firms improve their business.

Since establishing her design firm over 15 years ago, Tobi’s projects have spanned the nation, and her award-winning designs for high-profile and celebrity clients have been featured on television, and in top-shelf shelter publications around the globe, including House Beautiful, Traditional Home, Better Homes & Gardens, Southern Living,Coastal Living, and more.  As such, she is an ambassador for Little Rock’s creative community.

Tobi’s design blog, created in September 2008, is currently read in more than 124 countries worldwide. In 2010, Tobi introduced her DIY design service, InBox Interiors, and launched her popular intensive courses and programs, including Design A-to-Z, Designer MBA, and her MasterMind mentoring program.  Designers, business pros, and design enthusiasts alike have attended these programs from across the United States and Canada with rave reviews.

Tobi’s vision for her brand is to empower others to cultivate their strengths and create inspired solutions for business, design, and life. Her unique combination of degrees in interior design and accounting, and an MBA from the Sam M. Walton College of Business, gives her a competitive advantage in the design industry, and offers a creative approach to the world of business.

Creative Class 2016: Matt DeCample

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cc16-decampleWhether a propensity for improv made Matt DeCample an excellent newsman and later PR professional, or whether his work in those occupations helped hone his improv skills is probably a chicken or the egg question.  But what is not up for debate is that Matt has elevated the visibility of and appreciation for improv as a form of entertainment.  He was a founder of Improv Little Rock and appears with The Joint Venture, the only weekly improv comedy show in Arkansas.

He also uses his love of film and PR acumen to promote film festivals in Arkansas.  Currently he is helping promote the 25th Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival this month.  An avid fan of movies, he has long been a supporter and promoter of films made in Arkansas, films made by Arkansans, and film festivals located in Arkansas.  He is also a fan of live music, so can often be found frequenting local music haunts in LR.

While he may have had to curtail his activities a bit this year due to health concerns, (his blog discussing his fight against liver cancer is likely to have you in tears…from laughter but is also full of information and honest insight), he is by no means stopping. In fact, he has recently taken the stage with stand-up comedy.

 

 

Creative Class 2016: Jamie Davidson

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cc16-davidsonWhen one thinks of the creative economy, the focus is generally on non-profit arts and museums.  However, as Jamie Davidson shows, it is also about the design sector.

As the founder and creative director for Little Rock based Strong Suit Clothing, Davidson is changing perceptions about Little Rock.  While Strong Suit certainly dresses many outstanding Arkansans, it reaches far beyond. The line appears in Nordstrom as well as a variety of specialty stores throughout the US.  Several actors at the 2016 Emmy Awards were wearing Strong Suit tuxedos and have worn Strong Suit clothing in national TV appearances.

Davidson got his start in the fashion world when working at longtime Heights clothier Mr. Wicks.  Previous to Strong Suit, he was a founder of Normandy & Monroe and Tre Vero clothing lines.  This latest venture launched in 2013. Building on his experience, Strong Suit Clothing is growing incrementally and strategically with successful results.  In addition to the line’s growth in stores, his experience with e-commerce has allowed the company to have success in that arena.  The hard work is garnering national attention from the media.

Despite the growth of the company, and the fact it could be easier to operate if it were located elsewhere, Davidson is committed to Little Rock.  His grandfather, Julian Davidson, was an architect who helped build Little Rock in the 20th century.  As a clothier, Jamie is helping to dress Little Rock, and dress the world from Little Rock.

Creative Class 2016: Karen Q. Clark

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cc16-clarkKaren Q. Clark has played a sympathetic nun on film and an exceedingly unsympathetic nun on stage.   In between she has been a singing nun (in The Sound of Music).  Outside of the habit, she has appeared in New York, many regional theatres, and most (if not all) Little Rock stages.  A native of Wisconsin, she came to Little Rock with her husband (and fellow thespian) Jay Clark.  During the day, she is Lower School choral and drama teacher at Episcopal Collegiate School.

In addition to being a fixture in the Little Rock theatre scene, she also has numerous credits in many Arkansas-made films.  Favorite stage roles include: Mrs. Banks, Mary Poppins (Arkansas Rep); Betty in The It Girl (IRNE nomination, Worcester Foothills); Princess Rhyme in the world premiere of The Phantom Tollbooth and Rachel in Inherit the Wind (Wheelock Family Theatre); Irene in Hello Dolly! (Jekyll Island); Maria in The Sound of Music; and Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre). Another favorite role is being Quin’s mom.

Creative Class 2016: Hunter Brown

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cc16-brownHunter Brown was born and raised in Little Rock. His mother was always painting and his father was always working with his hands building and creating. While he did not originally envision himself as an artist, he discovered sculpture as a student of the University of Central Arkansas. After graduating Hunter gradually built a design and sculpture studio, where he would continue to explore with sculptural forms. Today Hunter is the owner and operator of Innovative Sculpture Design Studio where he creates fine art full time, traveling throughout the country to fine art shows and festivals.

His work moves between the figurative and the abstract, modern and contemporary styles. While many sculptors fabricate their forms with flawless craftsmanship and machine-like precision, he chooses to exploit the natural characteristics of materials and the fabrication process. By experimenting with finishes, grind patterns, tool markings, welding techniques, and even slag from the torch, Hunter has developed a style that captures his process and leaves his imprint in the work.

Having installations throughout the U.S., Hunter was one of the artists in the 2016 Sculpture at the River Market show.  Year round his work can be found at the Matt McLeod Gallery.

Creative Class 2016: Kevin Brockmeier

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cc16-brockmeierIn addition to his most recent work, A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip, KEVIN BROCKMEIER is the author of the novels The Illumination, The Brief History of the Dead, and The Truth About Celia; the story collections Things That Fall from the Sky and The View from the Seventh Layer; and the children’s novels City of Names and Grooves: A Kind of Mystery.

His work has been translated into seventeen languages. He has published his stories in such venues as The New Yorker, The Georgia Review, McSweeney’s, Zoetrope, Tin House, The Oxford American, The Best American Short Stories, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and New Stories from the South. He has received the Borders Original Voices Award, three O. Henry Awards (one, a first prize), the PEN USA Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an NEA Grant. In 2007, he was named one of Granta magazine’s Best Young American Novelists. He teaches frequently at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

A graduate of Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School and Missouri State University, he attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop program at the University of Iowa, studying under such names as Frank Conroy and Marilynn Robinson, and graduated in 1997 with an MFA degree.  He is probably the only author to have participated in every single Arkansas Literary Festival.

Creative Class 2016: Chad Bradford

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cc16-bradfordActor and director Chad Bradford started appearing on Little Rock stages while he was still a student at Hall High School.  Since then, he has appeared Off Broadway, in national tours, and in numerous regional theatres throughout the U.S.  While often appearing in Shakespeare or other classical plays, he is equally at home in farce, musicals, and drawing room comedies.  In 2015, he played the title character in the Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre production of Puss in Boots. In other words, he is a versatile actor.

Earlier this year, he directed Twelfth Night for Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre (while also appearing in their productions of West Side Story and A Midsummer Night’s Dream).  Twelfth Night was later remounted at Shake on the Lake Shakespeare in New York and returned to Conway for another appearance.  (This is not his first show to originate in Little Rock and be performed throughout the US. In 2013, he helmed David Sedaris’ The Santaland Diaries here before it played elsewhere.)  In 2015, National Arts Strategies named him a Creative Community Fellows recipient.

He is currently in rehearsals directing David Ives’s The Liar on the UCA Mainstage.  It plays October 20-22, and 27 & 28.