The Idle Class: The Artist Issue

the idle class THE ARTIST ISSUE

CELEBRATING THE ARTS IN ARKANSAS SUMMER 2014

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THE ARTIST ISSUE SUMMER 2014

ARTISTS WE LOVE

HIDDEN GENIUS

Here’s a glimpse of the many talented artists in Arkansas who work in exciting mediums.

Tim West lived in the woods around Winslow for years crafting art to national acclaim.

STORYTELLING

IL MAESTRO

Beth Post crafts narratives through lines and color.

Stephan Cefalo has a plan to teach Renaissance painting styles in Argenta.

MAN OF ACTION

INSPIRED BY SKY

Aaron Kuder quit his day job as an electrician. Now he writes and illustrates for DC Comics.

Hank Kaminsky looks for beauty in negative spaces when creating his sculptures.

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PAINTING / EDDIE LOVE

MUSIC

30 crowne of gold

Brian Crowne goes from struggling musician to NWA’s top promoter.

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FASHION

34 terminally chill

Fayettechill builds a lifestyle brand that is quickly catching fire.

WRITING

40 the gravedigger’s burden

Schuler Benson leaves no headstone unturned in his short story collection.

Uptown Eyes features the artist Anthony Davis.

Join us for an evening of art, music, food and beverages on Thursday Sept. 4th from 5-9 pm.

Megan Baureis, O.D. Holly Andersen, O.D. 100 E. Joyce Blvd Fayetteville, AR 72703 479.966.4232 UptownEyesNWA.com Hang your art or wear your art. We have cutting-edge styles of frames from brands like SALT, Oliver Peoples and more.

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EDITOR'S

NOTE

A PUBLICATION OF

RIOT ACT MEDIA, LLC P.O. Box 4853 Fayetteville, AR 72702 editorial@idleclassmag.com

PHOTO / LAUREN SHUTTER

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o in the course of putting this issue together, I had a debate with my friend Marty Shutter about what to call it. I’ve referred to it as “the artist issue” all along, but he brought up a good point - aren’t all creative people “artists.”

I agree with the statement, but “artist” in this case is more of a formal meaning and less of a colloquialism. Semantics aside, I’ve wanted to do an issue focusing on visual artists for a while. There are so many talented individuals in our state that you really can’t drive a few blocks (in some towns) without seeing art.

From the national recognition that Crystal Bridges brings to northwest Arkansas to the upcoming Studio Argenta School of Figurative Art that Stephan Cefalo is opening in North Little Rock, a lot of exciting things are happening across the state right now for visual arts. But sometimes it’s the little things - public art or a small gallery where you least expect it - reminds us how lucky we are to live in a state with such a rich culture.

If it had been possible, this issue would have been twice as long. We spoke with many great artists and we didn’t even scratch the surface. We will do our best to keep spotlighting our favorite visual artists, whether they be painters, scupltors or even weavers, every chance we get.

Kody Ford Editor/Publisher

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EDITOR/PUBLISHER Kody Ford MANAGING EDITOR Katie Wyatt EDITOR-AT-LARGE Jeremy Glover COPY EDITOR Marti Nicholson CONTRIBUTORS Chad Arnold Ben Matthews Colley Bailey Andrew McClain Megan Burges Mac Murphy Nicholas Claro Dave Morris Morgan Cook Beth Post Vikram Desai Christina Reginelli Danielle Green Lauren Shutter Diana Hausam Trent Sugg Katy Henriksen Katy Tipton Rachel Hill Jane Urquizu Jade Howard Kat Wilson Jaime Holland COVER Beth Post

FOLLOW US

ARTISTS WE LOVE Elizabeth Sharp

Illustration, Collage, Graphic Design Fayetteville, AR “I consider art any type of creation.

Taking a power from within yourself and projecting into another form. I personally combine the practical, functional aspects of design with the expressive and emotional qualities of art. Combining the two enriches my experience of creation. My aesthetic is very organic, feminine but also a raw, graphic edge.”

“With a background in Philosophy and Critical Theory, it’s hard to frame an understanding of what art means to me without tangential discussions of philosophers and concepts; it’s a problem I’ve been working on and that teaching children has been helping.

