River Valley Arts Center to present Beaux Arts Awards
RUSSELLVILLE — This year’s Beaux Arts Awards Ceremony will be a little different than in years past. It will be virtual and livestreamed on the center’s Facebook page at 5 p.m. May 1.
Kim Hon, executive director of the River Valley Arts Center, said the change is a result of restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We can’t gather in person with a big audience like in the past,” she said. “The event will be held here in the gallery at the Arts Center and available for public viewing on our Facebook page.
“This is the first virtual ceremony that we have had in the 40 years we have been in business, and we are glad to be able to continue the [awards ceremony] tradition, even if it is a little different this year,” Hon said. “We are excited to honor the nominees. They are all amazing people with such amazing talent and hearts to match.”
Hon said the Beaux Arts Awards are “dedicated to the advancement of all art forms … to encourage excellence in art and recognize and honor all the many enormously talented area artists and supporters. Recipients may be selected for a body of work or years of continuous service or for an individual extraordinary accomplishment.”
Inductees will receive a unique blackware pottery piece, featuring a Spirit Bear emblem, designed and created especially for this honor by retired RVAC Artist-in-Residence Winston Taylor. Taylor is also an award recipient this year but will receive an award other than the Spirit Bear.
This year’s honorees include Valerie Enchelmayer of Russellville, Lifetime Award; Janet Wiley of Russellville, Patron Award; Lisa Jones of Dover, Visual Art Award; Jason Campbell of Pottsville, Performing Arts Award; and Winston Taylor of Russellville, Service Appreciation Award.
Following is a brief look at each honoree.
VALERIE ENCHELMAYER, LIFETIME AWARD
Enchelmayer has been involved in the arts community for several years. She was a member the RVAC Board of Directors for four years and helped with its summer arts camp as a member of the Russellville Junior Auxiliary.
She received a Bachelor of Science in Education degree in elementary education with a minor in music, with emphasis on vocal performance, from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway and a Master of Science in Education degree in counseling and psychology from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. She has been an adjunct instructor at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville and a longtime substitute teacher with the local school district.
Enchelmayer has been singing all of her life, but she also took piano for many years while growing up and played trumpet and French horn in middle and junior high school, before switching to only choral music — full chorus, chamber choirs and madrigals.
“At the age of 11, I began my foray into the thespian world of musicals,” she said. “Since then, I have been in
numerous musicals, stage plays, dinner theaters and one opera while living in Illinois, Alabama and Arkansas.”
Enchelmayer has performed in four musicals in Russellville with the River Valley Arts Center and also donated her services as producer for the three most recent musicals produced by the Arts Center.
“I feel both honored and humbled to have been chosen as the recipient of the Lifetime Supporter Beaux Arts Award,” Enchelmayer said. “It touches me deeply in my heart, and I will always believe in, appreciate, participate in and support all the different forms of the arts that the River Valley Arts Center brings to the River Valley.”
JANET WILEY, PATRON AWARD
Wiley, a retired nurse, said she was shocked when she learned she was a recipient of a Beaux Arts award.
“I was thrilled, too,” she said, smiling. “I love this place (the River Valley Arts Center). I am honored to be recognized.”
Jones said she lived her first 18 years in Akron, Ohio.
“I was inspired in high school by an amazing art teacher who introduced us to several forms of art and encouraged us to try new things,” she said. “I actually had some talent and fell in love with art.
“I left for [Houghton College] in Upstate New York when I graduated from high school, and my parents left for Russellville at the same time,” she said. “My dad was transferred [here] by Firestone.”
She met her husband, the late Bill Wiley, at Houghton College. They moved to Russellville in 1976, and she finished college at Arkansas Tech.
“In the ’90s, my husband talked me into going to nursing school,” Wiley said. “I wasn’t enthusiastic about this, but it was a great decision. I love nursing.
“While working as a hospice nurse, I became friends with a very special person, Toni Bachman, [longtime RVAC supporter and board member],” Wiley said. “She introduced us to the amazing artistic community in Arkansas.
“She showed us that Russellville had a thriving art community,” Wiley said. “We became involved with the River Valley Arts Center, enjoying many of the opportunities they offered. We went to plays, concerts, theme-night dinners, pottery demonstrations, galas, tours and art displays. This organization really improved the quality of our lives, and we were so grateful.”
She said that after the death of her husband in 2013, a friend of hers encouraged her to try painting. Wiley joined the artists at Lemley House, a community of local artists who meet weekly and paint together.
