Past Exhibitions

In recognition of Black History Month, the newest installment of the From the Vault: A Survey of the CALS Art Collection exhibition series will be on display in the Main Library’s new 5th floor gallery. From the Vault will feature a recently donated portrait of Toni Morrison by Loni Harshaw as well as recent additions to the collection by Angela Davis Johnson, AJ Smith, and Keivon Williams. Other Black artists whose works are included in the CALS art collection include Kevin Cole, Perrion Hurd, and Louise Mandumbwa. Artwork featuring Black Arkansans by Jim Gunnell and Terry Brewer will also be on display. 

Works by the following Black artists can be viewed at branch libraries throughout the system: Children’s Library: Equilla Marie Walker; Dee Brown Library: Delita Martin; Maumelle Library: Henri Linton; McMath Library: Angela Johnson; Millie Brooks Library: Kevin Kresse; Rooker Library: Adaja Cooper; Thompson Library: Henri Linton; and Williams Library: Alice Ayers, Adaja Cooper, CC Mercer, and Keivon Williams. 

Featured Art: Sheniqua by Angela Davis Johnson, acrylic on masonite 2016

Artists’ books take many forms: pressed, painted, folded. Words Become Matter celebrates three nationally recognized Arkansas artists who use text and shape to make objects that carry words. K. Nelson Harper of Fort Smith specializes in combining traditional letterpress technology with new digital techniques, often adding humor. Under the name Ars Brevis Press, she has produced many artists’ books and broadsides. She is an Emeritus Professor of Graphics at the University of Arkansas–Fort Smith. Acadia Kandora is a printmaker who favors zines to explore the natural landscape and her relationship to it, as well as the intersection between the imaginary and the concrete. She teaches at the University of Arkansas, where she earned her MFA. Mail artist Rebecca Resinski is a classics professor at Hendrix College in Conway. She publishes her intricate and delicate chapbooks and pamphlets under her imprint Cuckoo Grey. She also is a co-founder of Heron Tree, an online poetry journal. The exhibition was curated by Catherine Walworth, who is the Jackye and Curtis Finch, Jr., Curator of Drawings at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, at the invitation of the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA). One of the artists will be selected to represent Arkansas in a major exhibition of book art in 2027 at the NMWA in Washington DC. 

Featured Art: But Just Now by R Resinski, art installation

The core of this exhibition features textbooks used to teach students in Little Rock and throughout Arkansas in the mid-twentieth century. The artist Jay Youngdahl uses the books and their history to consider how textbooks influence students and inculcate them with ideas they act upon later in life. It features photography and sculptural elements, including a thematic “Penny Machine.” Visitors will be furnished with pennies to use in the machine, providing a souvenir from the show.

Jay Youngdahl, a Little Rock native, received his MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago and is a photographer, writer, and conceptual artist.

On loan to the Central Arkansas Library System from private and public collections in Arkansas, the works in this exhibition present a selection of diverse portrayals of African Americans to illuminate their wider participation and inclusion in the American experience from the nineteenth century to today.

Featured Art: Stanley Clark, b. 1954, Portrait of a Woman, Graphite on paper, loaned from Joshua and Mary Swift

The Latino Art Project Exhibition will open in the CALS Underground Gallery as part of the Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration hosted by the Central Arkansas Library System, the Mexican Consulate of Little Rock, and the Downtown Little Rock Partnership. The opening celebration and alley party on the Day of the Dead will be held in Count Pulaski Way between the Roberts Library and the Ron Robinson Theater from 5 to 8 p.m., on Thursday, Nov. 2. The event will feature authentic Mexican food, drinks, and music, as well as traditional Day of the Dead customs and objects. The Latino Art Project celebrates Latino/Hispanic culture, artists, and subject matter through the visual arts.

Featured Art: “Venus en Flores” by Jeremy Colburn @jeremycolburnart Mixed Media on Canvas, 36” x 24”

The Illustrated Arkansas exhibition features artists living and working in the state who have created or contributed to print or digital comics and graphic novels. The exhibition will represent a wide range of illustration styles and media of the comics art form.

CALS is excited to display the artwork of graphic artists and spotlight their efforts in the creation of comics and graphic novels in all their forms.

CALS would especially like to thank Randy Duncan, the director for the Center for Comics Studies at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, for the concept of the exhibition and all his challenging work in making it happen.

The Arkansas League of Artists is a non-profit organization that formed to promote the visual fine arts in Arkansas. The League consists of visual artists and art enthusiasts from all over the state who gather to learn through the demonstration of techniques, the exploration of materials and media, and the sharing of collective experiences and knowledge.

