There is, right now, a trio of brilliantly colored roosters on a white wall at the Arkansas Arts Center. Workers hung the painting of them last week.
Joining the roosters on the walls of the Little Rock museum is Adele, who is reproduced in colored pencils, and cats, puppies and other animals depicted in several media. Marilyn Monroe is there, and even a portrait of Walt Whitman -- drawn in graphite -- has a spot.
The artists behind the center's newest exhibit are mostly unknown, except to their mothers, fathers, relatives and friends. These are, after all, students from around Arkansas, but they also are the best young artists in the state, prominently featured in the center's 55th "Young Arkansas Artists" exhibition, which opens Friday.
The 105 works, representing 63 schools from 19 counties across the state, are on exhibit in the Alice Pratt Brown Atrium and the Sam Strauss Sr. Gallery.
"The ['Young Arkansas Artists'] exhibition is extremely important for developing arts appreciation throughout the state," says Jessica Wright, the center's senior education specialist for state services who helped oversee this year's show. "It not only provides an outlet for creative expression, but reinforces the fact that art matters and has a very important place in the classroom. It is crucial that we continue to provide young artists with the support and encouragement they need to pursue a lifelong relationship with the arts."
The exhibition -- a collection of drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, collages, crafts and sculptures -- is on view through July 24, a time when many of the student artists will be thinking of their dwindling summer vacation.
Some of the artists featured are kindergartners. But don't think they aren't accomplished. Coloring within the lines? That's 3-year-old stuff.
No, the "Young Arkansas Artists" exhibition includes fourth-graders such as Zoe Hampton, a pupil at Jonesboro's Visual and Performing Arts Magnet School, whose Me X 3 is a dazzling self-portrait using different media and a rainbow of colors.
Madelyn Swinney, a ninth-grader at Woodlawn High School in Rison, earned a spot on the walls with a mixed-media collage called Native Life that makes use of magazine pages, glue and even Nevr-Dull, a metal cleaner and polisher.
"My favorite thing about art is being able to express myself freely," Madelyn says. "I love seeing the way everyone's pieces come together in a unique way."
And then there are artists such as Norfork High School senior Ariona Pennington, whose A Moment With Cali shows a girl in a tie-dye shirt bending over a dog.
"My favorite thing about art is the therapy it offers and the form of expression I am able to present in my artwork," she says. "My favorite art form/media would be almost any dry color media. I love being able to express the strong contrasts between colors and using multiple colors that complement each other."
Pennington is not the only Norfork student whose work is part of the exhibit. Ninth-grader Alexis Williams' Majestic Succulent -- a glossy flower re-created with batik -- was also chosen.
"I was using dye, water and wax to paint the batik and the water helped me blend everything together," she says. "The project came so natural to me, like I have been painting for my whole life."
Noel Cole, an art teacher at Norfork High for 24 years, says that every year the school in north-central Arkansas has entered the competition, a student has been selected.
That's big news for a school "isolated from any cultural hub like Little Rock," he says, and the exhibit is a "great way to bridge the gap between the talents of our poor and isolated rural school with the cultural advantages of other students in larger cities."
"It is important to encourage art-making and art appreciation to the young as a means of self-expression and communication that unites us all as a human race. Students are motivated to do this when they attend events such as the 'Young Arkansas Artists' exhibition."
And art teaches students important lessons, says Valley View Intermediate School sixth-grader Deanne Puryear, who says her art teacher, Mary Ann Ray, tells her that there are no mistakes in art.
"So I can take my 'mistakes' and turn them into something amazing," Deanne says.
On Saturday, the center hosts its Family Festival from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. with hands-on art activities for all ages. The exhibition awards ceremony is at 12:30 p.m.
A jury of art professionals -- led by grand juror Tom Clifton, who is the art department chairman at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock -- selected the 105 winning works from the 525 submitted by 157 teachers or instructors from 161 schools.
One Best of Class and two honorable mentions will be awarded for each grade Saturday. There also will be a Teacher's Choice Award per grade level, selected by Arkansas Art Educators Association members.
The Mid-Southern Watercolorists Award for Achievement in Watercolor and the Ray Smenner Award for Achievement in Painting also will be presented.
The schools of winning students will receive cash awards to support their art programs, and selected works will travel around the state as part of the Arkansas Arts Center's State Services Program.
Before all the prizes and touring, though, there are the students and their artwork -- from self-portraits on newspaper and desert scenery re-created by marker to a work with a collage of an orange-and-pink-flamed match burning in the grayness of the graphite surrounding it.
The students and that artwork -- often awe-inspiring -- is why the "Young Arkansas Artists" exhibition matters. That's why it has mattered for 55 years and will continue to matter.
"I am very honored to have my work a part of this exhibition," says Dana Kapales, a junior at Valley View High School. "When you do art it becomes as precious as a child. You create and mold it to be what you envisioned. To work so hard and care so much about something and have somebody else recognize your work is very gratifying."
Family on 05/04/2016