Neal K. Harrington might have been content to sit back on his laurels after winning two awards at the 57th annual Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center, but he was not. Instead, he went right back to work on his next project.
Harrington, an associate professor of art at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville and the director of the Norman Hall Gallery at the school, won a Delta Award worth $750 and a Contemporaries honorable-mention award for his woodcut Feather Signal.
“It was unexpected, for sure,” he said of the Delta Award, which is one of two given, in addition to the Grand Award, plus honorable-mention awards at the juror’s discretion.
“I mean you always hope, right?” Harrington said with a laugh, following the opening reception for the show at the Little Rock venue. “I feel fortunate that I have full-time employment at Tech. This allows me to keep experimenting and trying new things. The risk of trying something new when you are dependent on art sales for your income is too difficult for me to imagine.
“I am never satisfied with my achievements, which I guess pushes me to keep going. The next day after winning the Delta Award, I was back in the studio drawing on my next woodcut.”
The guest juror for the Delta, George Dombek of Fayetteville, who is an internationally known watercolorist, selected the winners of the Grand Award and the two Delta awards. The Contemporaries, an auxiliary membership group of the Arkansas Arts Center, selected a winner of the Contemporaries Delta Award and a winner of the Contemporaries Honorable Mention award.
This is the third year in a row that Harrington’s work has been selected for the Delta Exhibition. He also won a Delta Award in 2013.
This year’s show includes 72 works of art by 68 artists. Dombek selected the works out of 882 entries from 380 artists. Of the 68 artists selected, 48 are from Arkansas; in all, eight states are represented in this exhibition.
Harrington said his award-winning woodcut is part of his Bootlegger’s Ballad Series. The work is a woodcut with India-ink washes.
He discusses the series in his artist’s statement:
“The bold and graphic marks of the woodcut/relief technique reiterate the tension and energy of the figures in these works. In my Bootlegger series, I create an intensified atmosphere and an amplified dramatic sense of light with the addition of India-ink washes. The shades of gray either soften the focus or strengthen the focal point and contribute to the dreamlike quality of the piece.”
Harrington said the works in this series are “all about moonshiners.”
Harrington is preparing to return to campus at Tech, where he teaches printmaking. He is also getting ready for a two-man show at the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock, that is scheduled to run Nov. 13 through Jan. 3.
“I am also looking forward to the 2015 Boston Printmakers Biennial,” he said. “I am lucky to have had all three of my entries accepted by juror Willie Cole; he had to look at close to 2,000 prints, of which he chose 109.
“This show starts in
November at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As you can guess, the competition is fierce, especially since this is a very prestigious competition, and it is exclusively for printmaking. So, it is quite an honor.”
A native of South Dakota, Harrington holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in painting from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion and a master’s degree in printmaking from Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas. He and his wife, Tammy, moved to Russellville in 2001, when he accepted a position at Tech. Tammy is also an artist.
The 57th annual Delta Exhibition will remain on view in the Jeannette Edris Rockefeller and Townsend Wolfe galleries at the Arkansas Arts Center through Sept. 20. There is no admission charge.
The Arkansas Arts Center is at Ninth and Commerce streets in Little Rock. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. The gallery is closed on Mondays and major holidays.
For more information, call (501) 372-4000 or visit arkansasartscenter.org.