Witty, whimsical, wonderful—these words describe the creative world of Little Rock artist Jane F. Hankins. The Jonesboro native has been a strong presence in the Arkansas art community for over twenty years. Specializing in sculpture in porcelain and stoneware as well as drawing and painting, Hankins is a designer for nationally marketed sculpture reproductions and the creator of award-winning fine art coloring books. Hankins’s work shows us that art does not have to be serious to be important. The body of work on display includes sculptures and paintings spanning at least two decades, and some larger sculptures from her private collection will be publicly exhibited for the first time.

Featured Art: The Guardian of the Forest, Jane F. Hankins

The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) houses more than just books. The library’s art program also actively collects and exhibits works by artists working and living in Arkansas. This eclectic exhibition features historical and contemporary photography that shows the diversity of art being created in Arkansas.

The CALS permanent collection holds more than 1,000 works of art and incorporates a wide range of media, including paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, and decorative arts. Works are added to the collection regularly through purchases and donations.

Featured Art: Study for Cones by J. T. Sata, gelatin silver print

The Arkansas Society of Printmakers (ASP) is a community of artists, art collectors, and supporters of the art of printmaking dedicated to the mission of generating greater excitement and appreciation for printmaking as a unique art form in Arkansas.

Featured Art: Inward by Tammy Harrington, linocut block print

This exhibition showcases the sculptures and paintings of two of Arkansas’s outstanding artists. Sandra Sell explores the contrast and rhythmic tension inherent in carved wood, and Elizabeth Weber’s work explores the concepts of hidden growth and transformation.

Featured Art: Go To the Limits of Your Longing by Elizabeth Weber, 60″ x 36″  

A mixed-media collaboration of three Northwest Arkansas artists—Brandon Bullette, Octavio Logo, and Tina Oppenheimer—whose emotive experiments in color, texture, and pattern create artworks that offer a way to embark on an intuitive journey to explore the human condition.

Featured Art: Dancing in the Moonight by Carol Corning, fused glass, 19.5″ x 24″

A mixed-media collaboration of three Northwest Arkansas artists—Brandon Bullette, Octavio Logo, and Tina Oppenheimer—whose emotive experiments in color, texture, and pattern create artworks that offer a way to embark on an intuitive journey to explore the human condition.

Featured Art: Polynesian Star Compass by Tina Oppenheimer

Featured Art: Himalayan Peak, Nocturne by Terry Brewer, oil on canvas, 60″ x 72″

The exhibition features oil paintings based on the original (and sometimes disturbing) storylines of fairytales. Each painting has a summary of the original story and the modern version as told through the words of the rebellious and irreverent “au pair” storyteller.

Featured Art: Au Pair Don’t Care by Amily Miori

This exhibition will use documents, photographs, and artifacts from the Butler Center’s collections to highlight Arkansas’s role in the Great War.

A survey of new and older works by Jim Nelson that combines elements of abstract painting and low relief carving to create colorful and dynamic artworks in a variety of soft and hard woods.

Featured Art: Abstract woodcutting by Jim Nelson

Artists featured in the Arkansas Committee Scholars exhibit include Beverly Buys (Hot Springs), Robin Miller-Bookhout (North Little Rock), and Maxine Payne (Greenbrier). Each artist was selected from a group of applicants to The Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) to receive recent grant stipends of $2,000 to further artistic skills, pursue an artistic vision, or invest in equipment necessary to those ends.

A regional exhibition of contemporary art quilts. Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc. (SAQA) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt through education, exhibitions, professional development, documentation, and publications.

SAQA defines an art quilt as “a creative visual work that is layered and stitched or that references this form of stitched layered structure.” Founded in 1989 by an initial group of 50 artists, SAQA now has over 3,000 members.

Featured Art: Longing fo Home quilt

This exhibition features work in a variety of media created by K-12 student artists from across the state. The Arkansas Art Educators (AAE) is a statewide organization of art teachers whose focus is to advocate for art education through supporting legislation and providing quality professional development for all art instructors in the state.

This exhibition features works in a variety of media by artists who explore the possibilities of looking at the world beyond the edges of a viewfinder as they create images on curved surfaces. Artists whose work is featured in Painting 360° include Marcia Clark, Nicholas Evans-Cato, Christopher Evans, Amer Kobaslija, Jackie Lima, Matthew Lopas, Carrie O’Coyle, and Melissa Cowper Smith.

This show features dynamic works of art by talented students across Arkansas, from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The works featured are the Best of Show winners from seven regions of the state. The Arkansas Art Educators is a group of art teachers from around the state who work with the Arkansas Department of Education to provide high quality in-service training and to promote student art.

From Bruce Jackson’s poignant portraits of Cummins Prison inmates (pictured here) to the compelling documentary photography of Alex Leme, this exhibition of photography from the Central Arkansas Library System’s collection presents a diverse representation of the people and places of Arkansas. Featured artists also include Gary Cawood, Thomas Harding, Benjamin Krain, David Mann, Barney Sellers, and more.

