Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Art news Community School of the Arts to close
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has decided to shut down its Community School of the Arts, a year-round, 33-year-old institution bringing high-level instruction to students of all ages in the visual and performing arts, Kindermusik and Chinese language instruction.
Leslie J. Mangiamele, school director for 18 years and an adjunct professor of visual art in UALR's art department, said the program will end Aug. 15, after its Summer Arts Camp and Summer String Camp end.
"The problem is the bottom line," Mangiamele said. "The dean could not see a way around not cutting our salaries." She said the school has been under threat of closure for several years, but survived an attempt to close it two years ago because of support support.
Deborah Baldwin, dean of UALR's college of arts, humanities and social sciences, said yesterday she considers the closing of the school as temporary. She said the university will study a consultant's report made in March on how to make the program self-sufficient and present a proposal to the provost in July 2013.
About 1,000 children and adults are enrolled in the program, which has seen growth over the years. Tuition pays for faculty (81 percent), operating costs (8 percent) and reimburses UALR for facilities' use (11 percent). It does not pay the salaries for the director and her assistant. Baldwin said the school "has regularly been $75,000 to $85,000 in the red" — by which she means the university is paying the salaries — and UALR would like the program to be entirely self-supporting. Baldwin said she did not know how many university community schools are self-supporting. Mangiamele said that deficit budgets for the schools "are sort of the nature community schools."
The school was opened in 1979, Mangiamele said, "to make these wonderful professors [at UALR] in the arts accessible to people in the community." The faculty includes arts professionals and those with advanced degrees as well as UALR instructors teaching the once-a-week classes.
“I feel terrible about the students we have been nurturing from age 5 to their teen-age years” to become arts professionals, Mangiamele said.
Mangiamele is one of four visual art instructors. There are also 12 music instructors, a dance instructor and a language instructor. A string instructor, the language instructor, an art instructor and three piano teachers will lose their only employment, Mangiamele said.
"I'm sorry we're in this position," Dean Baldwin said. "We would love to be able to continue ... we just have to figure out how to make this work."
Ironically, the school was created because of cutbacks in the arts in the public schools. The Community School's website includes this statement:
"When considering the education of the children in our community, we discover that for a variety of reasons our schools have been unable to provide consistent and varied arts instruction. Sadly, music and visual art classes are the first to be cut when money is short. To address this, the UALR Community School of the Arts, initiated in 1979, was created."
The school will continue after a fashion, Mangiamele said, thanks to an offer of studio space by Rhythm 88 on Bowman Road. She'd like to see the program get its own space. "We could use a house, a building ... empty strip malls. ... Give us a space and we will continue to do high quality stuff."
UALR ended its planetarium and Urban Design programs in the past few years; neither was resurrected.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Art news Thank goodness for Eureka
Eureka Springs is in the midst of celebrating its annual May Festival of the Arts, with visual and performing artists appearing all over town, in galleries, restaurants ("A Taste of Art"), banks and Basin Springs Park. There's a class in winemaking today at Keel's Creek Winery and Gallery, and the White Street Studio Walk, the Books in Bloom Literary Festival and a garden tour are coming up later in the week.
But Eureka always goes out on a limb, and it did so literally this year with the "Finding Nature — Art in the Landscape" installations around Carroll County. Artists were invited to create outdoor sculptures from fallen dead limbs and branches collected on pasture land at the Hills of Keels Creek (see above).
Organized by Christopher Fischer and John Rankine, the exhibit features 23 Eureka Springs artists. There will be a gallery exhibit as well the site installations; opening reception is set for 5 p.m. May 19 at The Space, 2 Pine St., across from the Post Office.
Because Eureka is Eureka, artists will celebrate the closing of the exhibit May 27 by setting several of the outdoor sculptures on fire. The blaze is set for 5-10 p.m. that day. The Hills of Keels Creek is off of Rockhouse Road, and is the first road left after the second bridge.
A pocket map giving directions to the installations will be available at various locations. You can read more on the Finding Nature Facebook page.
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Monday, May 14, 2012
Art news Living Treasure: Jim Larkin
Hot Springs pottery Jim Larkin, who with his wife, Barbara, has owned Fox Pass pottery for 40 years, has been named the 2012 Arkansas Living Treasure by the Arkansas Arts Council.
The Arts Council and the Department of Arkansas Heritage will host a free, public reception for Larkin at 5:30 p.m. May 22 at the Hale Bathhouse, 341 Central Ave. in Hot Springs.
The award recognizes an Arkansas artisan for his career, preservation of his traditional craft and efforts educating others. Larkin, 65, has participated in the Arkansas Arts Council's Arts in Education program, taught ceramics at the National Park Community College, taught at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Science and Arts and has given classes around Arkansas.
