fayettevillearts.org

Monumental decisions

BY MARSHA L. MELNICHAK Northwest Arkansas Times

Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007

URL: www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/49101/” class=”linkification-ext” href=”http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/49101/”>http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/49101/

The Fallen Heroes Living Memorial stands about 4 feet high to the east of the front doors of the Fayetteville Town Center, a few inches away from and a few inches taller than the safety ash tray for outside smokers and about a foot from the flag, which rested on the Town Center ledge in Saturday’s rain.

It is this marble and granite monument — with its etched image of the Iwo Jima flag-raising on its black-flecked front, an etching of a group of veterans on the back face, the names of the four branches of service encircled along the top, and the names of two individual veterans — that brings the city to wonder how best to answer when a citizen, one of its own, wants to honor someone.

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Julie Wait Designs Wins ASID Awards

Dateline: Rogers, AR on 11/1/06
Other photos and project details available upon request.

For the fourth consecutive year, Designers with Julie Wait Designs of Rogers, AR have been awarded interior design awards by the South Central Chapter of ASID (American Society of Interior Design) at the organization’s annual Baton Rouge conference.  These awards recognize the creativity and expertise of interior designers in the three state area; Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.  Julie Wait Fryauf, ASID, Lisa Claybrook, ASID and Aubrey Mitchell Pate, ASID received the prestigious Bronze Award for the interior design of The Plaza at Highlands Crossing located in Bella Vista, AR.  The three designers also took a Bronze Award for the interior design of the Julie and Patrick Swope residence in the Shadow Valley area of Rogers.

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Publication:Northwest Arkansas Times;     Date:Sunday, November 05, 2006

A CLOSER LOOK Artist George Dombek opens studio to the public, discusses life in New York City

BY CASSIE HUFFMAN Northwest Arkansas Times

GEORGE DOMBEK OPEN STUDIOS When: 1-6 p.m. today, Nov. 11-12 Where: Dombek Blue Springs Studio, 844 Blue Springs Road, Goshen
• Directions are available at www.george dombek.com.

Alot has been written about George Dombek, but he’s hardly read a word. Not reviews, not the essays published in his exhibition booklets, not the book written by Donald Harrington. He probably won’t read this article.

Why? He simply prefers to focus on what makes him happy: painting and making improvements to his property in Goshen.

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Headwaters:  The School Away From Home goes to the Hot Springs Film Festival

“Doc in the true indie spirit. It’s the little film that could about the little school that could.”
–Michael W. Dean, producer, Hubert Selby Jr. It’ll be Better Tomorrow

Fayetteville, Ark – September 29, 2006 – Headwaters: The School Away from Home shows at the Hot Springs Film Festival, October 23, at 10 am, and Sunday, Oct 29, at 3pm.  Headwaters is a community in its most traditional sense: a larger family in rural Red Star, Arkansas. The school at its heart is a collective of parents who pool resources to overcome the shortcomings home-schoolers typically face.

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Headline:  Dance Coalition presents Annual Dance Workshop Saturday, November 18^th at University of Arkansas HPER Building

Fayetteville, AR 11/18/2006—

Dance Coalition (a Northwest Arkansas non-profit group of choreographers and dancers) will present their Annual Dance Workshop at the University of Arkansas Campus at the HPER building on Saturday, November 18th, 2006.  The Artistic Directors of La JAZDANZ Company return to offer classes in Jazz, Tap, and Modern dance.  As part of Dance Coalition’s “Dancing Across Cultures” project (made possible by the Arkansas Arts Council), this year’s workshop will include classes in African Dance, Street Samba, Classical Spanish Dance, and Latin Ballroom dance.  The workshop classes are open to all dancers.  Age and experience level groups are recommended by class; however, dancers of all ages and levels are welcome to participate in every class.  Classes begin at 9:00 a.m. and culminate with a Cross Cultural Dance Exhibition at 5:00 p.m., which will be open to all class participants and students at the University of Arkansas.

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Board likely to decide fate of Jefferson building this week

BY BRETT BENNETT Northwest Arkansas Times, July 26, 2006

The fate of the former Jefferson Elementary School building should be decided by the Fayetteville School Board at its monthly meeting Thursday.

The meeting starts at 5 p.m. in the Adams Leadership Center, 1000 W. Stone St.

The board is scheduled to discuss and possibly take action on one of two proposals submitted for using the building. The school closed following the 2005-06 school year.

A group calling itself the Jefferson Working Group and headed by Ralph Nesson has proposed developing the building, located at the corner of College Avenue and Sixth Street, into “The Jefferson Center.” The plan is for the center to provide operating space for a variety of nonprofit and community-minded groups that would provide services to the community.

In an earlier report to the board, Nesson listed 15 area residents who had reportedly offered financial pledges to finance the planning phase of the proposal. He also identified seven organizations that had expressed an interest in renting space within the building if the plan is approved.

Among the groups that had expressed an interest was Community Access Television. CAT manager Sky Blaylock said the building has some space, such as the gymnasium, that would be good for a television studio.

The public access channel would be a good fit in the building because of its location in one of the city’s lowerincome neighborhoods, and it would be easier for residents to find out about CAT’s services, she said.

The second group, the Jefferson Arts Center Work Group, has proposed developing the building into a community arts center. Group spokesman Doug Walsh said there are three local performing arts groups — Arts Live Theatre, Dance Coalition and Ceramic Cow — are prepared to move into the building if the idea is approved.

They also envision program space for visual arts and artist studios, he said. “This is a great property for this kind of operation,” Walsh said. Walsh said the group isn’t pursuing fund-raising for the project until the school board gives the idea its approval, but he is confident there is much public support for such a facility. “I’m anxious to see what they decide,” he said.