Johnny Cash: Arkansas Icon explores the musician’s Arkansas connections over the decades, covering his childhood in Dyess, Arkansas, through his comeback at the turn of the twenty-first century. The exhibition places special emphasis on connections between his Arkansas roots and his music from his first performance in Little Rock in 1955 to a 2002 music video. Though Cash’s career took him far from Arkansas, he never quite severed his Arkansas ties. This exhibition tells that story through narrative and archival photographs from the CAHC and other collections.

This exhibition celebrates 100 years of the Arkansas Extension Homemakers Clubs with photographs from the Arkansas History Commission and paintings by Katherine Strause. The exhibition is inspired by A Splendid Piece of Work, by Elizabeth Griffin Hill; excerpts of this book are presented as well.

This show features prints in a variety of artistic media by members of the Arkansas Society of Printmakers (ASP). Artists whose work will be shown include Robert Bean, Win Bruhl, Warren Criswell, Debi Findley, Melissa Gill, Diane Harper, Neal Harrington, Stephanie Kosakowski, Evan Lindquist, Dominique Simmons, Tom Sullivan, David Warren, Jorey May Greene, and Jane Watson.

ASP is a community of artists, art collectors, and supporters of the art of printmaking. Its mission is to generate greater excitement and appreciation for printmaking as a unique art form in Arkansas. ASP strives to maintain the integrity and identity of printmaking among artists by sharing skills and knowledge and thereby encouraging excellence in the field. ASP members facilitate community-based workshops, demonstrations and events, thereby increasing community awareness and access to prints and printmaking processes.

Arkansas Women to Watch 2013 is an exhibition of inventive textile-based art featuring works by Louise M. Halsey, Little Rock; Barbara Cade, Hot Springs; Jennifer Libby Fay, formerly of Rogers; Jane Hartfield, Fort Smith; and Deborah Kuster, Conway. The exhibition includes woven tapestries, felted and mixed media works, “textile paintings,” and hand-dyed and painted quilts. Arkansas Women to Watch 2013 is a project of the Arkansas State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, a non-profit organization dedicated to recognizing women artists of all periods and nationalities.

This exhibition offers viewers an opportunity to see contemporary, abstract works of art by Arkansas based artists. Artists in the exhibition are: Dustyn Bork, Megan Chapman, Donnie Copeland, Don Lee, Jill Storthz and Steven Wise.

The Creative Expressions Program at the Arkansas State Hospital is a non-profit organization that uses the visual arts to promote and support the self-awareness and growth of individuals with mental illness.

In the Clinton for Arkansas exhibition, selected materials from the Bill Clinton State Government Project depict Clinton’s political career in Arkansas and its impact on the state. Items representing both politics and policy are featured, including materials from his run for Congress in 1974 and his term as attorney general, as well as from his twelve years as governor. In addition, the exhibition highlights campaign memorabilia from 1974 through his second presidential bid in 1996.

Farming communities have been suffering a slow and painful decline for decades due to the gradual but steady rise of agribusiness, the loss of small family farms, and the century-long exodus of rural populations to urban centers. Families facing job loss and economic strife-along with communities suffering failed businesses, depopulation, and a general malaise of perceived worthlessness-are common features of conversations that run through many small towns in America. Although these towns are often located just outside major metropolises, the realities of their social and economic landscapes are worlds apart.

With a meager population of 650, Cotton Plant is nestled in the rural northeastern portion of Arkansas, between Little Rock and Memphis, Tennessee. Despite its rich history and the “promising” nature of its past, Cotton Plant has suffered the same challenges and outcomes as many other small rural towns. What once was a relatively thriving center and one of the fastest-growing communities in eastern Arkansas is now a town littered with ghost factories, abandoned schools, and the carcasses of crumbling buildings while the handful of what local stores remain struggle to survive. Much of the historic downtown has been demolished, and only a few dignified older homes remain. The sense of purpose that once accompanied steady, meaningful work has long since vanished.

It is the goal of this project, Small Town: Portraits of a Disappearing America, to document a facet of the American identity, and its way of life, that is rapidly being replaced and taken for granted.

The exhibition, sponsored by the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, includes the work of artists who were selected for consideration for the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ (NMWA) “Body of Work” exhibit as part of the NMWA’s biennial Women to Watch series. NMWA’s Women to Watch exhibition series features emerging or under-represented artists from the states and countries in which the museum has outreach committees. Artist and curator Les Christensen of the Bradbury Gallery at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas, selected the nominees Catherine Brimberry, Emily Wood, Endia Gomez, Janet Frankovic, Nikki Hemphill, Ruth Pasquine, Thu Nguyen, and Deborah Warren for submission to the national exhibit.

An eclectic exhibition of handmade books and journals created by Arkansas artists.

