• Roman Kresse assumes the pose he held for father Kevin Kresse for "Breaking the Cycle"

Little Rock artist Kevin Kresse's bronze sculpture "Breaking the Cycle," of a man being pushed in a wooden wheelbarrow by a young boy, was dedicated this morning at Riverfront Park near the Belvedere.

The sculpture, donated by Lisenne Rockefeller, is one of just a handful in the park created by local talent. Kresse, who lived with his family in Italy last year, said he could see the mark of generations of Italian artists and architects on the landscape and said it was time "to put our voice and our personality" in the park. (He is too polite to say it was about time an Arkansan was commissioned to do a major piece for the park, which park angel and City Director Dean Kumpuris has worked tirelessly to fill with sculpture, though most of it by Western artists.)

Kresse said he could envision the day in the distant future when his young son, Roman, the model for the boy in the sculpture, will be a grandfather like the man in the wheelbarrow and the sculpture will still be there, a piece of the puzzle that makes up who we are in Arkansas. By that time, the park have long been known as Kumpuris Riverfront Park, which is as it should be.

The artist, who also sculpted the bust of Winthrop Paul Rockefeller for the state Capitol and worked closely with his widow on the project, called Lisenne Rockefeller a "jewel" that Little Rock is "lucky to have in our community."

In his opening remarks, Kumpuris said the sculpture will be "loved and respected," a place to play for children, a sight to generate memories for adults. (The city will hold insurance on it, in case it gets the same disrespect that dumbbells here have inflicted on other public pieces.) Kumpuris said he hopes the park will hold 50 to 60 sculptures one day.

• Emily Chase's "Husk"

• Detail from "Husk"

Emily Chase, an art major in the Honors College of the the University of Arkansas, has won a Windgate Fellowship Award worth $15,000 for her paper dresses and other paper creations.

The Windgate is a national competitive award funded by the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design in Hendersonville, N.C. The center invites more than 70 universities to nominate two graduating seniors skilled in craft to compete for the Windgate and only 10 students are selected. The Windgate Charitable Trust in Siloam Springs supports the fellowship through gifts to the Center. Chase, who hails from Tahlequah, Okla., is the first Windgate fellow from the U of A.

A news release from the university said that Chase has been crafting works in paper for several years, from origami cranes to the gowns created for her honors thesis. From the news release:

Chase painted, cut, scraped, pricked and scorched various aspects of the paper garments, which lure and provoke the viewer with unexpected details. A quilted paper spine and ribs form the back of Hollow Bones, confining painted birds suspended within the bodice; in Husk, a delicate tracery of blue blood vessels painted within are revealed when the gown is illuminated.

Historical costume and the rich visual language of fairytales inspired these works, but with the encouragement of her faculty mentor, Kristin Musgnug, an associate professor of art, Chase explored the deeper themes embedded in the tales and her own emotional processes, as well.

Paper dresses are in vogue — see Detroit designer Matthew F. Richmond's newspaper he made for the Arkansas Times here and the Eye Candy post on Mia Hall's dress in the UALR Faculty Biennial last year for two examples that have appeared in the Times in the past year. Like Chase's garments, Hall's aren't meant to be worn but convey a message. (This writer is old enough to have actually worn a paper dress nearly identical to the one below when they were all the rage in the 1960s.)

• Paper dress from the 1960s

Chase's work appears in the exhibition "Crafted Identities: Honors Thesis Work of Emily Chase, Melissa Love, and Jeanne Vockroth" currently on display at the East Square Plaza on the Fayetteville Square, 1 E. Center St. A closing reception is set for 5-8 p.m. Friday, April 26. Her work also will be included in the BFA/BA Awards Exhibition April 29-May 4 in the Fine Arts Center Gallery on campus.

• Mike Gaines' "Peck's Drive In.

Stephano's Fine Art will open a second gallery, Stephano's II, at B.A. Framer at R and Grant streets Saturday, April 20. A catered reception from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. will celebrate the opening.