The school board heard presentations from the two groups at its June meeting and asked them to return with a more detailed business plan.

There are one of three things the board is likely to do at the meeting: Accept one of the two proposals, table them for further consideration or reject the ideas as unfeasible.

If the board votes to accept one of the ideas, it will direct the administration to begin negotiating a detailed contract with the group on using the facility. Another key item on the agenda is a report on “high school selection process.”

Earlier this year, board members began discussing the future of Fayetteville High School, saying a new facility is needed due to limited space and a growing population at the current site.

A key decision will be whether a new high school would be a second, additional facility, or a “replacement” for the current campus.

Hank Kaminsky Will Display Five Works Throughout Downtown Fayetteville

Fayetteville, Ark – In collaboration with Fayetteville Downtown Partners local sculptor Hank Kaminsky is inaugurating a new way of exhibiting public sculpture. The concept: Gallery Without Walls has been successful in other parts of the country, but this summer’s exhibition will be a first for this area. The show will open with a reception at each of the sites in downtown Fayetteville on Friday, June 16, from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM. A reception will be held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 8:30 PM.

Five of Kaminsky’s large bronze and steel sculptures will be installed temporarily at five different sites in the downtown area. The works will be at the sites until the end of the Fayetteville Arts Festival, which will be held September 1 through 9.

The works will be installed at the Fayetteville Town Center, the Arvest Plaza on the Square, the West Avenue Garden of the Walton Arts Center, the Meditation Garden of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church and in the front entry of the Fayetteville Public Library.

The sculptures are all part of a series of works Kaminsky calls: “Pages from the Book of the Earth”, an exhibition that has been shown at the Shidoni Gallery in Santa Fe, NM, for the past year. The works in this show are concerned with a concept Kaminsky has been examining since he was 12 years old, an alternative way of looking at the earth. Each of the sculptures is related to Kaminsky’s World Peace Prayer fountain at the Town Center.

As part of the festivities, there will be a treasure hunt/quiz. Participants will be asked a series of questions. Individuals who correctly answer all of the questions will be entered in a drawing to win a piece of Kaminsky’s work.

The organizers’ plan to continue Gallery Without Walls as an installation of public art in downtown Fayetteville, where the pieces are also available for purchase. Kaminsky has spoken with other artists, and interest is building for future shows.

For further information, contact Kaminsky at 442-5805 or at sculptor@kaminsky.com.

MEDIA ADVISORY
For Immediate Release
Contact: Kassie Misiewicz, Managing Artistic Director (479-200-1811; kassie@theatresquared.org)
Robert Ford, Playwright-in-Residence (479-582-4448; bob@theatresquared.org)

Arkansas Arts Council Grant Supports Development of My Father’s War

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - TheatreSquared, Northwest Arkansas’ professional theatre company, has received a $7130 Collaborative Project Grant from the Arkansas Arts Council to support the development of My Father’s War, a new work by playwright-in-resident Robert Ford based on the experience of one young GI during World War II.

TheatreSquared’s development of the play will include feedback sessions with veterans’ organizations in Northwest Arkansas, the Butterfield Trails Village, the Omni Center for Peach and Justice, and area high schools. At the end of the collaborative development project in June 2007, TheatreSquared will perform staged readings of the play in schools and senior centers, as well as on its home stage in the Nadine Baum Studio, specifically aiming to connect high school students with senior citizens.

“This grant is a real honor. It’s vote of confidence from the Council, both in the idea of the play itself, and in the way we want to go about developing it,” Ford says. “The idea is to give people a stake in its success, especially those veterans who’ve served in combat.” My Father’s War promises to be both an appreciation of the men who fought the war and an exploration of the struggle by subsequent generations to understand the realities of it. In the play, actor Amy Herzberg will portray her father, who served in the infantry in World War II as a very young man. In a series of scenes that run the gamut from comic to hard-hitting, Herzberg’s character attempts to understand “the reality of my father’s war.”

Ford and his colleagues will develop the play via conversations with, and staged readings for, World War II veterans in Northwest Arkansas, residents of senior centers, and high school teachers. These project partners will not only help Ford craft credible and memorable material, but they will also assist in the production of reading, writing, and discussion activities that will supplement the experience of seeing the play in performance.

Ford and Herzberg are both founding company members of TheatreSquared, which produces exceptional professional theatre for youth and adult audiences. Alice Jankell, a professional director from New York, will assist in the development process at various stages.

Public library’s art committee to select interactive piece for children’s library

Northwest Arkansas Times, May 2, 2006

The Fayetteville Public Library’s art committee will meet next week to review proposals for artwork for the Randal Tyson Children’s Library. The committee is looking for an interactive piece to be located where the children wait to enter the story time room.

Hope Bradberry, Director of Development for the Fayetteville Public Library Foundation, said the purpose of the piece is to encourage interaction by the children while they’re waiting for programs to begin.

The deadline to submit proposals was Friday, Bradberry said. The art committee will review the proposals and narrow them down. There were about 10 proposals submitted, she said. “It’s going to be tough to pick one because there aresome very good ones,” she said.

Bradberry said the library was given a $10,000 gift during the construction of the library to do an interactive project for the Children’s Library. In the application process, the artist was asked to submit anticipated installation needs and site requirements for permanent art on a wall measuring 11 by 4 feet. The committee is considering a variety of media, including textiles, paint, wood, metal, video and photography.

Bradberry said the piece should be like a big toy on the wall. Some of the entries include blocks that can be turned, a view finder, a workshop-type theme with doors and windows that open and a chalk board.

“It should be pretty cool,” she said. Selection criteria include the applicant’s professional qualifications, proven ability to undertake projects of similar scope, artist merit as evidenced by the submitted materials and demonstrated ability to work with government agencies in the creation of an art project.

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