In the collection titled Raices, or “roots,” artist x3mex compares the issues surrounding Mexican independence with the issues of today. In Mexico’s bicentennial year, x3mex examines the history of Mexico to learn from the example of those who gave their lives for the cause of independence. His works are mixed media, including acrylic, spray paint, markers, and screen printing.

Illustrated by Leslie A. Przybylek
Map Graphics by William H. Isenberger
Written by Dr. Charley Sandage

Take an alphabetical tour of Arkansas with Big Bear and his Critter Crew: Rabbit, Squirrel, and Raccoon. Winner of the 2005 Arkansiana Award for Juvenile Literature awarded by the Arkansas State Library Association.

Featuring painting, photography, fiber, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture.

This exciting collection of paintings by Emily Moll Wood and Laura Brainard Raborn explores a visual dialogue with the natural world and nature’s deep connections to their own family histories.

Featured Art: Vulnerable Tulips by Emily Moll Wood, Acrylic Ink on found cotton tablecloth

David Ankeny caught the photography bug from his father, and later his wife nurtured the habit. Now, he never travels without a camera. He says, “The toys got more expensive, but photography hasn’t changed much. The trick is to go beautiful places and take a camera.” A Little Rock resident, Ankeny spends a good part of his summers in his native Wyoming, and until Covid struck, his winters in New Zealand and Australia. Ankeny’s photos have been displayed at the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock’s River Market District and Boulevard Bread Company in the Heights.

This exhibition featuring artists Mallory Darwin, Nancy Dunaway, Melissa Gill, Judy Henderson, Tanya Hollifield, and Ellen Ishee O’Lonney showcases works created in the “Printing and Stitching” class offered by Gill at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. With an emphasis on complete creative freedom and experimentation, the class explored different ways of combining printmaking and textile techniques such as relief printing, monotype, silkscreen printing, embroidery, and fabric dyeing. Coming from a variety of backgrounds and skill levels, the students created a wonderful synergy together and inspired each other’s processes and ideas of what was possible. These works challenge traditional notions of what printmaking is and can be, emphasizing image and concept rather than technique.

Featured Art: Relative Absolute by Melissa Gill

In this exhibition of paintings on found objects, a secret world of plants and animals comes alive on decaying scraps from the human realm.

Featured Art: Night Waffles by Gregory Moore, acrylic on found object, 2020

This dual exhibition showcases vibrant ceramic artworks by two local artists and educators. Chris Swasta will display his expansive ceramic coral reef installation, titled Limbs. Two years in the making, the reef is made of more than 6,000 hand-rolled coils of clay. Jennifer Perren’s collection of functional and figurative works—titled Mascaron, which means an architectural ornament representing a face or head—invokes the concept of the protective properties of gargoyles.

Featured Art: The Reef by Chris Swasta, ceramics installation

Equilla Marie Walker’s retrospective exhibition features soulful images reflected in black and white, color, and mixed media from her more than twenty years as a photographer.

Featured Art: Eyes That Smile by Equilla Walker, black and white photograph

This series of pigment prints on handmade paper offers a visual chronicle of Cowper-Smith’s interviews with herbalists in the Ozark and Central River Valley regions of Arkansas and their complex relationships to healing, illness, and belief.

Featured Art: Cohosh Broken House by Melissa Cowper-Smith, painting, 2019

The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, a department of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS), holds an extensive collection of Arkansas-related and other movie posters. The late Ron Robinson of Little Rock, an avid collector who was the president of Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods (CJRW) and also served as a U.S. Air Force officer in Vietnam, generously donated these film posters, which are mostly related to Arkansas history, U.S. politics, and American popular culture.

In collaboration with ACANSA Arts, these black-and-white photographs by Cheryl Cohen and Louis Guida, on loan from the Arkansas Arts Center, document blues musicians playing in Arkansas during the 1970s. This documentary project by Cohen and Guida became the foundation of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff Blues Project; these photographs were part of the earlier exhibition Old Roots, New Directions: Arkansas Blues Today.

Andrew Rogerson’s life as an artist and a scientist has been driven by a common and overriding theme: an insatiable curiosity to investigate, know, and understand the world. Rogerson, who is chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, spent decades as a microbiologist and researcher, exploring life in microscopic detail, seeking discovery and revelation. He paints landscapes to explore nature as he sees it—through the process of translation with brush, canvas, and oil paints. This scientific view, informed by a sense of exploration and creativity, defines Rogerson’s work and his search for truth through art. Through his academic and scientific career, Rogerson has worked for eight universities, on multiple continents. After more than fifty years as an artist, Rogerson likes to quote the artist David Hockney: “I paint what I like, when I like, and where I like.”

Featured Art: Yosemite, California by Andrew Rogerson

This exhibition displays images of early life in Arkansas’s White River Delta by photographer Dayton Bowers, who was active in Arkansas County between 1880 and 1924. Bowers chronicled the rise of prosperity in the Delta and also operated Arkansas’s first known photography studio, located in DeWitt.

