A University of Arkansas at Little Rock student artist and her longtime family friend will display their unique art styles during a debut pop-up show.

The show, “Weavings & What Not,” will debut during the SoMa After Dark event on Friday, Sept. 6, from 5-8 p.m. at South Main Creative, 1600 S. Main St., Little Rock. A drawing for a free piece of original art will be held during the debut. 

Cassandra Christ, a junior art history major from Little Rock and Donaghey Scholar, and her longtime friend Jack Foolery, a 64-year-old artist from Little Rock, were inspired to display their weavings, jewelry, poetry, and other art after a shared learning experience.

“I taught a basic weaving class at South Main Creative, and Jack took it,” Christ said. “He loved weaving after he took my class. We both incorporate found objects in different ways into our art. I was so curious to see what Jack would come up with because he has such a wacky, creative mind. Jack is an outsider artist since he hasn’t had any formal training. Valerie Wingert, owner of South Main Creative, saw Jack’s art and loved it.” 

Pop-up shows, which are often held in smaller, non-traditional spaces, give young and nontraditional artists the opportunity to get more exposure. Christ and Grace Lytle, a senior art history major, curated South Main Creative’s first pop-up show, “Twenty-somethings,” last March. The show featured several UA Little Rock student artists and young local artists who displayed ceramics, fine jewelry, paintings, photography, collages, and textile art. Now the store holds up pop-up shows every month.

“We like to bring a bunch of artists to do these pop-ups, and we want to showcase this great variety of artists that we have in Little Rock,” Christ said. “We want to give artists who may not have had the opportunity to show in a gallery. Now we have a platform and a way to share that. Jack has been doing art his whole life and has never had a show, and I think he deserves it. These shows are helping the artists and the community.” 

Christ has known Foolery, who is a college friend of her mother’s, her whole life. The two friends share a love of art that has grown ever since Foolery did fun art projects with Christ as a child. For Christ, the show is a representation of their friendship and how that friendship has inspired them as artists.

“I am very excited about the show,” Christ said. “This is a very different experience than the ‘Twenty-somethings’ show, where I also had a curative and administrative role. This show is just about two people, and it’s more personal to us. It’s a reflection of our relationship with each other. You can see some of the things I taught him in his work and some of the things he taught me growing up. It’s a very personal project that I am excited about sharing with people.”

“Weavings & What Not” will be on display through Sept. 30. South Main Creative is open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.

Over the summer, Christ worked as an object research and teacher programming intern at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. She was responsible for writing content documents about artifacts in Crystal Bridges’ permanent collections that are used as references for docents, and she assisted in teaching art workshops for educators. 

“I loved my internship at Crystal Bridges. During one of the textile workshops, I got to teach weaving to a group of 25 teachers,” Christ said. “I think my experiences at South Main Creative helped me get my foot in the door.”