Two area artists receive special recognition at Delta Exhibition

Michael Preble of Hot Springs won an honorable-mention award in the 57th annual Delta Exhibition with his photograph Unintended Consequences.
Michael Preble of Hot Springs won an honorable-mention award in the 57th annual Delta Exhibition with his photograph Unintended Consequences.

Works by several artists from the Tri-Lakes Edition coverage area have been juried into the 57th annual Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock. Two pieces have received special recognition.

Aaron Calvert of Arkadelphia and Michael Preble of Hot Springs received honorable-mention awards — Calvert, for his ceramic piece The Giving Figure, and Preble, for his photograph Unintended Consequences.

Other area artists with works in the show are Beverly Buys of Hot Springs; Amber Haycox and DebiLynn Fendley, both of Arkadelphia; and Katherine Strause, who lives in Little Rock but works at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia. They are featured in a story elsewhere in today’s Tri-Lakes Edition.

“Receiving an honorable mention award was an unexpected pleasure,” said Calvert, 42, an associate professor at Henderson, where he teaches ceramic courses and serves as director of the Russell Fine Arts Gallery.

“The Giving Figure is from a new body of art I began in 2014,” he said. “Being juried into the show and being awarded an honorable mention strengthens my commitment to this new direction.

“Unfortunately, I had jury duty [in Arkadelphia], so I wasn’t present during the announcement,” he said. (He did get to the opening reception, albeit a little late.)

“This piece, along with others, is covered with a connective tapestry of imagery,” he said. “The expressive glazed surface is the result of me documenting both the important and mundaneness in my life. The gold-cupped hands of The Giving Figure suggest the act of offering or giving. The viewer is left to interpret what is being given and whether or not to receive it.”

Calvert, who also had a piece of his work juried into the 2012 exhibition, said he enjoys “attending the openings, meeting new artists and viewing the diverse expression this region has to offer.

“Being juried into the show is always exciting because the caliber of work is high.”

Born in Medina, Ohio, Calvert studied ceramics and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Kent State University. In 2003, he graduated from the Edinboro University of Pennsylvania with a Master of Fine Arts degree in ceramics. He moved to Arkadelphia in 2005 with his wife, Summer Bruch.

Calvert’s work is part of the permanent collection at the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute in Jingdezhen, China. His art has been included in four books published by Lark Books and in national magazines such as Ceramics Monthly.

Preble, 68, recently retired to Hot Springs with his wife, Anne Guthrie. “I was surprised and honored to have my photograph Unintended Consequences given an honorable mention at the Arkansas Arts Center’s Delta Exhibition,” Preble said.

“Photography always seems to have to fight extra hard for recognition in open juried exhibitions,” he said.

“In this particular photograph, I made the effort to combine formal qualities — careful composition, asymmetrical balance, balancing color with black/white values — and a commentary in such a way to be striking and to catch your attention. It is gratifying that the juror understood what I was trying to accomplish and helped bring notice to the work,” Preble said.

“One line in my artist’s statement says, ‘I especially like serial imagery, visual surprises and asymmetry. I also enjoy the happenstance of coming across visual moments that catch my attention,” he said.

“And so, while visiting the tomb of the legendary voodoo queen Marie Laveau in New Orleans, I ventured further into St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and found this gravesite,” he said. “By concentrating on those elements, I edited in the camera and got the right composition. The deflating balloon, left by a loved one, provided a colorful, contrasting gesture and an unexpectedly poignant metaphor, which led to the title.

“My other two entries — not selected by the juror — were a photograph of decayed, yet picturesque, doors of an abandoned church near Chalmette, Louisiana, and a montage of photographs called Scenes From Small Town South.”

Preble said that with him “having served in the past as educator, curator and director of the museum school,” the Arkansas Arts Center has played a major role in his life.

“I was also married in the old Decorative Arts Museum,” he said. “As an artist, I was in two now-defunct exhibitions, Prints, Drawings and Crafts. This is my first entry into the Delta, and now, as a new resident of Hot Springs, I’m excited to be a part of it ‘from the other side.’”

Preble has been an active photographer since the late 1980s, first publishing his Caribbean photographs with International Voyager Media in Miami, Florida. He has exhibited nationally and regionally, including at art festivals, galleries and museums, and is included in numerous public and private collections in Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Pennsylvania. He is presently an artist member at The Fine Arts Center of Hot Springs.

He is also a museum professional, having recently retired as curator and program director at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News, Virginia, a position he had held since October 2004. Prior to his work in Hampton Roads, he was deputy director for programming at the Arkansas Arts Center.

Preble also served as guest curator for the William Baziotes exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, and is editor of the William Baziotes Catalogue Raisonné project.

Preble holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history from Cornell University and a Master of Arts degree in humanities from California State University at Dominguez Hills. Born in Tampa, Florida, he calls New Orleans home because that is where he grew up and attended the Newman School.

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 center is closed on Mondays and major holidays.

For more information, call (501) 372-4000 or visit arkansasartscenter.org.

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