SUNFLOWER: Photographed by Terry Evans.

Calling all Arkansas artists: Your days are numbered for consideration to be one of 88 artists featured in the first Arkansas Artists Calendar Book 2008, a fund-raiser to create a permanent collection of Arkansas art in the Governor’s Mansion.

More than 200 artists have submitted CDs to be considered for the calendar, Beth Sanders, head of the Mansion Association’s art committee, said Monday. The committee used the Arkansas Arts Council’s online artist registry to send out 550 invitations to apply to be included in the calendar, and Sanders, who owns Gallery Central in Hot Springs, has contacted “every gallery owner” she knows to spread the word. Artists must submit up to three digital images on CD by midnight Thursday, May 31, to be considered. Judges will be art professionals from out of state, Sanders said.

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The 8½-by-6-inch weekly calendar will be in book form, with a heavy plastic cover front and back and “first class paper,” Sanders said. Some photographs will be full page and some will be half. Proceeds from sales — a price has not yet been determined — will allow the Mansion Association to purchase some of the art that will appear in the calendar for the Mansion.

The Mansion owns very few pieces of Arkansas art; much of the work on the walls is on loan from the Arkansas Arts Center. Sanders said the calendar, whose format was inspired by one she saw done in Highland Park in Dallas, might be the first of its kind to be published by a governor’s mansion. It might also be the first printed book of artwork by Arkansans.

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The Little Rock printing firm Arkansas Graphics Inc. was the low bidder of three contenders for the job, Sanders said. It will print 10,000 copies for release Oct. 1, when a reception and book-signing will be held at the Governor’s Mansion.

The calendar is being paid for by sponsors; sponsorships are still available. Artists and sponsors can get more information by going to www.arkansasgma.com.

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? Chicago photographer Terry Evans was given access to the Field Museum’s plant and animal collections, and the result is “From Prairie to Field: Photographs by Terry Evans,” opening Friday, May 25, at the Arkansas Arts Center.

The exhibit will feature 44 color iris prints of the flora and fauna found in the drawers and shelves of the Field, one of the nation’s great museums of natural history. Evans is famous for her aerial landscapes of farms, meadows and forests on the Great Plains.

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? Word that M2Gallery at 11525 Cantrell Road had an official opening party reached us too late to get in last week’s paper, but the exhibit — new work by V.L. Cox, Jason Gammel and Amy Laser — runs through June 9. The gallery specializes in contemporary art from Arkansas and beyond.

? One more opportunity arises this week to see “Craft in America: Memory, Landscape and Community” on AETN: All three one-hour segments will air starting at 7 p.m. May 30. If you like the show, you’ll love the exhibit, at the Arkansas Arts Center through June 24.

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