After the COVID-19 pandemic shut down 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock鈥檚 annual art sale for a couple of years, this was the question facing Andrea 鈥淎nDi鈥�  Tompkins, art outreach specialist for the School of Art and Design. Luckily, Tompkins organized art sales at the for 12 years and was ready to take up the challenge for the university.

鈥淭his year鈥檚 success of the Open House and Holiday Art Sale is a testament to the way people feel about visual arts in the community,鈥� Tompkins said. 鈥淭hey enjoy supporting the students, local artists, and the school. This year we put more of a focus on decorating, marketing, and preparing the students to present their work in a professional and positive environment.鈥�

The 2023 event was held Friday and Saturday, Nov. 10-11, at the Windgate Center of Art and Design. Nov. 10 featured an open house where visitors could tour the Windgate Center of Art and Design, view art demonstrations, art history lectures, and enjoy a reception with cookies and cocoa. Altogether, this year鈥檚 event featured more than 70 artists and had close to 700 visitors during the two-day event!

鈥淭he holiday sale is a wonderful opportunity to teach our students how to price, present, and sell their artwork, and it’s also a lot of fun,鈥� said Joli Livaudais, interim director of the School of Art and Design. 鈥淭his year’s sale was a grand event. It was wonderful to see so many people supporting our community of artists, and it definitely got the holiday spirit ignited in the School of Art and Design!鈥�

To help prepare students for the experience of selling their art professionally, the School of Art and Design held a mandatory meeting for all artists participating in the event. Artists learned about table presentation, customer service, sales tax collection, marketing, and revenue collection.

鈥淲e wanted our students to have a lot of engagement with their customers,鈥� Tompkins said. 鈥淲e told them not to use their phones unless it was for a transaction. They are learning how to present themselves and their work in a professional manner. These are all important things they need to know how to do as professional artists.鈥�

Drawing Instructor Robert Bean, who teaches the capstone Professional Practices course and saw many of his students participate in the sale, was grateful that his students had the opportunity to participate in mandatory meetings to help prepare them for the sale.

鈥淔or many of them, this was their first time to deal with sales tax,鈥� Bean said. 鈥淚’d much rather have them learn that in a supportive school environment than have them figure it out on their own after graduation while also trying to be professional with an exhibition or some other form of financial exchange. What really made me happy to see, however, was just how well the students responded to the opportunity to share and sell their work to the public. They didn’t shy away from the chance, and they listened, learned, and rose to the challenge of being professional with all the guests and visitors.鈥�

糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock student artist Kristi Pruett said she was thrilled to be a part of the holiday art sale and plans to return as an alumnus.

鈥淪witching the event to Friday and Saturday was perfect, and the open house really worked to bring in an audience,鈥� Pruett said. 鈥淎lso, having a greeter at the door was really helpful in directing people around the building and making them comfortable in a space that they are unfamiliar with. It makes it a much more personable experience.鈥�

Professor Emeritus of Art Michael Warrick, who is a longtime participant in the holiday art sale, commented that the 鈥渟ale was very good this year.鈥�

鈥淩obert Bean and Andrea Tompkins did a great service in helping students learn about the art marketplace, how to be better organized, and how to approach it professionally,鈥� Warrick said.

A unique aspect of 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock鈥檚 holiday art sale is that the event is completely free for vendors, meaning all sales go straight to the artists.

鈥淭he artists do not have to pay a table fee, and we do not take a commission on sales,鈥� Tompkins said. 鈥淎dmission and parking is also free. All the money that the artists make goes back to them, which is a little unheard of when you have a sale like this. We are a school just trying to teach our art students about professional practice standards.鈥�

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The first exhibition, 鈥淚llustration: Art That Works,鈥� will be on display in the Brad Cushman Gallery in the Windgate Center of Art and Design from Jan. 17 to Feb. 18. A reception will be held from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25, in the Windgate Center.

鈥淚llustration, like graphic design, is looked upon as a 鈥榩ractical arts鈥� degree because, along with freelance work being common to both fields, illustrators can seek employment with newspapers and magazine publishers, can work in the gaming industry, in animation, as comic book and graphic novel illustrations, and as concept artist and production designers,鈥� said Nathan Larson, interim art gallery director and curator. 鈥淚llustrators work digitally and in more traditional media like painting and drawing, but also move between digital and traditional media. In this exhibition, Arkansas-based illustrators who work in a variety of media and in equally varied employment are brought together to represent what is possible in the field of Illustration.鈥�

Artists whose work will be displayed in the exhibition include Robert Bean, Nikki Dawes, Sean Fitzgibbon, Dusty Higgins, Layet Johnson, Kirk Montgomery, Sally Nixon, Michele Noiset, David O’Brien, Kasten Searles, and Ricky Sikes.

In the second exhibition, a group of artwork from the personal collection of Henry Goodspeed, a retired financial advisor living in Little Rock, will be on display in the Ann Maners and Alex Pappas Gallery in the Windgate Center from Jan. 17 to March 3. A reception for the exhibition, 鈥淕oodspeed Collection: Stories,鈥� will be held from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15, in the Windgate Center. The exhibition will include examples of photography, printmaking, painting, drawing, ceramics, woodworking, and fiber works.

鈥淭his collection is an idiosyncratic reflection, a love for art, and an appreciation for art that spans media, style, and eras,鈥� Larson said. 鈥淓ach artwork has a story about how it came to be in Henry鈥檚 collection or has a story which is an integral aspect of the artwork itself.鈥�

The 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Art Galleries in the Windgate Center are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. 鈥� 1 p.m. Saturday, and 2-5 p.m. Sunday.

For more information on these upcoming exhibitions, contact Larson at 501-916-5104 or nglarson@ualr.edu.

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The new exhibit, 鈥淩obert Bean: Figure Drawing On and Off Screen,鈥� will be on display in the Ann Maners and Alex Pappas Gallery on the first floor of the Windgate Center of Art and Design at 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock from Jan. 17 to Feb. 28. A reception for the artist will be held from 5:30-7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 27, in the Taylor/Mourning Lobby on the first floor of the Windgate Center.

A graduate of 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock, now serves as the department chair of painting and drawing at the Windgate Art School of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts and is an adjunct instructor of figure drawing at 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock.

鈥淩obert is an adjunct drawing instructor who took on the problems posed by Covid for studio art instruction as a personal and professional challenge,鈥� said Nathan Larson, interim art gallery director at 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock. 鈥淭his exhibition presents drawings created pre-pandemic, during the pandemic, and post-pandemic that look at how the pandemic affected his artistic practice as a working artist and as a college studio art instructor.鈥�

The new exhibition represents how Bean adapted as an artist and a drawing instructor during the pandemic.

鈥淚鈥檝e spent several decades now working in places as far apart on the spectrum of quality studios as university classrooms to the ramshackle walls of a former warehouse that an artist friend stubbornly called his studio,鈥� Bean said. 鈥淚鈥檝e drawn from the life model again and again in so many different types of places that I鈥檝e lost count. And until 2020 and the tragedy of the pandemic struck, these sessions had always been in person, face to face, with the model and among my fellow artists. But when you cannot be around others because of the risk of infection, how do you continue this practice? You adapt.鈥�

The 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Art Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. Saturday, and 2-5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, contact 501-916-5104 or email Larson at nglarson@ualr.edu.

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