Caleb LeFevre, a junior studio art major from Little Rock, has been awarded the first scholarship from the Linda Blaine Flake Endowed Art Scholarship.

“I am super excited about receiving this scholarship,” LeFevre said. “I was very honored to be able to meet the donor, Leslye Shellam. I‘ve received scholarships through the department before and I wrote a thank you letter. I’ve never had the opportunity to meet the donor, and that was very lovely.”

Leslye Shellam, the daughter of Linda Blaine Flake and L. Dickson Flake, created the scholarship to honor her mother’s love of art with a $100,000 donation. Shellam awarded LaFevre the scholarship during a celebration of World Art Day on April 15, while LaFevre gifted Shellam with a charcoal painting of his girlfriend and dog.

As part of the scholarship, LeFevre will feature his work in a solo exhibit in the Windgate Center of Art and Design during the spring 2022 semester.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” he said. “I have made so much work since I’ve been at UA Little Rock, especially after not making art for so long. I am so excited to put all my work in the solo show. It’s an opportunity to show all the things I’ve been working on rather than just one area of interest.”

After graduating from Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School in 2003, LeFevre moved to Memphis and later North Carolina. He’s been working as a dog groomer for the past six years and hadn’t practiced art in more than a decade when he started at UA Little Rock as a biology major with the intention of practicing medical bio illustration.

“Then I took one basic drawing class in the Windgate Center, and I was blown away,” LeFevre said. “I started drawing again for the first time in 15 years. I realized I didn’t need a biology degree. I needed to be making art. The building and faculty was so amazing that I was really blown away.”

LeFevre also works in the Windgate Center as the woodshop monitor and teaching assistant. He’ll be putting those skills to work during the fall semester working as a studio assistant for woodshop classes at Penland School of Craft, an international center for craft education in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

LaFeve recently had four pieces displayed in the Annual Student Competitive art show, and he was one of the winners of the Art Supplies and Materials award, courtesy of Art Outfitters.

He was a recipient of the 2020-21 Signature Experience Award, which he and his partner, Andrew Myers, used to create two public benches from campus lumber.

“My project was a furniture design project,” LeFevre said. “Another furniture design student and myself designed benches for the art department made from wood harvested from a tree from the campus lot. After we send them to a company to be painted, the benches will end up in the Windgate Center of Art and Design.”

LeFevre will graduate in spring 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in studio art, a minor in art history, and an applied design certificate. After graduation, his next step is to attend graduate school.