These new assemblages by Bret Aaker explore the idea of conatus, defined by early philosophers of psychology and metaphysics as the innate drive of an animate object to continue to exist and enhance itself.

A display of Butler Center artists who are also art teachers.

An exhibition of contemporary photographs, historic memorabilia and the Arkansas Educational Television Network’s documentary “Historic Bridges of Arkansas” featuring Maxine Payne and Robert Scoggin.

Once thought lost to a fire these photographs of friends, family, landscapes and strangers taken in North Louisiana and South Arkansas during the late 70’s to mid-80’s by well-known artist and musician Richard Leo Johnson are on display for the first time in Arkansas.

This exhibition features contemporary prints, paintings, drawings, and sculpture from the Central Arkansas Library System’s collection. The artwork in this exciting and diverse exhibition ranges from prints by Win Bruhl and Evan Lindquist to sculptures by Shep Miers and Gene Hatfield. Also on display are recent donations to the collection from artists Ray Khoo and Jerry Phillips.

Twist & Strands explores the organic forms and shapes found in the natural world in a collaborative installation of Barbara Satterfield’s sculptural ceramics and Michelle Fox’s volumetric jewelry.

Since 2006, Gary Cawood has been photographing the elements of landscapes reconfigured by humans. These staged compositions – the most recent feature terrarium forms – explore manipulations of the natural order and how the natural processes ultimately prevail.

This is a collection of decorative patterns, landscapes, and still life compositions created on muslin and denim. The adults and children held during World War II at the Japanese American Internment Camp in Rohwer, Arkansas, are known for creating works of art on paper and canvas. What are not as well-known are the decorative patterns, landscapes, and still life images created on muslin and denim. This exhibition, which displays some objects for the first time, also includes crafted cloth shoes and an elegant privacy screen. The Butler Center would like to thank fabric conservators B. R. Howard & Associates for their help. This project was funded, in part, by a grant from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program.

This exhibition features prints in a variety of media by members of the Arkansas Society of Printmakers (ASP). ASP seeks to generate greater excitement and appreciation for printmaking as a unique art form in Arkansas through mentorship, professional critique, collaboration, and more.

Of the Soil features a collection of photographs highlighting Arkansas’s vernacular architecture, which reflects local traditions.

Drawings, blueprints, and photographs of buildings in Little Rock’s historic Quapaw Quarter.

Detachment is an exhibition of mixed media collage by Robert Reep, a Little Rock artist and owner of Chroma Gallery. Reep describes his artwork as “spirited and sophisticated artifacts that reflect [his] curiosity, emotion and enthusiasm for the inventory and activity of daily life.”

Unusual Portraits: New Works by Michael Warrick and David O’Brien features explorations in portraiture using wood, wax, bronze, and other materials by two accomplished Little Rock artists.

Barney Sellers , a native of Walnut Ridge, AR, won awards for news photography while working at the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, TN and was well known for his images of Arkansas barns and rural landscapes.

This collection of drawings explores ideas about landscape, both the conventional depiction of the surrounding environment and the metaphorical kind of “scape,” as it reflects a generative, composite portrait of the artist.

Created by artist and musician Michael Jukes, the popular Flying Snake and Oyyo cartoon strip was featured in Little Rock’s alternative newspapers during the eighties. This exhibition gathers the cream of the corniest Flying Snake cartoons and other artworks for your viewing pleasure.

The artwork in this exhibition by Susan Chambers and Louise Halsey interprets the idea of solastalgia, a term coined by Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht meaning “the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault.”

Carly Dahl and Dustyn Bork are an artist couple who both work in painting, printmaking, and installation. Dahl focuses on ideas and ideals of beauty and representation in society by psychologically presenting the pressures and expectations faced by women; the faces are intentionally blank giving viewers the ability to relate to the figures and project others into them. Bork contrasts the intentional design of architecture, ornamentation, and pattern with the incidental structure of visual forms in various stages of decay in his colorful abstractions.

This exhibition, including work by AJ Smith, Warren Criswell, Elsie and Louis Freund, John Paul Caldwell and others, features a variety of print styles and techniques such as lithography, etchings and woodcuts.

Join us for the opening during 2nd Friday Art Night, Friday, November 12, 2010 from 5 to 8 p.m.

The Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects presents the 2010 Design Awards exhibition. These designs, submitted by architecture firms from around the state of Arkansas, were selected for the exhibition by a jury composed of leading architects from New Orleans, Louisiana. Also on display will be architectural designs for affordable new housing for the neighborhoods between Interstate 630, Charles Bussey Drive, Elm Street, and Martin Luther King Drive in Little Rock.

From the collection of Dr. J.W. Wiggins, Sequoyah National Research Center, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

An exhibition of altered or hand crafted books by Arkansas artists. The exhibition will open on the 8th of April in conjunction with the Arkansas Literacy Festival.