From a news release (read in its entirety on the jump):
"I've always been a maker," he said. "You know how people sometimes say that their most influential book is the Bible? As a kid, mine was W. Ben Hunt's 'Big Book of Indian Crafts.' "
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Friday, May 11, 2012
Art review High on the HAM: Four fine artists
The Trinity contemporary art gallery of the Historic Arkansas Museum and the hallways outside are hung with art by four artists who know their media and their minds. Nate Powell, mentioned here earlier, is a master of the pen and ink graphic novel and his works, original sketches for pages from his books, show a sure and unique hand. Emily Wood uses plywood as a metaphor for her subject matter — scenes of family relaxing in the country — and as clever way to add atmosphere and texture to her sketchy acrylic and graphite portraits. Jason Powers has perfected the use of the pencil and airbrushed graphite so that he can get right to the point in his work, some of it so detailed and abstract that it would be right at home in the Arkansas Arts Center's drawing invitational, "Singular Drawings," works that feature an obsessive line. Tim Imhauser knows exactly what he's doing with his wood, though of the four he is the only one who is all over the place in style, with neatly turned vessels, bowls with metal inlays and barely worked chunks of wood that have been carved and painted. They have all reached a point in their careers where their footing feels sure, if not rooted in one spot.
Powers' "The Ritual" — one of the obsessive works — uses abstracted images of animal forms that come from the creepy crawly world of herps and weird animals: fins and spikes and eyeballs and hoses and articulated tails and scales and frogs, things that are drawn beautifully and deeply uncomfortable to look at. (Please forgive the quality of the phone photos that follow.)
In his portraiture, Powers uses a soft line (sometimes airbrushed) to create dimension, so that while we don't have the satisfaction of seeing the individual strokes the way we would in, say, Chuck Close, there is a sculptural effect. It verges on the superficial at times but is still finely done:
Wood on wood: smiling, warm happy people, the sketchy pretty opposite of Powers' nightmarish and tightly drawn figures. In a painting of two men, she shows that she can go beyond sketch into more completely rendered faces, as the detail below shows.
One of my favorite Imhauser pieces is called "Tribute to Elizabeth," as in blacksmith Elizabeth Brim, whose terrific work you might have seen at UALR in the 2009 exhibit "Form Follows Function, Or Does It?" and elsewhere. Imhauser has added a forged iron knob and legs to his spalted ash bowl:
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2nd Friday Art Night W. Michael Spain at Zin
At the Arkansas Times, W. Michael Spain is Mike, and we've known about his other life as an fine artist for a while. Tonight, it's your turn. Head over to Zin Urban Wine and Beer Bar, at 300 River Market Ave., with the rest of the 2nd Friday Art Night trolley trollers, and see our longtime art director's sharp-edged geometric paintings.
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2nd Friday Art Night HAM: Tim Imhauser, Jason Powers and Emily Wood
Sculpture by Tim Imhauser, graphite drawings by Jason Powers and paintings on plywood by Emily Wood go on display today at the Historic Arkansas Museum in an exhibit named "Creating the Elements of Discovery." The 2nd Friday Art Night reception, from 5-8 p.m. tonight, will also feature a book-signing by Jane Hankins, who's given literary life to her three-dimensional figures in the book "Madge's Mobile Home Park," and music by Sean Rock and Roland Gladden on guitar and upright bass.
The rubber-wheeled trolley will help art lovers troll tonight between HAM, StudioMain, the Butler Center Galleries in the Arkansas Studies Institute, Gallery 221, and the River Market. The trolley ends its run at 8:30 p.m.
A news release about the HAM show says "each artist’s approach makes way for a subtle discovery, into object, person and place."
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
2nd Friday Art Night StudioMain: "Student Perception"
At tomorrow night's art troll around downtown, get a peek at the possible future of South Main Street at StudioMain, 1423 S. Main St. There, from 5-9 p.m., you'll see "Student Perception," an exhibit of revitalization ideas by architecture students from the University of Arkansas Community Design Center in Fayetteville. Their work is part of a larger redevelopment plan for the 60-block area known as the Pettaway neighborhood.
Also on exhibit at StudioMain for 2nd Friday: the winning entries from the Wine and Design Fashion Show put on April 26 by local members of the American Society of Interior Designers.
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Don Nibert, 1952-2012
Readers have asked me to take note of the passing of Don Nibert, the Fayetteville potter known for his raku work. A friend says he died Monday of a heart attack.
Nibert's vessels and platters are a complex, fastidious mixture of colors and sometimes carved surfaces. His instructions on how to fire raku pottery from his Altered Earth pottery website:
Take one small kiln, add one pot and fire to temperature of around 1800’ F.; open kiln and remove pot, immediately place in a ‘Reduction’ area. A ‘Reduction Area’ is, in this case, a metal trash can with something combustible like straw on the bottom. When the very hot pot contacts the straw it starts a fire, at this time you put the lid on the can. Let the pot sit in can smoldering….wait. When God tells you to, or in a few minutes, lift lid and let air in. Hope for the best.
Nibert was also a musician, playing mandolin with the Mudlarks, a Celtic band.
If you have a subscription, you can read Nibert's obituary here. There will be a visitation 5-7 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at Moore's Chapel in Fayetteville.
