Conway artist’s work included in show
LITTLE ROCK — The ceramic work of Conway artist Barbara Satterfield will be featured in a group show at the Arkansas Capital Corporation Group headquarters in Little Rock through June.
Southern Curiosities features examples of Satterfield’s vessels from her Found Object Sculpture Series, along with paintings by North Little Rock artist Diane Harper, and prints and constructions by Little Rock artist Dominique Simmons.
The exhibit is available for viewing through June 26, including 2nd Friday Art Night, set for 5-8 p.m. June 12. Viewing during the week is by appointment only; call (501) 374-9247. The ACCG is headquartered at 400 River Market Ave., Fourth Floor, Suite 400, in Little Rock.
Robert Bean Fine Art curated the show, made up of personal memories, found objects and visual explorations of mapping that encourage viewers to identify with and recall where we come from and what we mean by “home.” Bean said the artists have infused elements of their locales, creating a distinctive exhibit resembling a Southern curio cabinet of impressions.
“A lifelong fascination with objects found in nature and my love of vessels melds with my professional interest in museum exhibitions in this Found Object Sculpture Series,” Satterfield said. “It affords me the opportunity to present selected items for unique contemplation by virtue of their placement on vessels or forms that honor the objects’ inherent line, form and implied mass.
“The pieces in this series serve as mounts for curiosities I have collected over the years: pods and galls, nests, echinoderm and shells, rocks and dirt and insect exoskeletons,” Satterfield said. “By collaborating with nature to explore ideas and create content, rather than making images ‘of ’ or ‘about’ nature, I continue this series as an homage to often-unexamined things, metaphorical thinking and the exploration of ceramics as a fine-art medium.”
Satterfield’s career in the arts spans 40 years in Conway and includes teaching creative dramatics for the city’s community arts association, working in public schools through the Artist-in-Education program of the Arkansas Arts Council, founding and directing a nonprofit children’s arts program (The Art Station) and serving as director of the Baum Gallery of Fine Art at the University of Central Arkansas and lecturer for the UCA Department of Art.
Since her retirement, Satterfield has reconnected with studio production and produced two series of ceramic work.
Her figurative series, And then, I: Monuments to Pivotal Moments, is currently touring public spaces in Arkansas towns with assistance from a grant sponsored by the Mid-America Arts Alliance ( www. andtheni.com).
Her vessels in the Found Object Sculpture Series have been selected for competitive exhibition, garnered awards and been privately collected ( www.barbarasatterfield.com).
Satterfield has utilized her 10 years of professional museum experience by creating BarbaraB: Exhibit Development and Design, a consulting business to assist artists and organizations with project visioning, exhibits and grant writing, programming and project management. She is responsible for organizing the two-year tour of Arkansas Champion Trees: An Artist’s Journey, Drawings by Linda Williams Palmer for travel, for authoring its state and private grant funding, for creating the content for the exhibit materials and website, and for visioning and managing the educational outreach component, “Growing Champion Classrooms.”
Satterfield is a fellow of Artist Inc. Argenta in North Little Rock. Her arts community service includes executive board membership on the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Committee of One Hundred to Benefit the Ozark Folk Center State Park, and a board membership with the Thea Foundation.
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