A new exhibit, “The Penland Experience,” has opened in Gallery I of the Fine Arts Building at UALR.

Guest artist Ken Baskin, whose piece Opposite Attract, 20th Century Artifact Series is included in the exhibition, will deliver a talk at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 21, in Room 161 of the Fine Arts Building. Baskin has taught courses at the Penland School.

His lecture is free and open to the public.

Founded in 1929 by Lucy Morgan, Penland School was originally an outgrowth of a craft-based economic development project. Today, the Penland School of Crafts is an international center for craft education dedicated to helping people live creative lives.

Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Penland offers a variety of workshops in books and paper, clay, drawing, glass, iron, metals, photography, printmaking and letterpress, textiles, and wood. The school also offers artists’ residencies, community collaboration programs, and a gallery and information center.

Over the past three years, UALR has collected art objects made by artists with ties to the Penland School of Crafts in support of its applied design curriculum, which focuses on functional ceramics, furniture design, fiber construction, cast metals, blacksmithing, and small metal fabrication.

Other works on exhibit are on loan from local Little Rock artists who have participated in the Penland experience and from the various local collections, including Robyn and John Horn, Joe Lampo and Terry Jefferson, and David Clemons and Mia Hall.

“The Penland Experience” focuses on design by contemporary object makers and the discourse of traditional techniques versus conceptual and material use to push the envelope in regards to craft.

A reception will be held from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 1, in the Fine Arts Building. Guest Lecturer Jean McLaughlin, director of the Penland School of Crafts, and Steve Miller, letterpress artist, will present a talk at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 25. The talk is free and open to the public.

The galleries will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays, and 2 to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Contact Brad Cushman, gallery director and curator in the Department of Art, at 501.569.8977 or becushman@ualr.edu for more information.

Also opening
Artist Jeffrey Clancy’s exhibit, “Revere,” has opened in the Maners/Pappas Gallery and will run through Feb. 26.

A reception is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 1, from 2 to 4:30 p.m., with an artist lecture at 3 p.m. in the Fine Arts Building, room 161.

The exhibit speaks to the power of one of the most widely reproduced metalware objects in the U.S., often referred to as a Paul Revere style bowl or a Revere bowl. The object is reproduced in silver, pewter, and silverplate and is almost always absent of the original engraving and presented in only form, speaking boldly to the timeless nature of its design.

The different works have positioned the artist to begin mining the historical precedence and contemporary contextualization of the work. The exhibit is an examination through modernist art reference, facsimile/production, and artistic invention/re-presentation.

While each piece operates individually, together a narrative begins to develop about the artist’s place within the lineage and (r)evolution of the metalsmiths trade.

Clancy, a professor in metals at the University of Wisconsin, was awarded a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1999 from Kutztown University and a master of fine arts degree in 2005 from San Diego State University in metalsmithing and jewelry.

He has lectured and instructed extensively throughout the country at institutions such as Bowling Green State University, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, UALR, and the University of Wisconsin.

He also participated in an artist-in-residence program at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College in England and has also taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and was a professor at the Maine College of Art.

In Gallery III
Finally, in Gallery III, the exhibit “Facade” showcases the work of UALR Artist-in-Residence Taimur Cleary, on display from Jan. 14 to Feb. 26, 2015.

A reception will be held Sunday, Feb. 1, from 2 to 4:30 p.m., and an artist’s lecture, free and open to the public, will begin at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 17, in room 161 of the Fine Arts Building.

Cleary’s work attempts to find a relevant, contemporary aesthetic for traditional techniques in landscape painting. Although the work is representational, the imagery courts abstraction through composition, repetition and subject matter.

All the locations represented in this exhibition are from places in and around Little Rock. His art is made possible by generous support from his family, colleagues, and friends.

Cleary has undergraduate degrees in painting and photography from Miami University, as well as an MFA from Pratt Institute. As an artist and educator, he has received a range of grants, awards, and residencies.

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