Phillip Rex Huddleston Illustration Little Rock, AR

“Currently, I see my own art as commissions and fun doodads that others can appreciate without requiring a litany of academic education. While I’m planning to get serious in my art over the next few years (with all the pretense that may be projected onto me for that), now feels like the time to draw portraits for friends and Spiderman for students.”

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ARTISTS WE LOVE

Eddie Love

Painting Fayetteville, AR “I loathe grandiose statements about the artist’s intent. Art is a calling, a need. It comes from within and must be released; it is not a choice.

Artists become artists out of necessity, not a whim because it seems like a casual thing to try on a Saturday: call it therapy, passion or love - don’t call it something it’s not. I create art for art’s sake. The process is for me.

The end result is for other people. They can do or think or say what they wish. If a painting or a song or a sculpture or a film or a piece of literature gets any sort of reaction, be it positive or negative, it has at the least, completed its task.”

Sonia Davis Gutierrez Site specific Installation Fayetteville, AR

“Using the medium of video installation, I recently created the reenactment of a dream that I experienced in 2009, sharing with gallery visitors a vision I have for the Catholic church where anyone may participate in communion and one can take as much communion as one needs. This dream reflects not only my Catholic upbringing but my Mexican heritage by the iconic substitution of Mexican sweet bread for the Body of Christ. In experiencing this work, I invite people to reflect on their own stories of communion, search for inclusion and fulfillment of their personal spiritual, emotional and physical hungers.”

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ARTISTS WE LOVE

Avila

Painting Little Rock, AR “For more than 100,000 years, man has used art as the best tool in his arsenal to place in perspective the world that surrounds him. Carved objects, paintings in caves, sculptures, all those things helped him to contemplate reality, dream, and lose the fear of new challenges, finding solutions to emerging problems. Today, we have a society that uses art mostly as a decorative, theatrical and amusement element of our lives without giving the sufficient significance and thought to counterbalance the apprehension caused by the anticipation of jumping to new conclusions due to the ever present necessity of adapting ourselves to new circumstances. What I do most of the time when I create a painting is precisely the opposite of that. I use paint on a canvas to make a road map, to present ideas that could help guide and inspire individuals on their endeavors, since I believe that by pointing out what we do simplifies finding out who we are…”

Claire Brankin

Illustration, Sculpture Little Rock, AR “I am concerned with mending the gap between body and self, as well as between self and others. Images of hands and shoulders simultaneously inspire an infantile longing and offer something to study, feeding a need for understanding, for science. They aim to place the viewer between the fantasy of perception and the restriction of self-knowledge, between the Freudian id and superego, somewhere sweet but industrial.”

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ARTISTS WE LOVE

M

Mim Wynne & Greg Thomas

Weaving & Wood Turning Fayetteville, AR

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im Wynne traces the roots of her creativity to her childhood in Chicago. She remembers that during a bout of strep throat, her mother gave her a clear bottle, a mountain of yarn, fabric scraps and a knitting needle and showed her how to entertain herself by making fabric landscapes inside the bottle. By layering the colors and textures, she saw that fabric could become a living thing and that being five years old and sick in bed could really be fun. After the strep throat had passed, the room was full of fabric-landscape bottles and Wynne had fallen in love with cloth.

Fast forward to college when Wynne began to weave and create her own fabric on her first loom. “I’m basically self-taught,” she said. “There was nobody to ask for guidance so I just dived in and made every mistake possible - once.”

Perseverance eventually paid off when Neiman Marcus discovered her rug collection and put her work on the cover of their catalog. “I produced rugs for Neiman’s for over a year along with custom orders for 25 of my own interior design clients. I got used to a 60-hour week and later I discovered the beauty of a long vacation. What an idea!”

Wynne’s life abruptly changed when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2003. “I closed my rug weaving business by sitting down with a telephone and a stiff drink and calling every interior designer and gallery owner I was working with to thank them and say goodbye. Facing forward was the hardest thing to do but I did it and my work is better for it.”

Wynne sells her hand-dyed, handwoven scarves and ikat pillows alongside her trademark rugs at The Handmade Market in Fayetteville, which she and her husband, Greg Thomas, own. Their store offers gourmet food and a variety handcrafted products from around the country.

Thomas spent the last 27 years living a double life. For three decades he drove a truck for Walmart, a job that allowed him to have every other week off to do what he loved - working with wood. He began as a fine furniture maker but fell in love with wood turning after talking a class from a master wood turner.

