From the recent Tesseract Dancing exhibit at Historic Arkansas Museum, here is Brett Anderson’s Stone Cold. Made of alabaster and stainless steel, this 7″x6″x6″ sculpture is either abstract or realistic depending on the angle. Unfortunately the LR Culture Vulture only has this one photo of it so you cannot truly appreciate his artistry.
The Tesseract Dancing exhibit showcased Anderson and Emily Galusha. It was a wonderful exhibit and a great showcase for two up-and-coming Arkansas artists.
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.
The UALR Evenings with History program resumes for 2012 tomorrow night (February 7) with Jeffrey Kyong-McClain’s “The Heavenly History of the Han, or How a Liberal Baptist from Green Forest, Arkansas Taught Racial and Ethnic Nationalism to the Chinese.”
In the early years of the twentieth century, Chinese (or “Han”) nationalists were searching for ways to convert a tradition-bound and multi-cultural empire into a modern nation-state. Although, in the minds of these nationalists, foreign missionaries were a big part of China’s problem, many such missionaries in fact aided the Chinese against the non-Chinese in questions over who had the historical right to rule the borderlands, thereby helping Chinese nationalists assert their purported rights over vast amounts of territory.
This talk looks at the case of one missionary particularly active in this regard, Arkansan D.C. Graham, who blended liberal theology with a Social Darwinian belief in the superiority of the Chinese over the other people groups in the region (southwest China). Graham propagated this belief as the pioneer of modern archaeology and ethnography in Sichuan province in the 1920s and 1930s, and his ideas remain influential in the region to this day.
A member of the UALR History faculty, Dr. Kyong-McClain was born and raised in Minneapolis. He received a BA in History from the University of Minnesota and an MA in Theology from Bethel Seminary, St. Paul, before beginning graduate work in Chinese History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He lived for three years in the city of Chengdu, in southwestern China, the last year on a Fulbright-Hays dissertation grant. His research centers on the place of archaeology in modern Chinese nation-building; teaching interests include modern China and modern Korea, and anything pertaining to Sino-Western interaction.
The Evenings with History take place in the Ottenheimer Auditorium in the Historic Arkansas Museum at 200 E. Third Street. Refreshments are served at 7:00 p.m., and the talk begins at 7:30 p.m.
Corporate sponsors for the 2011-2012 season are Delta Trust, Union Pacific Railroad, the Little Rock School District—Teaching American History Program; the law firms of Friday, Eldredge, & Clark and Wright, Lindsey & Jennings. Also thanks for support and gifts in kind from the Ottenheimer Library; Historic Arkansas Museum, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage; UALR Public Radio–KLRE-KUAR; and Grapevine Spirits
As a tribute to longtime Historic Arkansas Museum supporter Peg Newton Smith, HAM commissioned Alice Guffey Miller to create a piece of sculpture which sits along the north entrance to the gallery building. pARTy for Peg depicts four couples dancing to a lively tune which is coming from a fiddle player.
Upon closer examination, one sees that the sculpture is more than just whimsical figures cut from aluminum. The pedestals upon which the sculptures stand contain found objects which commemorate everyday life in Arkansas from horseshoes to china pieces to flatware to rocks and bricks. In addition, the concrete bears faint footprints which echo steps which could be made by dancers. Quotes and sayings are etched into the aluminum base for each sculpture as well.
Connecting the four dancing couples is a weather vane which forms a canopy. Overseeing everything are birds perched atop a corner of HAM’s gallery building.
Peg Newton Smith was a true Arkansas treasure. She was interested in not only the history of Little Rock and Arkansas, but also in the present and the future. This sculpture, which depicts a historical scene in a more modern way, aptly captures the woman and the joy she radiated.
It is time again for 2nd Friday Art Night. Though it may be Friday the 13th, attendees will be lucky because they’ll still have time to catch Tessaract Dancing (the art of Brett Anderson and Emily Galusha) at Historic Arkansas Museum.
Opening tonight at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) Women to Watch series. The exhibition includes the work of artists who were selected for consideration for the NMWA’s Body of Work exhibit as part of its biennial Women to Watch series. This series features emerging or under-represented artists from the states and countries in which the museum has outreach committees.
Continuing at the Butler Center through February 25 is ARK. In the Dark: An Exhibition of Vintage Movie Posters about Arkansas. The Butler Center and Ron Robinson are co-hosting an exhibition of vintage Arkansas-related movie posters to be shown in Concordia Hall of the Arkansas Studies Institute. The show features 35 posters from films covering the years 1926 to 2009.
On the second Friday of each month, the Butler Center Galleries participate in 2nd Friday Art Night, when galleries, museums, and businesses in downtown Little Rock are open from 5 to 8 p.m. for an after-hours gallery walk.
Like many people, the Little Rock Culture Vulture has an iPhone and takes many iPhotos. Today’s entry, and the next two, will highlight some of his favorite personal iPhotos taken in Little Rock during 2011. The are divided into the Good, the Odd and the Arty.
Today focuses on The Good. These 11 from ’11 are presented chronologically.
Allsopp Park snow - February 2011
A sidewalk near MacArthur Park at night - March 2011
Kids playing by Dickinson Fountain at Arkansas Arts Center - April 2011
Jordan Johnson in a rare moment of sitting still on grounds of Clinton Library - May 2011
Ducks crossing street in downtown Little Rock - May 2011
Little Rock Sky - June 2011
After at party in black box at Arkansas Repertory Theatre - June 2011
Setting sun reflected on Arkansas River - June 2011
Downtown reflection - June 2011
Bill Worthen joining with a band at 2nd Friday Art Night at Historic Arkansas Museum - July 2011
Snow along Kavanaugh - December 2011
Celebrate the holiday season like days past at Historic Arkansas Museum’s annual Christmas Frolic on December 4, from 1 to 4 pm.
Visitors can watch nails being forged at the new Blacksmith Shop, create tree ornaments and holiday cards, sip on hot cider and enjoy ginger cake, play pioneer games, listen to 19th century fiddle music, expect a visit from Father Christmas and do some holiday shopping in the Museum Store. And lots more!
Music will be provided by Arkansas Country Dance Band, Lark in the Morning and roaming fiddlers.
Plenty of free parking is available at 3rd and Cumberland Streets. Historic Arkansas Museum is a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.
As a child, the Culture Vulture’s parents brought him to this every year. It kicked off the Christmas season for us. Memories of the hot cider as a kid are almost as warming as the actual cider was. My ADD however did not allow me to enjoy the candle dipping for very long. I couldn’t understand why you just couldn’t put the wicks in the middle of the wax, let it harden and then cut them out.
Little Rock Culture Vulture 