Arkansas Arts Council: Eye Candy, Arkansas Times

Make your nominations for 2013 Governor's Arts Awards

Leslie Newell Peacock — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:20:00 -0500

The Arkansas Arts Council is accepting nominations until April 26 for the 2013 Governor’s Arts Awards, which recognize Arkansas artists, arts patrons and corporations for their contributions to the arts community.

Nominations are accepted in seven categories: Arts Community Development, Arts in Education, Corporate Sponsorship of the Arts, Individual Artist, Folklife, Patron, and Lifetime Achievement. Nominees must be current Arkansas residents or Arkansas-based corporations. Nominees will be judged on the significance of the contributions made, the range of the individuals and groups served and the length of time and degree of the activity or contributions.

Members of Arkansas's arts community make up the jury; their selections are announced in the fall. A panel from the Arkansas arts community reviews the nominations, and the award winners will be honored at an awards ceremony in the fall.

Nomination forms are available at the Arts Council website or from Cheri Leffew, 501-324-9767 or cheri@arkansasheritage.org.

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AAC in '13: Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Van Dyck

Leslie Newell Peacock — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:11:00 -0600

The Arts Center announced today that it will host in 2013 the exhibition "Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House," which Candy fans read about in an earlier post. This is quite a coup for the Arts Center, which was able to get on the American touring schedule for the show because of an extended renovation of Kenwood House.

The Bank of the Ozarks and the Windgate Charitable Foundation are sponsors for the show, which will include 48 masterworks from the Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood House in London. The Gainsborough above is 95 x 61 inches, and many pieces of work in the show will be as monumental. Works by Frans Hals, Joshua Reynolds, J.M.W. Turner will also be exhibited.

Arts Center Director Todd Herman told the Arts Center's board of directors in January that he had received two $100,000 pledges for the show, which should cost around $365,000 to bring to Little Rock. There will be a small charge to see the show.

Herman believes the exhibition will be the first to hang a Rembrandt painting in Arkansas. Coincidentally, it was 50 years ago, in 1953, when the newly remodeled Arts Center opened with an exhibition of Old Master European paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Other exhibition venues include the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Seattle Art Museum. Dates for the show here are June 6-Sept. 8. The exhibition is organized by the American Federation of Arts and English Heritage. It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, with additional funding from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. In-kind support is provided by Barbara and Richard S. Lane.

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$$$$ for the arts

Leslie Newell Peacock — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:07:03 -0500

The Arkansas Arts Council has awarded $1.17 million in grants to schools and performing groups and other organizations across Arkansas for Arts in Education grants, operating support, program expansion and such. The money comes from federal (39 percent), state (51 percent) and private foundation giving (10 percent). Recipients are big and small, from the Cross County Arts Council to the Mid-America Arts Alliance, parent to Exhibits USA, whose "Draw Me a Story" is on exhibit at the Laman Library (see illustration above) . Here's the list.

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On-line gallery going

Leslie Newell Peacock — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:29:36 -0500

I decided to cruise through the Arkansas Artists Registry recently looking for artists whose work doesn't show up regularly in Little Rock and discovered the registry has grown by leaps and bounds. The registry has added 70 new names since this time July 2009 and membership now stands at 451, and increase of nearly 18 percent. If you haven't been to the registry, go here. You can see samples of the artists' work and often websites and e-mail addresses. You can also search by location if you want to find, for example, artists working in the Delta, or by medium. There's no charge to artists; it's free advertising. If I've got a criticism, it's that the examples of the art need to be bigger. Above: "Tiger Lillies" by White Hall illustrator Tom Clifton.

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Tell them, update

Leslie Newell Peacock — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:33:00 -0500

If you have something you want to say to the Arkansas Arts Council, now's your chance. The Arts Council is holding four public hearings across Arkansas to get input from artists and others on programming, arts and the economy and the future of arts in Arkansas. The first public meeting is at 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 13, at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. That will be followed by meetings at TRAHC in Texarkana (July 15), the Delta Cultural Center in Helena (July 27) and the Compton Gardens and Conference Center in Bentonville (one that will no doubt talk about the impact that Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art will have on that 'burb).

UPDATE: You can take the Arts Council's online survey on what sorts of programs you've gone to, what keeps you from going, what you'd like to see, etc., here.

The economy picture is something the Arts Council has been putting together for several years, with the support of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. Four reports have been put out that take note of arts organizations in Arkansas, their intersection with other disciplines and other feel-good info, studies that will bring about ... what? We'll see.

You can find out more about the "Arkansas Creative Economy Project" on the Arts Council's website.

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