Thomas has a studio filled with chisels, bowl gouges, woodworking machines, and, most importantly, pieces of logs. He takes unique pieces of wood and crafts them into bowls and platters.

This intricate process requires patience and an artist’s eye.

“I let the wood lead me” Thomas said. “With each cut, you make a whole series of decisions about orientation and they add up to the final product. This process is absorbing, rewarding and always an adventure.”

Thomas sells his work at the Arkansas Artist Gallery at The Butler Center in Little Rock and at The Handmade Market. He recently retired from truck driving to devote more time to his craft, his wife and their business. They both enjoy working on the art and at the store. Sometimes, you will even find Mim at her loom in the backroom at The Handmade Market, her attention rapt on the task at hand, almost as if she is doing work. But really, it’s all fun. - Kody Ford

ARTISTS WE LOVE

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he’s done it again. Little Rock artist Sandy Hubler is preparing her art to be represented in yet another gallery this year, this time at the Two 25 Gallery in Bentonville.

A native of Henderson, Ark., Hubler has always had a passion for art.

Arkansas State University awarded her an art scholarship after high school and in the years since, she has worked diligently to grow as an artist. Now she is getting to see all of her hard work pay off.

Hubler’s work ranges from florals and landscapes, to western and wildlife, all the way to structure and abstract paintings. She said she usually uses oils on linen and canvas, but isn’t afraid to mix it up from time to time with some soft pastels. As for her environment, “I prefer to paint outside as a ‘Plein Air Artist’ for my smaller landscape paintings,” Hubler said. “I so love the beauty of natural settings. Some of my favorite landscapes are Spring and Fall in the Ozarks.”

When she isn’t painting small landscapes in the Ozarks, Hubler is in her home studio beautifully covering canvases up to several feet in size. “I don’t want to limit myself from learning or experimenting with my art,” Hubler added. “My favorite subjects are landscapes, horses and the female nude. But, I have been known to paint an abstract and have fun with it”.

Hubler and her late husband also purchased an art gallery and framing company in Little Rock named The Showroom and she has now owned and operated it for over 10 years.

Sandy Hubler Painting Little Rock, AR

“My job is something I look forward to everyday and I get more inspired as the time goes by,” she said.

Hubler not only owns her own gallery, but she is also featured in eight different galleries throughout the Mid-South and Midwest. She currently has art located in the Arkansas Convention Center, and even in the Governor’s Mansion.

“I am so lucky, I do what I love and love what I do,” Hubler said. “What on earth could be more fulfilling?”

- Morgan Cook

visit: sandyhublerfineart.com

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STORYTIME BETH POST CREATES NARRATIVES THROUGH SHAPES & DESIGN.

WORDS / ANDREW MCCLAIN PHOTO / CHRISTINA REGINELLI

STORYTELLING IS MORE THAN JUST SPOKEN OR WRITTEN WORDS. Visuals bring things to life. Whether it be a cover of The New Yorker or a children’s book, illustrations can capture the imagination for a laugh or a tear or a moment of poignancy. A good illustrator understands the nuances of the craft and how to utilize them for these ends.

Beth Post, illustrator for The Idle Class and art professor, has honed her skills over the years. Growing up in Russellville, Ark., she was always interested in figure drawing and fashion while her sister excelled in math and science. She recalls showing her dad a drawing in high school one day, and his response, “Oh! I always wondered what you were good at!” The interest grew more serious as she got older.

Eventually, she graduated from the University of Central Arkansas with a degree in painting before earning her MFA in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design. Over the next few years she worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas and the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith before joining the faculty at the Pratt Institute, one of the more prestigious institutions for art education in the US. Situated in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, notable alumni include Jack Kirby (creator of X-Men and other Marvel Comics with Stan Lee) and Dan Clowes, creator of “Ghost World,” and “Art School Confidential,” which is based on his life at Pratt.

Just 250 miles upstate in Utica, N.Y., the Munson-WilliamsProctor Arts Institute runs a two-year subsidiary school called Pratt MWP, where Post works as an assistant professor.

At Pratt MWP, Post teaches Illustration, Methods and Media, and Light and Color Design. She’s also active in several arts groups and cooperatives in Utica, like Upstate

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Flux, which helps secure studio spaces for artists, a community edification effort called Project U, and a nonprofit called Sculpture Space, which provides endowment (and space) for artists from around the world. She feels that working in such environments is conducive to an artist’s process and abilities.

