LeFevre is first recipient of Linda Blaine Flake Endowed Scholarship

John Hill — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 12:00:44 +0000

Caleb LeFevre, a junior studio art major from Little Rock, has been awarded the first scholarship from the Linda Blaine Flake Endowed Art Scholarship. “I am super excited about receiving this scholarship,” LeFevre said. “I was very honored to be able to meet the donor, Leslye Shellam. I‘ve received scholarships through the department before and I wrote a thank you letter. I’ve never had the opportunity to meet the donor, and that was very lovely.” Leslye Shellam, the daughter of Linda Blaine Flake and L. Dickson Flake, created the scholarship to honor her mother’s love of art with a $100,000 donation. Shellam awarded LaFevre the scholarship during a celebration of World Art Day on April 15, while LaFevre gifted Shellam with a charcoal painting of his girlfriend and dog. As part of the scholarship, LeFevre will feature his work in a solo exhibit in the Windgate Center of Art and Design during the spring 2022 semester. “It’s a wonderful opportunity,” he said. “I have made so much work since I’ve been at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, especially after not making art for so long. I am so excited to put all my work in the solo show. It’s an opportunity to show all the things I’ve been working on rather than just one area of interest.” After graduating from Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School in 2003, LeFevre moved to Memphis and later North Carolina. He’s been working as a dog groomer for the past six years and hadn’t practiced art in more than a decade when he started at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock as a biology major with the intention of practicing medical bio illustration. “Then I took one basic drawing class in the Windgate Center, and I was blown away,” LeFevre said. “I started drawing again for the first time in 15 years. I realized I didn’t need a biology degree. I needed to be making art. The building and faculty was so amazing that I was really blown away.” LeFevre also works in the Windgate Center as the woodshop monitor and teaching assistant. He’ll be putting those skills to work during the fall semester working as a studio assistant for woodshop classes at Penland School of Craft, an international center for craft education in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. LaFeve recently had four pieces displayed in the Annual Student Competitive art show, and he was one of the winners of the Art Supplies and Materials award, courtesy of Art Outfitters. He was a recipient of the 2020-21 Signature Experience Award, which he and his partner, Andrew Myers, used to create . “My project was a furniture design project,” LeFevre said. “Another furniture design student and myself designed benches for the art department made from wood harvested from a tree from the campus lot. After we send them to a company to be painted, the benches will end up in the Windgate Center of Art and Design.” LeFevre will graduate in spring 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in studio art, a minor in art history, and an applied design certificate. After graduation, his next step is to attend graduate school.

Shellam makes $100,000 donation to create endowed scholarship for ��Vlog��ý Little Rock art students in mother’s name

John Hill — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 21:23:13 +0000

A Little Rock woman has made a $100,000 donation to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock to create an endowed scholarship in her mother’s name for senior art students. Leslye Shellam, the daughter of Linda Blaine Flake and L. Dickson Flake, created the scholarship to honor her mother’s love of art. “Though recognized as ‘gifted’ from an early age, Linda knew that knowledge and experimentation to new, unfamiliar ideas kept her work fresh and inspired,” Shellam said. “The endowment in her name is intended to allow an art student more time for curiosity and self-exploration to channel their talent into a lifelong contribution to the rest of us who may need to be reminded of the ‘undefined’ that encourages personal creativity of all forms in each of us.” The Linda Blaine Flake Endowed Art Scholarship will benefit senior undergraduate students studying the visual arts in the College of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, and Education at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. “Mrs. Flake was a longtime practicing painter and considered painting a vocation and an avocation,” said Joseph Lampo, director of development and external relations. “Both she and her husband Dickson Flake had been active members of the Little Rock community for many years. I can’t think of a better way for a community member to honor someone than to provide support for students at the local metropolitan university studying a subject important to that person. We are grateful to Leslye Shellam for her appreciation of the need for this support.” Linda Blaine Flake was a native of Little Rock who attended Central High School through the 11th grade. Her father, Fletcher Clement Jr., was a civil engineer whose work took him and his family to places all around the world, including Canada, Morocco, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Colorado. She graduated high school in North Africa and later attended school in Gstaad and Neuchatel, Switzerland. She developed a love of the arts at a young age. Drawing and painting helped Flake navigate her early school years when the family moved frequently because of her father’s job. She had a summer job in Africa as a draftsman with the Corps of Engineers and another in the mapping section of the Arkansas Highway Department. After she married Dickson Flake, the couple moved to Detroit where their daughter, Leslye, was born. After the Flakes returned to Little Rock to be near family and friends, she studied and developed her art skills while her husband established a successful commercial real estate business.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock studio art major Caleb LeFevre presented Leslye Shellam with this charcoal drawing to thank her for her support of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock art students. Photo by Ben Krain.

Flake continued her passion for creating art by studying at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. She also participated in a painting master class invitational in Maine, and attended workshops in China, Guatemala, Mexico, Bali, California, and New Mexico. She was a successful artist who showed her work at the former Art on the Green Gallery in Conway, Arkansas, as well as the well-remembered Heights Gallery in Little Rock. She was an active member and former president of the Mid-Southern Watercolorists and also worked in other mediums. She and Townsend Wolfe, past long-serving director of the former Arkansas Arts Center, now the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, had an exclusive extended two-person exhibition of their work inspired by their visits to Asia, when China was still not fully open to the Western world. “My mother, Linda Blaine Flake, was an exceptionally intelligent and insightful woman,” Shellam said. “Art was the vehicle that kept her challenged and questioning established guidelines in life as well as her career. Linda’s artwork was not produced by what might interest a prospective buyer, but was an outpouring of what she wanted to share of her soul with others. By not defining herself in a specific category, she stayed open and embraced many mediums which facilitated rewarding life experiences, spurring even more creative and personal achievements.” The scholarship, to be awarded to a rising senior, will provide assistance for any education related expenses, including tuition, books, fees, and room and board. At the end of their senior year, the scholarship recipient will also have the opportunity for a solo exhibition of their work in one of the art galleries at the Windgate Center of Art and Design. “We’re delighted and gratified by the gift of the Linda Blaine Flake Endowed Scholarship,” said Thomas Clifton, chair of the Department of Art and Design at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. “This unique scholarship, which provides annual funding for a solo student exhibition, will give us the opportunity to highlight the talents of an outstanding graduating senior each year.” In the upper right photo, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock studio art major Caleb LeFevre, left, was awarded the first Linda Blaine Flake Endowed Art Scholarship by philanthropist Leslye Shellam during a celebration of World Art Day at the Windgate Center of Art and Design. Photo by Ben Krain.

- University News Archive - ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

LeFevre is first recipient of Linda Blaine Flake Endowed Scholarship

Shellam makes $100,000 donation to create endowed scholarship for ����Vlog��ý Little Rock art students in mother’s name

- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Shellam makes $100,000 donation to create endowed scholarship for ��Vlog��ý Little Rock art students in mother’s name