Printmaker Hobbs gets high praise
ARTIST TO WATCH
The end of 2023 brought about all sorts of lists from websites and publications, including this one. There were lists of the year’s best music, movies, books, cars, TV shows, games and more. There were also lists that leaned toward prognostication, with recommendations for what are expected to be some of the more notable albums, movies, events (hello, April 8 solar eclipse), etc., that we can look forward to this year.
Over at artnet.com a group of curators, art directors and collectors were asked which painters they thought would make an impact in 2024 and an Arkansas native was among the eight singled out for notice.
Printmaker LaToya Hobbs, who grew up in Little Rock and now lives in Baltimore, was praised by Oregon-based collector Jordan Schnitzer as an artist on the rise.
“LaToya Hobbs’ woodcuts are stunning,” he said.
Schnitzer is a real estate magnate who has a collection of more than 20,000 artworks. He told artnet. com that he acquired Hobbs’ entire portfolio after seeing her work at the International Fine Print Dealers Association Fair.
Hobbs, who is married to fellow artist and Arkansas native Artemis Jacks, is a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art. “Carving Out Time, Scene 1: Morning,” her huge woodblock print depicting her and Jacks with their two children in bed, was in “Together,” the inaugural exhibit at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts when it reopened in April.
‘REACHER’ ROAMS ARKANSAS Season two of the popular Amazon Prime series “Reacher” debuted Dec. 15 with our hero — peripatetic, ultra-jacked, crime-fighting U.S. Army veteran Jack Reacher — in Murfreesboro!
Penny Lamb, Murfreesboro’s recorder/treasurer, and her, husband, Randy are fans of the show and had to look twice when they saw the on-screen graphic telling viewers an early scene was set in their hometown.
“We had to back it up and look at it again,” she said last week.
The show is filmed in Ontario, Canada, so the “Reacher” version of Murfreesboro is different than real life.
“It was a surprise to see a resell shop, a bunch of two-story buildings and a whole line of shops because our shops are on a square,” Lamb said.
Reacher, who is played by Alan Ritchson, wasn’t digging for gems at Crater of Diamonds State Park on his visit to Murfreesboro. Instead, he had to deal with a bored thrift-store clerk before rescuing a mother and her young son from an armed carjacker. After putting a serious whupping on the bad guy, he is summoned to New York City to look into the murder of a friend. All this takes place over the course of about three minutes early in the episode.
Hopefully Reacher’s next trip to Arkansas is more relaxing.