02 May 2023 Find art
By Stefanie Brazile and Paulette Higginbotham
After 40 months of construction, the curtain has lifted and the public is invited to explore the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock’s oldest urban green space, MacArthur Park. The $160 million project has transformed AMFA’s landmark building and grounds into a welcoming yet sophisticated space with an emphasis on flow and natural light. The building and grounds renovations were designed by Studio Gang and SCAPE in collaboration with Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects.
Fortunately for us, Harriet and Warren Stephens co-chaired the immensely successful capital campaign. We’ll never know how many meetings and conversations were had to secure this amount of capital, but the donors’ investments will benefit Arkansans and tourists for several decades.
Two members of the 501 LIFE team received an invitation to attend the Press Preview event on April 19 and were some of the first Arkansans in the building. We took in so much art and information over several hours and decided to share our favorite pieces with you. Our main advice is to plan a trip to the museum! Staff members encourage visitors to reserve a free ticket so they can anticipate the number of guests each day. Visit arkmfa.org.
During the AMFA tour, one of my favorite pieces on display was by Little Rock native LaToya Hobbs. The composite portrait is the first of a five-part series entitled “Carving Out Time Scene 1: Morning.” The large-scale piece was created with the arduous method of woodblock printing, which is the process of hand-carving on blocks of wood to imprint on paper with ink. Hobbs started the series during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns. She painstakingly recreated this moment in time from her personal life on three 4-foot by 8-foot hand-carved sheets of plywood. The artist’s labor of love represents the challenging time we all shared, yet reminds us to slow down and truly value life’s simple, most precious moments.
Advertising Director
Paulette Higginbotham
My favorite piece of art is the building itself. The architects have created a magnificent backdrop for all kinds of art. The neutral colors, stone, wood, glass, mirrors and massive windows promote a feeling of openness that is unencumbered by walls. As you move through the large corridors, your eyes travel back outside to pleasant, sloping green spaces. The main corridors rise up, up, up to a ceiling lined with light-colored wood that creates a flowing effect and hides light fixtures and sprinklers.
There was a glass box room that fascinates the eye because it appears to have several sides of glass — thanks to mirrors. And, the renovated theater seats 350 people and they repurposed the original seats. Upstairs, eight galleries flow from one to the next, and I also thoroughly enjoyed my time in the gift shop. In fact, Paulette and I were the first two customers — a fact that surprised and excited us a lot, but our husbands were neither surprised nor excited.
Editor Stefanie Brazile
