Tag Archives: UA Little Rock Art

Windgate Distinguished Lecture series at UA Little Rock tonight features Glenn Adamson

Posted on by

Glenn and Lenore Tawney.jpgThe UA Little Rock Department of Art+Design is launching a new Windgate Distinguished lecture series. It will take place at 6pm tonight (January 30) in Room 101 of the Windgate Center on the UA Little Rock campus.

In this inaugural lecture of the Windgate Distinguished Lecture Series, Glenn Adamson will give context to Contemporary British Studio Ceramics from the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection on view in the Brad Cushman Gallery, Windgate Center of Art + Design, January 16 – March 7.

Adamson will talk about the exhibition Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery, which he co-curated at the Yale Center for British Art in 2017. Surveying a century of creativity in the ceramic field, the exhibition rotated particularly around the encounter between tradition and modernity. Beginning from the famous Korean Moon Jar – an icon
for potters including Bernard Leach and Lucie Rie – Adamson will trace this opposition and the way it shaped the discipline.

Adamson is a curator, writer and historian based in Brooklyn, who works across the fields of design, craft and contemporary art.

A reception immediately follows Adamson’s lecture.

Jennifer Bonner of Mall and Harvard University Graduate School of Design is first 2019-2020 Architecture & Design Network speaker

Posted on by

Image result for jennifer bonnerIn partnership with the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, the June Freeman Lecture Series is excited to welcome Jennifer Bonner, Director of MALL and Associate Professor of Architecture and Director of the Master in Architecture II Program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

“Before and After Haus Gables” is the topic of the program.  It will take place at the Windgate Center of Art + Design on the UA Little Rock campus.

Born in Alabama, Jennifer Bonner founded MALL, a creative practice for art and architecture in 2009. MALL stands for Mass Architectural Loopty Loops or Maximum Arches with Limited Liability—an acronym with built-in flexibility. As a recipient of the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers, Emerging Voices Award (AIA/Young Architects Forum), and Progressive Architecture (P/A) Award, her creative work has been published in architectural trade journals including Architect, Metropolis, Architectural Review, Architectural Record, and Wallpaper, as well as a+t , DAMN, PLAT, Offramp, and MAS Context . She is founder and author of A Guide to the Dirty South: Atlanta, editor of Platform: Still Life, and a guest editor for ART PAPERS special issue on architecture and design of Los Angeles.

MALL’s recent work includes a single-family residence constructed out of cross-laminated timber, a mid-rise tower that resembles a sandwich, an urban development for a small lot located in Atlanta, Georgia and a temporary installation for Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway. The work can be described as pictorially graphic and out of place and playfully challenges the production of architecture through representation, materiality and color.

ADN lectures are free and open to the public. No reservations are required.   Supporters of ADN include the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, the University of Arkansas Little Rock Windgate Center of Art + Design, the Central Section of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Arkansas Art Center and friends in the community.  For additional information contact  ArchDesignNetwork@gmail.com.

Little Rock Look Back: MOCKINGBIRD TREE sculpture installed on April 21, 2016

Posted on by

Photo by LRCVB

On April 21, 2016, Michael Warrick’s Mockingbird Tree sculpture was installed at the corner of Chenal Parkway and Chenal Valley Drive.

The piece was commissioned by Sculpture at the River Market after winning the 2015 Public Monument Sculpture competition.

The eighteen (18) foot tall sculpture is made out of stainless steel. It presents a fanciful version of a tree with cloud-like foliage.  Nestled in the tree are bronze mockingbirds (Arkansas’ state bird).

Warrick is a professor in the Department of Art at the University of Arkansas Little Rock and has been an artist and educator for 30 years. His work has resulted in more than 150 solo and group exhibitions and has been represented in 29 private collections and 34 public venues.

#5WomenArtists – Marjorie Williams-Smith

Posted on by

Through their social media campaign #5WomenArtists, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) asks, “Can you name five women artists?

In response to that, this month five artists with Little Rock connections will be highlighted throughout March.  Up next is Marjorie Williams-Smith. 

Marjorie Williams-Smith has worked with silverpoint for over 30 years. Silverpoint is an especially challenging medium, but that is part of the allure. The effect of light on the silver lines creates a shimmering quality that is quite different from any other drawing medium.

She draws with a metal stylus on a prepared surface.  Hatched and cross-hatched lines create values and textures.  The white of the page provides the contrast. Since erasing is not possible with silverpoint, every line has to be premeditated.

Silverpoint is the perfect medium for the subject matter of Marjorie’s work: nature. She uses these natural forms as symbols for the spiritual energy that exists within us all.

Two of her works were included in the recent exhibition: ON THEIR OWN TERMS which was on display at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Earlier this month, she received the Individual Artist Award at the 2019 Governor’s Arts Awards presented by Governor Asa Hutchinson and the Arkansas Arts Council.

Tonight – Clinton School and UA Little Rock present program on The Struggle in the South mural

Posted on by

Today (January 16) at noon, UA Little Rock officially cuts the ribbon on the new UA Little Rock Downtown campus in the River Market district.

Tonight at 6pm, the Clinton School Speaker Series in conjunction with UA Little Rock presents a panel discussion on the Joe Jones mural, “The Struggle in the South” which is featured in that new space.  It will take place in the UA Little Rock Downtown location.

In 1935, famed American artist Joe Jones created “The Struggle in the South,” a provocative depiction of Southern sharecroppers, coal miners and a black family in fear of a lynching.

Originally painted in the dining hall at Commonwealth College near Mena, Arkansas, this 44-by-9-foot work was recently restored with a $500,000 grant from Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Center.

During this program, moderator Senator Joyce Elliott will join Brad Cushman, UA Little Rock Department of Art and Design Gallery director and curator; author Guy Lancaster; Dr. Brian Mitchell, UA Little Rock professor of history; Dr. Bobby L. Robert, former UA Little Rock archivist and Central Arkansas Library System executive director; and Taemora Williams, UA Little Rock student, to discuss the artwork’s historical significance and importance of its new home in UA Little Rock Downtown’s reflection room.

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.

2nd Friday Art Night – Christ Church

Posted on by

Christ Episcopal Church will open a new art exhibit in its Gallery on Friday, January 11, 2019. Brenda Fowler will be the featured artist from January 11 through the end of March 2019.

Fowler’s paintings will be on display for purchase in the Gallery. The exhibit is entitled “Life Changes,” which, Fowler explains, embraces the essence of an ever-changing life, as well as the emotions experienced throughout these changes.

Fowler is an Arkansas artist whose original contemporary abstract expressionist paintings are intended to convey the creative energy and passion for expression through which all artists go. Her mixed media, large-scale paintings on deep, gallery-wrapped canvas, are comprised of multiple layers of strong, vibrant, high-quality fine art acrylic colors, often with added texture. Each piece begins with a concept, a thought, or an idea with the intent to convey emotions and are reflective of their titles.

Fowler received her formal education at the University of Arkansas Little Rock and the Arkansas Arts Center Museum School. Her paintings have been displayed at numerous art galleries and interior design firms throughout Arkansas and in Dallas.

Christ Church believes that artists, whether painters or singers or sculptors or poets, show something of God when they show us the world’s truth and beauty through their talents. The Gallery is open to the public each weekday during regular business hours and is also a regular stop on downtown Little Rock’s Second Friday Art Night. The exhibition will open with a reception for the artist on Friday, January 11 from 5 pm-8 pm.