Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Fort Smith to see Unexpected art
FORT SMITH —Seven internationally known street artists who have left their creations this year in places such as Grudziaz, Poland; Bangkok; and Lismore, Australia, are converging this week to leave their marks on western Arkansas.
The artists, along with students from the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith and Northside and Southside high schools, will spend a week painting murals and fashioning sculptures in downtown Fort Smith in the second year of the Unexpected street art festival. Artists began their work Friday and will continue through next Sunday.
The name for the festival recognizes that it is unexpected to find such works of public art covering the walls of downtown Fort Smith buildings, according to 64.6 Downtown, the group that organized the festival to promote public art and downtown Fort Smith.
Adding to the 10 works completed during last year’s inaugural festival, 10 more are planned this year.
One project began early with Puerto Rican artist Alexis Diaz painting a mural on a wall of the old Mountain Inn building at South College Avenue and East Center Street in Fayetteville.
As Diaz worked on the mural from a boom lift last week, nearby diners, passers-by and dog walkers stopped to watch with many taking pictures, Kolberg said.
The festival is an opportunity to bring people downtown, said Rodney Ghan with Ghan and Cooper Commercial Properties. Ghan, who is on the 64.6 Downtown board, said he invited artists to paint murals on three of his buildings last year and one artist will paint on another one this year.
“It’s a great shot in the arm for tourism for Fort Smith,” he said.
Event director Claire Kolberg said Unexpected was created last year to last three to five years, depending on the reaction from the community, and to bring in new artists and draw new audiences.
She said she hopes people will come downtown to watch the artists at work and that the artists enjoy interacting with the public.
During the week, the artists will work on various projects in and around downtown. The Northside and Southside high school students will paint a mural on one wall of Belle Starr Antiques at 21 N. Fourth St.
About 10 high school students supervised by six teachers will work on the mural, the design for which was chosen from ideas by students and teachers.
“We hope that the coming together of these two art programs to create artwork for the community will spark more collaboration between different departments in the Fort Smith community to aid in the revitalization of our unique downtown,” Southside art teacher David King said.
In addition to the painted murals, one of the artists, Artur Bordalo of Portugal, known as Bordalo II, is expected to create a trash animal sculpture from scrap metal. It will go into a small vacant spot between two buildings in the 700 block of Garrison Avenue.
“It will be a great addition to the green space,” Kolberg said.
An Irish artist known as Maser also is exhibiting a piece of his abstract sculpture this month at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith’s Windgate Art & Design building.
A two-man team from Los Angeles, David Leavitt and David Torres, collectively called Cyrcle, plan to create a video as they paint to encourage interaction between community and artists, Kolberg said.
Organizers of this year’s event expect the same thing this week in Fort Smith. Kolberg said the festival is a way to create public accessibility to art.
“We want people to continue to look to Fort Smith as an innovator in public art,” he said.
Others who will create art in Fort Smith this week are Dean Stockton of England, known as DFace; Faith47, a South African woman working out of Cape Town; Argentine artists Franco Fasoli and Francisco Diaz, known as Jaz and Pastel; Okuda San Miguel of Spain; and Guido van Helten of Brisbane, Australia.
“It’s a great shot in the arm for tourism for Fort Smith.”
— Rodney Ghan with Ghan and Cooper Commercial Properties