The Arkansas League of Artists is an organization formed to promote the visual arts in Arkansas to all ages. The annual Members’ Exhibition provides an opportunity for each active member to showcase their work in one of the following categories: Abstract/Contemporary, Animal/Wildlife, Portrait/Figure, Land/City/Sea scape, and Floral/Still Life.

The League consists of artists from all over the state who gather to learn through the demonstrations of techniques, the exploration of materials and media, and the sharing of collective experiences and knowledge.

Celebrating the natural beauty of Arkansas’s trees, artists Linda Williams Palmer and Gene Sparling have created works that highlight the unique qualities of these precious resources. Working in Prismacolor pencil on paper, Palmer has created her “Champion Tree” series showcasing the largest specimens in Arkansas. Sparling uses the wood from native trees to create his sculptural turned-wood vessels that provide another viewpoint from which to appreciate the beauty of the trees.

Since 1986, the annual King Biscuit Blues Festival has assembled the world’s best blues artists to perform in historic downtown Helena-West Helena, Arkansas. For this exhibition, King Biscuit Blues Festival posters and other musical artifacts provide a visual timeline to tell the festival’s story and to celebrate the past, present, and future of the blues in Arkansas.

Patrick McFarlin has been making art under the moniker McFarlin Oil for more than fifty years. From his time creating works of sculpture during the Bay Area funk movement, we follow McFarlin back to his home state of Arkansas as he works through the eighties, painting his varieties of Ships of Fools as well as large so-called Manic-Expressive narrative paintings. When McFarlin moved his studio to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the early nineties, he began a series of portrait projects in Santa Fe and Napa Valley, California, that became known as Pat’s Downtown Club. Never an artist content to paint the same things over and over, McFarlin moved on to formal Dutch, Irish, and American landscapes. He says, “As an Arkansan by birth, I pulled a deep tangle of history and memory thick as kudzu through New Mexico to the Bay Area, then back down to New Mexico, juggling the light and dark all along the way…I mined the histories, people, and landscapes of the regions I have called home, but I have also mined my own history and that of my family’s, looking at it with a sense of humor…I’m an aging artist recounting the glorious adventures of a painter pushing his brush through a conceptual landscape.” His book Picture It Painted, presenting fifteen handsomely illustrated chapters of McFarlin’s explorations in sculpture and painting, will be available for purchase at the exhibition.

Artist and musician Charles Henry James, who has split his time between Little Rock and his native New York for nearly thirty years, takes a humorous, free-wheeling approach to socio/political engagement, filtered through the lens of pop culture tropes, op art, surrealism, and psychedelia.

This exhibition, featuring works from the Butler Center’s Gould-Vogel Collection of materials from the World War II–era Japanese internment camps in Arkansas, will display portraits and other works of art from the Rohwer and Jerome centers in Arkansas with a focus on Japanese American identity.

Education in Exile: Student Experience at Rohwer Relocation Center is third in the Butler Center’s series of exhibitions exploring the Japanese American experience in World War II Arkansas. Partially curated by students throughout the state, Education in Exile offers a unique perspective into the school systems at Rohwer and Jerome, the two Japanese American incarceration centers in Arkansas. Student-selected works of art from the Butler Center’s Rosalie Santine Gould- Mabel Jamison Vogel collection illustrate what life was like for students living behind the barbed wire at Rohwer and Jerome.

The Art of Injustice, assembled by guest curator Professor Sarah Wilkerson-Freeman (Arkansas State University), will display images taken by Paul Faris during his visit to Rohwer Incarceration Center in 1945. His captivating black-and-white photographs capture the community created by Japanese Americans during their incarceration in Arkansas during World War II.

This project was funded, in part, by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program.

In the early 20th century a new series of inexpensive, sturdy, and child-centered books would transform the world of children’s books. This private collection of Little Golden Books contains the work of some of the more prolific illustrators, among those Arkansas-born Mercer Mayer, creator of the Little Critter and Little Monster book series.

ACANSA Arts Festival is a five-day arts festival that takes place annually in September. This year’s dates are September 21-25, 2016. The festival features a variety of events covering a wide range of modes of artistic expression. One of the key visual arts events is the ACANSA Gallery.

To highlight local visual arts and artists, ACANSA presents a “pop up” gallery! Opening on Little Rock’s second Friday Art Walk at the Concordia Hall in the Butler Center, the ACANSA Gallery will display works from local galleries in Little Rock and North Little Rock. A brochure with information and maps to galleries will be available. An opening reception will be held on Friday, September 9 during “2nd Friday Art Night”.