“Being an educator also motivates the instructor because you’re always around like-minded people who are just as excited about drawing and designing,” she said. “Opportunity favors those who are working.”

Post’s understanding of art extends far beyond her own aesthetic (as any art educator’s should) into an all-encompassing, interdisciplinary view of art that is refreshingly unpretentious. She values narrative above any other quality in her own work. “I’ve always enjoyed writing stories and poems,” she said. “A lot of painters, they’re about the form, the design, pushing different types of values and colors. Understanding form is key, but I feel I need to go beyond this to also include a story or get across an emotion.”

Her love for storytelling shows itself at every turn. Last year, she self-published a children’s book called “Cautious Meets Greg” about a shy hedgehog named Cautious and an extroverted fox named Greg. “I actually just visited my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Vega in Russellville,” she said. “She read my book to the class, they asked me questions and I taught

them how to draw cats. I have plans to write a new one, but it’s still in process.”

She’s also working on a set of illustrations inspired by Italo Calvino’s story “The Distance of the Moon.” Right now she’s gearing up for a big art show this Fall. Post has made a steady gig of doing commercial illustration, her preferred method being digital watercolor, so the task at hand becomes the process of getting these illustrations ready to show.

And that’s a crucial part of what makes Beth Post so unique; her skill as an illustrator makes her a commodity, but her drive to make good art is what will ensure that she sticks around. Such ability and attention to the craft takes time. When asked if she’d ever want to teach at Pratt’s main campus in Brooklyn, Post didn’t pause before blurting out “Heck no,” chuckling to herself. “NYC is just too busy.”

VISIT: BETHPOST.COM Right: A page from “Cautious Meets Greg” Below: Regina Spektor Bottom Right: Poster for the film “Fatty in Wonderland”

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man of

ACTION AARON KUDER GAVE UP HIS DAY JOB & A STEADY PAYCHECK TO PURSUE HIS DREAM OF BEING A COMIC BOOK ARTIST. NOW HE ILLUSTRATES & WRITES FOR DC COMICS. SOME RISKS PAY OFF. WORDS / DAVE MORRIS PHOTOS / COLLEY BAILEY

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AS A NATIVE ARKANSAN BORN ON THE TAIL END OF GENERATION X, I grew up perceiving most people engaged in creative professional pursuits like acting, playing music, writing and drawing comic books as living (possibly in a galaxy) far, far away.

To me, it was more or less a foregone conclusion that if you wanted a “glamorous” job like one of the aforementioned, you needed to move to either New York or Los Angeles. Obviously a lot has changed since the days of my misspent youth. Thanks in large part to the internet and other advances in communications technology, you can do basically anything you want nowadays from the comfort of your home, or at least from the comfort of some room with a computer or other “smart” device and a fast Internet connection.

Enter Fayetteville resident Aaron Kuder, who for the past few years has made his living as a professional comic book artist and currently enjoys a high profile gig drawing Action Comics (yes, as in SUPERMAN in “Action Comics”) and more recently writing Superboy for DC Comics.

Born in Michigan, Kuder has lived all over the United States, but he has bounced back and forth between northwest Arkansas and upstate New York for the better part of his adult life. He even had stints working at iconic NWA music venues Clunk Music Hall and Chester’s. Before he got his first big break into comics, drawing the latter part (specifically issues 8-12) of the series “The Amory Wars: In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3” for BOOM! Studios, he worked as an apprentice electrician in Fayetteville. “The Amory Wars” name should be familiar to fans of the rock band Coheed and Cambria, since it is written by frontman Claudio Sanchez and is the comic book adaptation of the storyline to the conceptual basis of the band’s second album.

As far as how he got his start with such a high profile gig, Kuder said, “Ten Ton is an Internet comic book fan site that I am affiliated with. Through posting my art on that site, I was introduced to a number of people that eventually became professional comic book artists. It was that connection that got me the work on “Amory Wars,” which became an immediate learning curve because I had never drawn a full comic book before that. Even though I felt like I had no idea what I was doing, Claudio Sanchez and BOOM! Studios were amazingly helpful and courteous during that learning curve.”

