Exhibit

100 images of faded glory

Michael Hibblen’s arresting photo of the atrium of the Hotel Pines, once a luxury hotel in Pine Bluff, is part of “Light Through the Pines,” an exhibit at the Central Arkansas Library System’s Cox Creative Center. The exhibit is running Friday-Aug. 31.
Michael Hibblen’s arresting photo of the atrium of the Hotel Pines, once a luxury hotel in Pine Bluff, is part of “Light Through the Pines,” an exhibit at the Central Arkansas Library System’s Cox Creative Center. The exhibit is running Friday-Aug. 31.

Rita Henry had been fascinated with the old Hotel Pines in Pine Bluff ever since she was a young girl.

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Susan Crisp was among a group of photographers and a videographer who shot images of the crumbling Hotel Pines in Pine Bluff for a project of Little Rock’s Blue Eyed Knocker Photo Club. Crisp’s window-view image is included in “Light Through the Pines, ” an exhibit at the Central Arkansas Library System’s Cox Creative Center that includes 100 photos of the hotel.

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This photograph by Darrell Adams is one of 100 images of the old Hotel Pines in “Light Through the Pines,” which opens Friday at the Central Arkansas Library System’s Cox Creative Center in downtown Little Rock.

Designed by the state Capitol’s architect, George R. Mann, and built in 1913 as a luxury hotel, the Pines closed in 1970 after passenger service on the nearby railroad ended in 1968. Unused since then, the hotel has now become one of the crumbling buildings lining the city’s Main Street.

“Light Through the Pines”

A collection of 100 photographs of the historic Hotel Pines in downtown Pine Bluff

“Meet-The-Photographers” receptions, 5-8 p.m. Friday and 5-8 p.m. Aug. 14, Cox Creative Center, Central Arkansas Library System, 120 River Market Ave., Little Rock.

Exhibit hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 1-5 p.m. Sunday through Aug. 31

Free

(501) 918-3093

“I for years had been taking pictures of the outside,” says Henry, the founder of the Blue-Eyed Knocker Photo Club — a group of serious shutterbugs who still enjoy darkroom photography. “I live in Dermott and drive through Pine Bluff a lot. I would always go through taking pictures outside … and just pressing my camera flush up to the plate-glass window.”

In the fall of 2013, Henry entered the six-story, U-shaped building, with its views of the Arkansas River and the Jefferson County Courthouse, for the first time. That was just a sneak peek with a companion. But soon after, Henry was allowed to organize small groups of photographers to go inside during multiple trips to capture the beauty that still stood out among falling marble, piles of debris, peeling paint and missing windowpanes.

The result of those two years of expeditions is “Light Through the Pines,” a collection of 100 photos by these photographers, along with a videographer. Having made its Pine Bluff debut in November as “100 Years of Light Through the Pines,” the show is now coming to Little Rock’s Cox Creative Center. An opening “Meet-the-Photographers” reception is scheduled for Friday; a closing reception will be held Aug. 14 in conjunction with Little Rock’s Second Friday Art Walk.

THROUGH DIFFERENT LENSES

On display will be images by Cindy Adams, Darrell Adams, Ann Ballard Bryan, Susan Crisp, Henry, Michael Hibblen, Cary Jenkins, Carla Koen, Benjamin Krain, Brandon Markin, Margaret Wang and Rachel Worthen (Jenkins and Krain are employees of the Democrat-Gazette).

Also on display at the exhibit will be copies of the original blueprints of the Hotel Pines, first-person remembrances of the hotel and historic articles, including brochures provided by Preserve Arkansas (the rebranded name of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Alliance), which has the hotel on its Most Endangered Places list. In addition, visitors will see work created by teams of students of the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, who were given an assignment to draw up plans to rejuvenate the hotel for an urban setting.

The exhibit draws its name from the light that flows through the hotel’s large windows, a light that plays a major part in many of the photos. One photo in the collection is Henry’s image of an atrium that once had a ceiling of stained-glass windows.

“This was built for natural light,” she says. “I had just never seen such beautiful light.”

No two photos are the same. “With so many photographers, we get to see it through so many different eyes,” Henry says. “I’ve really enjoyed … ‘seeing’ everyone’s opinion of the place.”

Also adding to the diversity of the images is the fact that photographers visited the hotel at various times of the year. “It really ended up being interesting that taking a picture in October was much different than taking a picture in July.”

Crisp, of Little Rock, recalls the day she and Henry were on a photo shoot in Pine Bluff and decided to stop by the hotel.

“We found a door going into the place ajar,” and went in and took photos, Crisp says. “[We] were just amazed at it.” Later, Crisp returned with other photographers.

“I’ve probably been five times,” says Crisp, who is among the photographers who went during different times of day and year. “Each time I went, I did discover something new.”

IF WALLS COULD TALK

A trip to the hotel was Cindy Adams’ first time entering, and photographing, an abandoned building.

“I wasn’t real sure I would enjoy doing that. [But] once I was there … I was just mesmerized,” says the Little Rock resident, whose husband, Darrell, also took photos. She made three or four visits, capturing such images as a pair of arched doorways, framed by peeling, multicolored walls.

“I kind of wondered about the life that had taken place there,” she says. “You try to … imagine the life, the music, … the events that happened in those places.”

Hibblen, however, visited the hotel only once.

“When I walked in there and saw what the lobby looked like, I was just like, ‘Wow,” says the news director for KUAR-FM, 89.1 in Little Rock. “And when I learned more about the background of the hotel, [I] became more fascinated by it.”

He acknowledges that the place was a bit creepy, too.

“But for some reason I’ve always been fascinated by abandoned old buildings,” Hibblen says. He considers his image of the hotel’s decaying lobby — its collapsing facade a poignant reminder of its former glory — to be his best.

The photographers were also struck by the sheer speed at which the hotel’s deterioration is proceeding. While most things of any value have long been gone, Hibblen says, “People are still steadily going in there and scavenging it.”

A chandelier Crisp photographed was there one visit, gone the next. “Each time we went we just saw more and more deterioration — water coming down the sides of the walls, pooling on the floor, more debris … and just the marble falling off, and the facades,” Crisp says. “It could be within a two-week period.”

Which means the opportunity to capture images inside the Pines might not be available for future groups.

“You can’t really go in very often at all, now particularly, since … there’s a lot of damage to the place [from] not being sealed up from the elements,” Henry says.

“A lot of people say it was just tremendously sad” that the hotel was allowed to decline, she adds.

But with photography, “I always think there’s hope.”

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