Featured artists at Stephano's II will include Stephano, G. Peebles, Char DeMoro, Mike Gaines and others.

• Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection; 2013 Estate of Pablo Picasoo/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
• Pablo Picasso's "Woman in an Armchair (Eva)," 1913

The New York Times just sent out a news flash saying that billionaire Leonard A. Lauder (as in Estee Lauder) has promised to give the Metropolitan Museum of Art is collection of 78 Cubist paintings, drawings and sculpture, valued at $1 billion. The collection includes 33 Picassos, 17 Braques, 14 Legers and 14 works by Gris.

From the Times:

Scholars say the collection is among the world’s greatest, as good, as if not better, than the renowned Cubist paintings, drawings and sculptures in institutions like the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and the Pompidou Center in Paris. Together they tell the story of a movement that revolutionized Modern art and fill a glaring gap in the Met’s collection, which has been notably weak in early-20th-century art. ...

“In one fell swoop this puts the Met at the forefront of early-20th-century art,” Thomas P. Campbell, the Met’s director, said. “It is an unreproducible collection, something museum directors only dream about.”

The NYT was told by Met officials that the museum has already begun to receive the art for an exhibition scheduled to open in the fall of 2014.

• Drawing by Katie Bridges, 2011 winner.

Students in K through 12th grade are invited to enter the Humane Society of Pulaski County's 8th annual art contest in honor of “Be Kind to Animals” week May 1-8. Deadline to enter is April 15.

Artwork should reflect the “Be Kind to Animals” theme as a way promote respect for animals of all kinds. Entries should be on paper no larger than 11 X 17 inches. They will be judged on message, originality and creativity, and winners will receive prizes.

Drop off entries at the HSPC Shelter, 14600 Colonel Glenn Road in Little Rock. For more information, call 529-6330 or visit www.warmhearts.org.

• Kerry Hartman's "Places of the Heart"

The Bernice Sculpture Garden has issued a call for proposals for sculpture to be installed and exhibited for a year at the garden at the corner of South Main Street and Daisy Bates Avenue.

The garden makes grants every year to artists to create work for the privately owned but open to the public garden.

Deadline to apply is April 15. Selected artists will receive $2,800 and finalists will receive a $200 fee for their models. Up to five sculptures will be considered. The artist's budget must include all design fees, materials, construction, installation, removal, maintenance and liability insurance. The artist, or team of artists, will retain ownership of the artwork.

Artists and teams should send application packets through the mail to “Bernice Garden Sculpture Project," 1716 N. Spruce, 72207. For more information, go to the Bernice Garden website.

Previous winners include Mia Hall, Bryan Winfred Massey Sr., David Obrien, Stephanie Shinaberry, Tod “Switch” Swiecichowski, Kerry Hartman, Mac Hornecker (Guest Sculptor), Alice Guffey Miller, Tori Pelz and many more.

• Jeff Waddle, "Smolder"

It's First Thursday in Hillcrest, the evening when high society walks around the neighborhood, glasses of wine in hand, listening to music and dropping in on places like Gallery 26, 2611 Kavanaugh Blvd. It's nearly the last chance to see the gallery's exhibition of work by Jeff Waddle, Mindy Lacefield and Emily Wood.

Matt McLeod is the featured artist for the 2nd annual Thea Arts Festival coming up April 27 in Argenta, and as a run-up to the festival, Thea is posting the painting he's created for the festival, detail by detail, on its Facebook page and Twitter through March 15, Argenta ArtWalk evening.

Here's piece 1, posted March 4:

• Piece 1

• Piece 2

Name those images! Where are they?

The Arkansas Arts Council has announced that applications are now available for its $4,000 artist fellowships. This year's categories include playwriting, documentary film direction and crafts, both contemporary and traditional.