Culture Shock is a multi-disciplinary collective of Arkansas artists committed to exploring significant contemporary issues through the use of varied artistic practice to engage each other and the public. Artists featured in this exhibition include Melissa Cowper-Smith, Melissa Gill, Tammy Harrington, Dawn Holder, Jessie Hornbrook, Holly Laws, Sandra Luckett, Morgan Page, and Rachel Trusty.

This is the first exhibition of works from the Joshua & Mary Swift Collection, featuring photographs of African American people, created in a studio setting during the 1860s-1940s. Many of the featured photographs were hand colored, which created artful and unusual effects on otherwise formal portraits.

The White River and its tributaries represent the most ecologically intact watershed in the continental United States. Over a million people inhabit it, living in 234 communities in 60 counties. For the past two years, Chris Engholm has traveled the White River in a cedar strip canoe, listening to people connected to it and collecting the artwork of 25 fine artists who maintain a special relationship with the river. This artwork, photographs, and information about the river are presented in White River Memoirs.

An artistic display of objects created by Native Americans in ceramics, wood, grass, cane, and shell materials.

This show features artwork created by people held in the Japanese American internment camps in Arkansas during World War II. The exhibition was inspired by the Butler Center’s remarkable collection of art work from the camp at Rohwer, donated by Rosalie Santine Gould of McGehee, and by the extraordinary generosity of people who lived in the camps or had loved ones who did and wanted the Butler Center to have more art created at the camps at Rohwer and Jerome. People with a personal connection to the camps were deeply moved by the existence of the collection and by the Butler Center’s public exhibitions of camp materials and want as wide an audience as possible to know about this chapter of Arkansas and U.S. history.

Native Arkansas will take visitors on a tour of the state at a time when Euro-Americans began to explore the territory that eventually became Arkansas. Visitors will experience early Arkansas through the eyes of some of the first Euro-Americans to write about the state and will encounter some of the native flora, fauna, and geology of the state’s five geological regions. The exhibit will include examples of Mississippian period artifacts from the northeast and southeast regions, bluff shelter artifacts from the northwest, and Caddo artifacts from the southwest. the exhibit will also provide an in-depth look at the Native American community of Carden Bottoms and how they understood their environment.

This exhibit is installed by the University of Arkansas Museum Collections.

The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) houses more than just books. Managed by CALS’s Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, the library’s art program also collects and supports artists working and living in Arkansas. This exhibition features historical and contemporary artwork that shows the breadth and quality of art being created in Arkansas. On display in the exhibition will be historical paintings by Donald Draper, small works on paper by Little Rock’s own visionary artist Arthur Grain, a spectacular sculpture by Mary Cockrill, and much more.

This Civil War exhibit, built around the theme of “occupied Arkansas,” will provide a provocative look at the war in Arkansas. Through the use of letters, diaries, photographs, and artifacts, the exhibit will examine the multi-faceted history of Arkansans caught up in the conflict. For example, contrary to popular opinion, not all Arkansans supported the Confederacy. Considerable attention will also be devoted to the perceptions and experiences of outsiders who found themselves in Arkansas during the war.

Making a Place: Jewish Experience in Arkansas will explore the development of the Jewish community in Arkansas, focusing on immigration, isolation and assimilation, businesses, and culture. Making a Place is part of the Butler Center’s larger effort to create interactive historical exhibitions that visually tell the story of Arkansas’s history and culture, past and present.

From the Mabel Rose Jamison Vogel/Rosalie Santine Gould Collection, the Butler Center has created a multimedia exhibition titled The Art of Living: Japanese American Creative Experience at Rohwer that showcases art created by internees at the Rohwer Relocation Center in Desha County and tells the story of creativity in the face of dire circumstances.

This exhibition showcases a mix of artwork by some of Arkansas’s most exciting contemporary artists, including Melverue Abraham, Rex Deloney, LaToya Hobbs, Ariston Jacks, Kalari Turner, and Micheal Worsham.

The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, along with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, is a sponsor of, Crossroads: Rural Healthcare in America, The Mississippi Delta. Crossroads, a Vision Project Production, is a story of doctors, nurses, community organizers, and patients who are part of an innovative and well-planned healthcare network in the Mississippi Delta.

The photography portion of the project will be on display at the Arkansas Studies Institute from March 31 – May 28, 2011 while the Clinton School of Public Service will host a one time film screening and public forum on Saturday, April 2, 2011, at 3 p.m. in Sturgis Hall.

An installation of photographs and texts based on Maxine Payne’s limited-edition artist’s book, “Making Pictures: Three for a Dime” documents the artistic and entrepreneurial spirit of the Massengills-an Almond, Arkansas, family of itinerant photographers who traveled the state in a homemade trailer and took pictures with a homemade camera (selling them three for a dime) between 1937 and 1941.

The Arkansas Symphony Quartet will perform at the opening of this exhibition, as a part of 2nd Friday Art Night, September 10, from 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

The exhibition reception will be on Saturday, April 10th at 2pm. (The April Second Friday Art Night is cancelled; however the public is invited to purchase tickets to attend the Friday night Arkansas Literary Festival Author’s party located in the Arkansas Studies Institute.)