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Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Exhibitions Local Colour anniversary show (update)
Local Colour, the artists' cooperative at 5811A Kavanaugh Blvd., is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month with an open house tomorrow night, May 10, from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Featured artist for the month is Susan Hurst, whose work appears above.
This just in Thursday a.m.: George Wittenberg sends along an example of his work that will be at the Local Colour sale:
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Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Art news For sale: Heights Gallery building
Mitch and Lee-Ann Jansonius have spent every anniversary selling and wrapping other people's Christmas gifts and they think it's time for a change: They're closing Heights Gallery.
They've operated the gallery for 33 years (and Mitch has been a framer for 40), so it will be quite a change in the Heights. They're also selling the building, at 5801 Kavanaugh. Mitch said he's notified the gallery stable that he's retiring and the artists are in the process of finding new galleries to represent them (Bev McClarty is going to Boswell-Mourot just a few doors down, he says).
The gallery will hold a closing sale in July, most likely, after the Jansoniuses return from a month-long vacation they've had planned for a year. The gallery will close during their vacation but will open up again for the sale, which will include gift items and some art as well.
The gallery was named best gallery in 2004; read about it here.
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Show and sale "Evening of Art" Thursday
A group of artists that exhibits together once a year is joining up again for an "Evening of Art" on Thursday, May 10, at the Unitarian Universalist Church at 1800 Reservoir. On the list: Selma Blackburn, Bill Donald, Shelley Gentry, Mary Nancy Henry, Sarah Henry, Judy Henderson, Dottie Morrissey, Sandy Newberg, Daina Newcomb, Debbie Noland, Delia Prather, Susan Santa Cruz and Peggy Wenger. They'll be showing and selling paintings, jewelry, pastels and pottery.
The artists will accept cash and checks only at the show, which runs from 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.,
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Exhibitions MSW show at Cantrell Gallery
The 21st Annual Mid-Southern Watercolorists Open Membership exhibition is filling the large exhibition space at Cantrell Gallery with work by dozens of artists, including Nina Ruth Baker, whose painting of lambs I liked (I'm a sucker for animal paintings); George Wittenberg, whose fine watery sketch of the Empress B and B downtown is lovely, translucent and stamped; and Amber Manney, whose painting you see above.
The show runs through June 23 at the gallery, 8206 Cantrell Road, and while we were there we heard a bit of news: Cantrell is scheduling an upcoming show of work by Warren Criswell.
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Friday, May 4, 2012
Hot Springs Gallery Walk Daniel Mark Cassity at Taylor's Contemporanea
Taylor's Contemporanea, 204 Exchange St., is hosting an exhibit of photorealist paintings by Louisiana artist Daniel Mark Cassity. Cassity, who works in oil on panel, will show 20 still lifes that combine disparate objects — a shell, a toy pig, a meat cleaver — "to evoke humor" or tell a story. Gallery walk reception is 6-9 p.m. tonight.
The work begs to be compared with the still lifes of Daniel Massad on exhibit at the Arkansas Arts Center. The skill with which Massad's pastels are rendered — down to the slight freckles on the pears, the glazes on the bowls — is nearly incomprehensible.
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Hot Springs Gallery Walk Rebecca Thompson at Justus Fine Art
New paintings by Little Rock artist Rebecca Thompson are featured in May at Justus Fine Art Gallery, 827 Central Ave., along with work by gallery members Donnie Copeland, Steve Griffith, Vivian Noe-Griffith, Hugh Dunnahoe, Robyn Horn and Dolores Justus.
The gallery will be open 5-9 p.m. tonight for the monthly Gallery Walk, as will other galleries on an off Central Ave.
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Eureka Springs May Festival of the Arts
Spending the first weekend in May in Eureka Springs (along with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th) is one of the best times you can have in Arkansas, thanks to the crazy amount of things you can do and see at the idiosyncratic mountain town's May Festival of the Arts. Tonight, at the Auditorium, it's the 5th annual "Africa in the Ozarks" event, a celebration of African music, dance, food and culture. Tomorrow, it's the Artrageous Parade of artcars other art vehicles, special exhibits at galleries and restaurants and more music.
A quick rundown of artists and venues: the "Eureka Springs Invitational Art Show" is at Artifacts Folk and Fine Art Gallery, 37 Spring St.; "Electric Vision: Creative Energy Project" brings 20 images made from light to Basin Park; Melanie Myhre photographs are at DeVito's Restaurant, 5 Center St.; Wayne Summerhill is teaching a metal sculpting class at ESSA (Eureka Springs School of the Arts); Betty Johnson's pet portrats are at Eureka Thyme, 19 Spring St.; student art is at Iris at the Basin, 8 Spring St., sibling artists Hank Barnes and Helen Thomas have a show at Out on Main Gallery, 1 Basin Spring Ave. and the annual "Art as Prayer" show is at Studio 62, Hwy. 62 W.
Artists are also invited to make portraits of the animals at Turpentine Creek Animal Refuge for sales to benefit the refuge, through May 8.
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Event Calendar
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Re: Community School of the Arts to close
Sad. Sad. Sad. This is where I took music lessons and it was a wonderful…
- on May 16, 2012
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