NLR festival joins art, innovation

Power-tool drag racing among activities, creativity on display

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --05/2/2015--
Stefanie Fleck, left, plugs in her chainsaw propelled bicycle to race agaist Luis Cobos, right, and a belt sander powered skateboard during a Powertool Drag Racing demonstration at the North Little Rock Mini Maker Faire on Saturday. The Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub organized the science themed event.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --05/2/2015-- Stefanie Fleck, left, plugs in her chainsaw propelled bicycle to race agaist Luis Cobos, right, and a belt sander powered skateboard during a Powertool Drag Racing demonstration at the North Little Rock Mini Maker Faire on Saturday. The Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub organized the science themed event.

After a few last-minute adjustment whacks with a hammer, the circular-saw-propelled contraption on wheels was off, buzzing down a wooden track and halting about 40 feet later with a crash into a stack of hay bales.

Power-tool drag racing -- with regular household power tools set on wheels and mutated into dragsters with names such as Arkansas Crusher -- was just one of several innovative exhibits at Saturday's North Little Rock Mini Maker Faire.

Hosted by the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub, the festival also presented booths featuring robots, catapults, blacksmiths and more. Even R2-D2 of Star Wars fame made an appearance.

The first-ever event, a single-day exhibition of creative contraptions, was held in conjunction with the 2015 Argenta Arts Festival, and the artists, tinkerers and onlookers who gathered in downtown North Little Rock couldn't have asked for a better-weather day.

Under a cloud-streaked blue sky, 34 Arkansas artists took part in the arts festival, a morning and afternoon event offering art for sale and live music.

"The weather is perfect," said Drue Patton, development and marketing director with the Argenta Arts Foundation, which organized the arts festival. "We've got a really nice crowd. The artists are very happy with it. So, I think a great day."

Formerly known as the Thea Arts Festival, the fourth year of the festival included a new organizer -- the Argenta Arts Foundation -- but had the same purpose.

"It gives artists a place to come out and show and sell their work," Patton said. "It's a great family event. Families can be exposed to art. As we do brand ourselves as an arts district, I think it is important to have a big arts festival such as this."

Beyond artists selling their works -- from paintings and prints to jewelry and ceramics -- the arts festival also included artists demonstrating their talents and local bands filling the spring day with music.

Sculptor Bryan Massey Sr. of Conway was one of the artists. A sculptor of 35 years, who creates his works with limestone, alabaster, cast iron, cast aluminum and cast bronze, Massey said he uses events like the Argenta Arts Festival to advertise his work.

"This is my fourth year here," he said. "People come by and take my card. It's a way to get my name out there. People have been coming by and visiting. I'm almost out of cards. That's a good sign."

The arts festival was held in a parking lot next to the William F. Laman Library's Argenta Branch. Across Poplar Street, dozens and dozens of tents were assembled for the Mini Maker Faire Festival, a local offshoot of the Maker Faire Bay Area, started in California in 2006 and organized by Make magazine. The North Little Rock event was one of more than 100 "mini faires" held around the world.

A street sign of PVC pipes greeted visitors as they entered the event, directing them to different areas. In Education World, Greenbrier High School students showed off their drone project. In Craft World, artists from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock department of art demonstrated woodworking. Other worlds included Flying World and Robot World, where R2-D2 lingered and model train sets were assembled.

Besides the various booths and demonstrations, the event also included competitions -- like the power-tool drag races.

"We thought because of what we are doing at the Innovation Hub, because it fits so well with our mission and we could offer this opportunity to people statewide and regionally ... we decided to pull off this inaugural event this weekend," said Warwick Sabin, executive director of the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub, a nonprofit dedicated to developing Arkansas' entrepreneurs and innovators. "It'll grow as people understand and appreciate what is involved with a Maker Faire."

Sabin said the Innovation Hub reached out to many of the exhibitors at the Maker Faire, having already built relationships with them. Others contacted the Innovation Hub after learning about the event.

"It's a pretty broad and diverse group of people," said Sabin, who also is a state representative from Little Rock. "It's everything from science and engineering to art and crafts to education to inventors to amateur technologies.

"There are really so many types of people here, and it's just scratching the surface in terms of what we think this will grow into in future years. We couldn't be happier with today. It's very inspiring."

Metro on 05/03/2015

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