This exhibit combines student art work with historical documents and text to follow the life and travels of Mifflin W. Gibbs (1823-1915), a prominent African American politician and businessman.

Main Street in Black and White, organized by the Department of Arkansas Heritage, wil be on view in the Concordia Hall gallery at the Arkansas Studies Institute from October 9 through November 13

Butler Center Books authors Ray and Steven Hanley will sign copies of their book, Main Street Arkansas, on October 9 as a part of 2nd Friday Art Night in downtown Little Rock.

Rural Arkansas Churches is a collection of black-and-white photographs from more than twenty-five counties in Arkansas, illustrating the beauty and history of the churches and their connection to the local communities.

The Arkansas Art Educators State Youth Art Show 2024 exhibits the Best of Show winners from art competitions held in seven regions of the state: Northwest, Northeast, Central, East, Southwest, Southeast, and West. The artwork was created by talented students from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

The Arkansas Art Educators is an organization made up of art teachers from all over the state who work with the Arkansas Department of Education to provide teachers with high-quality in-service training and to promote student art in the state.

The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) is proud to support Arkansas’s teachers and artists of all ages.

The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) houses more than just books. The library’s art program also actively collects and exhibits works by artists working and living in Arkansas. This eclectic exhibition features pieces by artists and illustrators whose vibrant works capture the joys of adventure and exploration.

This exhibition was created in honor of recently retired CALS deputy executive director Lisa Donovan, who was an early proponent and tireless supporter of the Children’s Gallery and Children’s Library.

CALS Deputy Director Lisa Donovan retired this year after twenty-plus years of service to the library. She started as a part-time children’s programmer when the Main Library opened in the River Market area of downtown Little Rock in 1997. Over the years, Donovan took on many roles at the library, including Manager of the Children’s Department at Main, Summer Reading Coordinator, Director of Youth Services, and finally Deputy Executive Director. She is looking forward to enjoying many more library adventures as a patron in the years to come and sharing those moments with her grandchildren.

Lisa Donovan grew up in a big family in suburban Memphis in the 1960s. The youngest of four children, she could always be found with a book in her hand. It wasn’t easy for Lisa to find a peaceful place to read, so her brother set out to solve that problem by building her a treehouse. It quickly became her favorite place to read, do homework, and watch the world go by.

Lisa’s insatiable reading appetite prompted a visit to the neighborhood library one Saturday morning. Stepping into the cool, quiet sanctuary, she was surrounded by an abundance of books that surpassed even the school library. Lisa went home that day with a library card and a stack of books. She had discovered yet another happy place.

She relocated to Arkansas for high school and college and beyond, and her journey took a significant turn when she read in the newspaper about a unique opportunity. The Central Arkansas Library System had moved its Main Library to a new spot in Little Rock’s River Market District, and they were in search of a part-time children’s programmer to help with storytimes. That sounded like the perfect job to Lisa.

A lifelong library enthusiast, Lisa’s connection persists as she eagerly anticipates the next phase—enjoying the library as a patron. Lisa Donovan, forever a library lover, leaves behind a legacy of passion and service, as well as a boundless appreciation for the world within library walls.

Featured Art: Bow and Arrow by Katherine Strause

New York native Howard Simon was a renowned artist of many crafts, including illustrating, painting, and woodcutting. He lived in Arkansas in the 1930s, and his illustrations in the books of famous Arkansas author Charlie May Simon (to whom he was married for a time) left an imprint on the state. This exhibition will display works by Simon as well as give information about his art and life, including his time in Arkansas. This exhibition, which includes works in the collection of the Central Arkansas Library System and some works on loan from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture, was organized by Katelynn Caple, a senior at Henderson State University.

Modern day teens can see how a school in rural eastern Arkansas served the needs of African American students who received direction and inspiration for nearly six decades through an exhibit of photographs.

In 1893, a consortium of Missionary Baptist congregations in eastern Arkansas pooled their resources to establish a residential secondary school for African American youth. The Consolidated White River Academy or, as it was often called, the Brinkley Academy was one of three African American boarding schools located within a few miles of each other.

Established in an era when public secondary education was routinely denied to African American youths, the Academy did its good work while society changed incrementally. It opened its doors three years before the Supreme Court’s landmark Plessy v. Ferguson decision sanctioned the doctrine of “separate but equal.” It closed a year before Linda Brown, a third-grade African American pupil, was denied the right to enroll in the school closest to her Topeka, Kansas home, leading to the Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision

The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies is presenting the “Old School: Remembering the Brinkley Academy” exhibition, which was produced by the Arkansas Secretary of State’s Office and Park Central Little Rock.Please note: This exhibition will be shown in the Main Library.