This year’s $60,000 Sculpture at the River Market commission went to a Colorado woman whose design depicting a person lifting up five origami cranes will be installed in downtown Little Rock next spring.
The design by Lorri Acott of Red Feather Lakes, Colo., was announced as the winner among three finalists Sunday evening at the close of the 2014 Sculpture at the River Market event. Acott’s artwork, Peace, will be placed in Riverfront Park near the First Security Amphitheater and the La Petite Roche Plaza sometime in spring 2015.
“The group of artists who applied are all amazing artists. That they would choose me, I feel really humbled and I feel honored,” Acott said by phone Monday as she was driving home. “I’m just so happy to have that piece at Little Rock. I think the place they selected for it is just going to be perfect. I’m very excited to get started on it as soon as I get back home.”
The piece will be 12 feet tall and made of bronze, she said. The figure’s long legs are something she includes in all her works, she said.
The long legs are meant to represent “keeping your feet on the ground, but also keeping your head in the clouds at the same time. Stay grounded and stay dreaming both,” Acott said.
The origami cranes symbolize peace, hence the sculpture’s title, she said.
Acott was a finalist at last year’s competition as well, when another Coloradan, Ted Schaal, won the $60,000 commission. Private donations fund the Sculpture at the River Market group. Each year, the group donates the sculpture it purchases to the city.
The two semifinalists competing against Acott this year were Darrell Davis of Arlington, Texas, and Clay Enoch of Colorado Springs, Colo.
Former Coloradan and now California resident Kathleen Caricof received the Peer Award at Sunday’s event, which came with a $100 prize and was based on a vote by other sculptors. Tod Switch of Little Rock won the Best in Show award, which came with a $1,000 prize. Switch first appeared at the event’s competitions as a student.
John Kincade, director of the National Sculptors Guild in Loveland, Colo., is friends with Sculpture at the River Market Vice Chairman Dean Kumpuris, also an at-large city director for Little Rock. Kincade encourages Colorado-based artists to apply to Little Rock’s competition each year, Acott said.
“Those of us Colorado artists came and kept returning because it’s such a great show and Little Rock is such a great place,” she said.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/29/2014