“I am a strong supporter of the River Valley Arts Center because a small town with such a rich artistic community is blessed to have a center giving them an opportunity to participate in making and displaying art, acting and singing in plays and having hands-on instruction in many forms of art for adults and children,” Wiley said.
“I talked to a girl recently who told me that the Arts Center influenced her as a child to pursue art after taking lessons there,” she said. “What a legacy. Who wouldn’t want to support that?”
LISA JONES, VISUAL ART AWARD
Jones was born in Providence, Rhode Island. She graduated from Ola High School in 1977 and from Arkansas Tech in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in art education, K-12, and a master’s degree in gifted and talented education in 1989. She has taught school for almost 40 years.
“This is my 39th year of teaching,” she said, smiling. “I am retiring this year. I taught most of my career in the Pottsville School District.” “I love what I do,” she said. Jones said she has been a crafter for as long as she can remember.
“I find crafting relaxing and enjoyable,” she said. “I started taking painting classes at the River Valley Arts Center seven years ago under the instruction of Darlene McNeely. It was in her classes that I found my love for oil painting. The more practice I got, the more I began to see my techniques and the overall quality of my work improve.
“I dabble in watercolor, acrylic and Prismacolor pencils,” she said. “However, oil painting is my favorite medium.”
Jones said she is honored to be a recipient of the Beaux Arts award.
JASON CAMPBELL, PERFORMING ARTS AWARD
Campbell said it is a true honor to receive a Beaux Arts Award.
He describes himself as a “music singer/songwriter … Arkansas-born artist who learned to play guitar at the age of 12.
“I then took an interest in songwriting and performing live shows all over the great state of Arkansas,” he said. “I have shared the stage with many great artists along the way and have performed at special events, festivals, fairs, clubs and many other events throughout my musical career.
Campbell moved to Nashville, Tennessee, when he was 21.
“I signed my first songwriting deal with a major publishing company, which eventually landed me my first two official ‘cuts’ on platinum-selling country artist Sammy Kershaw’s ‘I Want My Money Back’ album,” Campbell said. “I later released my first album, ‘Singletree,’ followed by my second album, ‘Dirt,’ on all major internet outlets.”
Campbell’s newest album is “The Voyage,” which is available for streaming and download. He is set to release a new single soon.
“I’ll keep doing what I love to do as long as the people still want to hear my music, and when my time is up, I hope they remember my songs,” Campbell said.
WINSTON TAYLOR, SERVICE APPRECIATION AWARD
Taylor, a potter and artist in the Arkansas River Valley area, taught pottery and did demonstrations for more than 30 years at the River Valley Arts Center and has created pottery for more than 48 years.
“I feel responsible now to continue to share as much knowledge as I can with the community,” he said.
“I am honored and thankful for this award,” Taylor said. “I really appreciate it. This community has been good to me for the past 30 years.
“I am still making pottery,” Taylor said, smiling. “This past year has been hard on the arts community, but for me, I’ve stayed fairly busy. The work comes to me. … I am doing a lot of commission work.”
Taylor is 1967 graduate of Hall High School in Little Rock. He was called to active duty in 1968-69 during the USS Pueblo crisis when North Korea captured the U.S. Navy ship in the Sea of Japan. He enrolled at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1972 to study art, but it would take quite a few years before he finished college, graduating in 1987 with a degree in art, with an emphasis in ceramics.
In the early years of his career, he also taught in a grant-funded program called Kids at Art, going into the local elementary schools to teach a multimedia art series to students in fourth and fifth grades.
“I did that for 13 years,” he said. “When the elementary schools were mandated to hire art teachers full time, Kids at Art was no longer needed.”
Among his accomplishments at the River Valley Arts Center was the design and building of a water garden as a memorial to seven Russellville residents, including RVAC board president Gordon McLerran and his wife, Joyce, who were killed in an airline crash in Little Rock in 1999.
The Arkansas Arts Council named Taylor the 2011 Arkansas Living Treasure. He was chosen as the Beaux Arts Academy Outstanding Visual Artist in 2012 and received an Arkansas Arts Award for Art Education in 1993.
Taylor’s work can be found at Boswell-Mourot Fine Art in Little Rock and at the Historic Arkansas Museum gift shop, also in Little Rock.
For more information on the River Valley Arts Center and the upcoming Beaux Arts Awards ceremony, visit
rivervalleyartscenter.org or the center’s Facebook page. Information is also available by calling (479) 968-2452 or emailing rvartsscenter@ gmail.com.