Sowing seeds of sculpture

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/JOHN SYKES JR. - Lorri Acott is a sculptor from Colorado. Her "Peace" sculpture stands at Second and Main Streets in downtown Little Rock and was the winner of the 2014 Sculpture†at the River†Market†Show and Sale.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/JOHN SYKES JR. - Lorri Acott is a sculptor from Colorado. Her "Peace" sculpture stands at Second and Main Streets in downtown Little Rock and was the winner of the 2014 Sculpture†at the River†Market†Show and Sale.

Since January, the public parking deck at Second and Main streets in downtown Little Rock has been jazzed up by some pretty artsy company.

Peace, the sculpture that stands majestically near the deck, is a tall, elongated figure releasing a colorful flock of cranes. “This sculpture represents sending our best wishes and hopes out into the world,” according to an artist’s statement at Artprize.org.

Many may be surprised to know that Peace is part of Sculpture at the River Market, the nonprofit group whose $2 million-plus collection of more than 75 works of public art adorns the south bank of the Arkansas River. Colorado resident Lorri Acott was the winner of the group’s 2014 Public Art Monument Sculpture Commission Competition. Peace is the fourth sculpture added to the collection through the competition, first held in 2011.

The placement of Peace is just the first step of Sculpture at the River Market’s plan to expand to other areas of the city. Most of the sculptures — including pieces by past winners — are on the bank of the Arkansas River downtown and other various areas of Riverfront Park, including the terraced Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden near LaHarpe Boulevard.

The parking deck with art is notable in that “No one ever thought about that before,” says Dr. Dean Kumpuris, a Little Rock city director and founder of Sculpture at the River Market. It was a parking deck, and that was it … or so everyone assumed.

It’s actually a strategic location, what with the nearby eStem Public Charter

Schools and the Main Street revitalization projects. Kumpuris calls it “a creative corridor people are talking about.”

The monument-size sculpture fashioned by this year’s winner of the $60,000 commissioned art competition will be placed even farther away from the riverfront: the northwest corner of Chenal Parkway and Chenal Valley Drive, to be exact.

Spreading its wings

Michael Warrick of Little Rock, a 2015 semifinalist who has entered the contest each year since its establishment, believes Sculpture at the River Market’s goal to disperse its art is “a natural and positive progression in bringing more culture throughout the whole community.”

“I think it’s an important part of what we do … celebrate the arts not just in small districts, but throughout the whole city,” says Warrick, a University of Arkansas at Little Rock sculpture professor.

The competition winner will be announced at the end of this weekend’s eighth annual Sculpture at the River Market Invitational Show & Sale, which kicks off Friday with two events: the Preview Party and Bronze & Brewskis.

At the Preview Party ($100 per person), guests will enjoy food from Capers along with music by pop/soul artist Heather Batchelor. They’ll also be the first to view and buy sculptures from 55 internationally known artists. These sculptures — representing various media, styles, subject matter and sizes — will be on display at the River Market pavilions and in the adjacent area of Riverfront Park. As part of the 2015 Public Art Monument Sculpture Commission Competition, guests will also vote for their favorite proposal from among the semifinalists for the new commissioned monument sculpture to be placed on Chenal.

Attendees of the Bronze & Brewskis after-party ($30 in advance, $35 at the door) for young professionals will be served food from Copper Grill and Loblolly Creamery along with beer and wine. Music will be by John Willis & Late Romantics.

On Saturday and Sunday, visitors are invited to the pavilions and adjacent areas of the park to see and buy works and visit with the artists. Segway of Arkansas and Bobby’s Bike Hike will host special tours, and docent-led tours of the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden will be available. On Sunday, Hot Rod Wieners, Loblolly Creamery and Clean Eatery food trucks will be on-site.

Each of the artists juried into the show and sale was invited to submit a proposal for the fifth annual competition. After artists sent in their proposals, judges narrowed them to six semifinalists. Preview Party guests each vote for a first, second and third choice. Contenders will be narrowed to three finalists whose proposals will be examined by another independent group of judges. The winner will be announced at the end of the weekend; the winning sculpture will be installed prior to the 2016 Show & Sale.

The 2015 semifinalists, and their works:

m Kathleen Caricof: Embrace, which the artist says she designed “with the proposed location and its surrounding neighborhoods in mind.” The design consists of two mounted, steel bladelike pieces crisscrossing to form an entrance sculpture.

m Tim Cherry: Ancient Wings, a bronze and stainless-steel piece depicting “a seated griffin in a regal pose, with an arched neck and outstretched wings.”

m Sandy Graves: Cotton and Clementine, a playful pair of bronze bunnies designed to “create a space of lighthearted whimsy in people’s often-chaotic daily lives.”

m Adam Schultz: Standing Together, an aluminum and stainless-steel work depicting a family of long-legged, white-tailed deer. “It captures the strength and beauty of these majestic animals and symbolizes the importance of family and the unity of the community,” Schultz says in his artist’s statement.

m Stephen Shachtman: A, a piece to be made of Corten steel with silicon bronze. Shachtman describes it as “a gateway to Little Rock, Arkansas. … The steel/bronze portion of the ‘A’ represents Arkansas as a whole, while the individual pieces of the flagstone sphere make up my notion of the people of Little Rock.”

m Warrick’s entry, Mockingbird Tree. The concept is an 18-foot, stainless-steel tree whose branches are seven, various-size, cut-out spherical bubble forms, two of which bear perched mockingbirds. What inspired it? “My daughter,” Warrick replies. “When she was little she did a lot of drawings.” His favorites were her drawings of trees. “We spent a lot of time in the woods with her and her brother when they were young.”

The childhood drawings led him to create a concept piece that’s “simple and interesting and unusual. Everybody can relate to it.”

And true, the mockingbird is the state bird, “but also a beautiful little bird,” Warrick says. The birds are perched on opposite ends but facing each other, as though they’re communicating.

Each of the spheres contain sub-spheres, also cutouts. “It’s a way to create that sense of scribbled bubble that [my daughter] drew and also make it possible to create an illusion of volume” for the tree, Warrick says. He has done other works inspired by his children; among them, Grown, a partial human figure that can be found among the pieces in the sculpture garden.

Come-hither for artists

Kumpuris says the idea for the competition grew out of a realization that “Little Rock is really not big enough to have the world-class artists that we have here.”

“So we said [to artists], ‘OK … if you come to the show, you’ll be one of the X number of people … who will be able to compete with us.’” Only the artists who agree to come and participate in the show can compete, in fact. “It gets a better class of artist here because they know … they’re one of a small group.”

The competition has had some unexpected results, Kumpuris says.

“Every year … we’ve ended up buying two pieces because something will come up when somebody will say, ‘That is really a neat piece,’” and though it didn’t win the contest, it is bought and placed.

Another reason that branching out, locationwise, is an inevitability.

“The idea always was that once we got a critical mass of sculpture” in Riverfront Park, they’d look around for other areas to place the art, Kumpuris says. “You have to have a critical mass of sculptures to make you want to go from here to here to here. We’re not completely at that point.” But they’re close.

Start moving art out into the community, and “you make every place in town more livable,” he says. “We’re going to jump out to Chenal and do a piece out there, and next year we may jump and go someplace else. The idea is that as you do it, then people all of a sudden start coming up and saying, ‘I want to do something’” to help beautify the city.

“If you started carrying this into neighborhoods and people really started doing this, then you could make this the city of sculpture. You could make this a city where neighborhoods have a point of pride — ‘That’s my piece of sculpture.’ … But the idea is you want to make all of Little Rock better.”

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