Deadline to apply for the Individual Artist Fellowships is April 19. For an application, go here , call the Arts Council at 501-324-9766 or email robinm@arkansasheritage.org. Applicants must be at least 25 years old and an Arkansas resident for at least one year. Previous fellowship recipients are not eligible. A panel of professional artists will select the recipients. Fellows will be announced in fall.

• Polly Loibner watercolor

The River Valley Arts Center in Russellville has announced the gift of six watercolors to the museum from Dr. E. Barrie O'Bannon: Three by the late Polly Loibner of Lamar, two by Doyle Young of Dardanelle and one by Laphelia Middlebrooks.

O'Bannon is a trustee emeritus of Heifer International.

• Alli Wilson, "My Love for You is Deathless"

Competing for the scholarships were 245 seniors and 75 juniors from more than 60 Arkansas schools. Artworks were based on the theme, “Soldiers in Uniform,” taken from a journal entry by the later Thea Kay Leopoulos, for whom the foundation is named.

Sarah Rudd of Batesville High won second place and $3,500.

• Sarah Rudd, "Memories"

• "The Life of a Hunter - A Tight Fix" rolled into the Louvre.

The Musee du Louvre in Paris and the Complesso del Vittoriano in Rome will complete upcoming exhibitions with works from two Arkansas museums, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville and the Arkansas Arts Center.

CBM has sent Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait's "The Life of a Hunter-'A Tight Fix' " to the Louvre as part of the "American Encounters: Genre Painting and Everyday Life" exhibition that opens Saturday. The exhibit is part of a four-year partnership between the Terra Foundation for American Art, the High Museum, Crystal Bridges and the Louvre. The painting will be on view in Paris until April 22. When it returns to CBM, it will be hung with Eastman Johnson's "Negro Life at the South" from the High, George Caleb Bingham's "The Jolly Flatboatmen" from the Terra Foundation, and Jan Steen's "Festive Family Meal" and William Mulready's "Train Up a Child," both from the Louvre, May 11-Aug. 12.

• "Dos Mujeres"

Attention all high school seniors and juniors: The Thea Foundation's deadline to apply for a visual arts scholarship is midnight tonight. Thea will award 10 graduating seniors $25,000 in scholarships and cash prizes to 10 juniors. More information is on the Thea website.

The work above is the 2011 first place winner, "Intertwined" by Victoria Anzaldua.

• Richard Tuttle, "Three Europes Drop Through, No. 1," at CBM.

The Arkansas Arts Center's loan of 26 works on paper to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is the subject of this week's Art Notes column. "Abstractions on Paper: From Abstract Expressionism to Postminimalism" was curated by Manuela Well-Off-Man of CBM to complement paintings in the museum's 20th century collection as well as fill in some gaps, by providing works by such artists as Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell.

The column also makes note of the works on paper loaned by the AAC to Laman Library for its show, "Images from the South," will goes down in just a few short days, Jan. 20. Hurry over to see it — start your Argenta ArtWalk evening Friday a little early by hitting the library before closing time at 5 p.m.

Now for something different on Eye Candy: Stamp art. The U.S. Postal Service is taking pre-orders on its stamps honoring the 1913 Armory Show in New York, where modernists shook up the art world with such work as Marcel Ducamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase" and Charles Demuth's "I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold." Those works are two of the 12, all created between 1912 and 1931, commemorated by the stamp issue, which you can pre-order.

On the other stamps: "House and Street (1931) by Stuart Davis; "The Prodigal Son (1927)" by Aaron Douglas; "Fog Horns" (1929), by Arthur Dove; "Painting, Number 5" (1914-15), by Marsden Hartley; "Sunset, Maine Coast" (1919), by John Marin; "Razor" (1924), by Gerald Murphy; "Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico / Out Back of Marie's II" (1930), by Georgia O’Keeffe; "Noire et Blanche" (1926), by Man Ray; "American Landscape" (1930), by Charles Sheeler; and "Brooklyn Bridge" (1919-20), by Joseph Stella.

Read more at the Postal Office site "Beyond the Perf."