One might think that Sanchez’s status as a very popular rock star would have added a great deal of extra pressure to this particular job, but that wasn’t the case. “It is kind of funny because I hadn’t heard of Coheed and Cambria before I started working on the book, so I was very surprised to find out that they have such an amazing following. It was a little daunting for me at first, but Claudio is an incredibly nice guy and really welcoming. We talked on the phone many times before working together, which is always helpful when starting a creative process. It helps you sync yourself up with the other person’s ideas and creative pathways,” said Kuder. Sanchez enjoyed working with Kuder so much he will utilize Kuder’s talents for his next project, “Key of Z,” also published by BOOM! Studios.

After his work with Sanchez and BOOM!, Kuder briefly returned to Ithaca, NY. Also around this time, he started doing bits of freelance work for the “Big Two” comic publishers - Marvel and DC. Regarding that time period, he said, “When I got my first job in comics, I thought that I would need to be close to a major metropolitan area. After working on “Green Lantern: New Guardians,” “SpiderMan,” starting some work with “Superman,” and working a number of conventions and getting to know more about the business side of comics, I quickly realized I can work from anywhere ‘with Internet.’ At which point, I was reintroduced to the love of my life and there was no taking her out of Arkansas, so I returned.”

Clearly living in northwest Arkansas has not had a negative effect on Kuder’s career in comics, as easily evidenced by the quantity and quality of work he has done. As previously mentioned, his other jobs for DC Comics paved the way for his current main project, drawing Action Comics alongside veteran writer Greg Pak. Again, conventional wisdom might indicate that working on such an iconic project relatively early in his career alongside an established industry name might be intimidating, but Kuder is not one to be daunted.

“Of course there is a certain amount of pressure when drawing THE superhero of superheroes and of course you want people to like it, but as a creator if you let the

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grandeur of a character or a story intimidate you, you will find it hard to be happy with the product which is the whole point of the job. So I try to not let it get to me. Though there are times that I fail, and the realization that I draw Superman brings upon mass hysteria and/or giddy fits.”

He continued, “I have actually been extremely lucky when it comes to people I have been paired up to work with... I have tried to learn from each of them. With Greg it’s been a totally different beast; we are building our own ‘series’ and we are telling our own story together, but yes, of course I learn from him.”

Kuder’s artistic work with DC Comics has been successful enough that DC has allowed him to branch out into another field - writing. Last September, as part of DC’s major promotional event “Villains Month,” he both drew and wrote “Superman #23.4,” featuring the villain Parasite, which lead to a longer term, ongoing writing engagement on “Superboy.”

In the future, he “absolutely” plans to do more writing as well. “There is nothing slated to start working on immediately, but I have grown to really love the writing side of making comics.”

Of course he will continue with his first love - drawing.

“I have always had an affinity for obscure characters. I would love one day to be on a book that centers around sidekicks or lesser known supporting casts; in order to be able to tell a zany fun story. I really appreciate comic books that have a sense of humor, but at the moment I can’t think of anybody in particular.”

Kuder has recently married and he and his wife plan to reside in northwest Arkansas indefinitely, although he “loves to travel” and indeed has to do so frequently for professional engagements, such as appearances at comic book conventions. Still, he has a great love of the area. “There are lots of little things that add up to a whole lotta ‘great.’ This area has awesome hikes and rivers, great music and some really down to earth, fun loving people. Ultimately, to put it simply, I have great friends, great family and great times here,” he said.

Although he is not currently involved in any local projects, he does have great ideas about supporting and giving back to the local community. “If I had more time, I would love to someday start up a comic book workshop with the local library, or whomever, but that would be a ways down the line. Point being, support your local library. Fayetteville has a great one.”

FOLLOW ON TWITTER: @AARONKUDER

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HIDDEN GENIUS TIM WEST MOVED TO WINSLOW TO GET AWAY FROM THE WORLD & IMMERSE HIMSELF IN ART. SHORTLY BEFORE HIS PASSING, THE WORLD TOOK NOTICE. WORDS / MAC MURPHY PHOTO / DIANA MICHELLE HAUSAM TIM WEST LOOKED LIKE SOMEONE MANY PEOPLE WOULD IGNORE. He lived in the woods with no running water. He bathed in a creek whenever he would bathe.

He rode an old bicycle everywhere he went. He lived with several cats in a home that many would deem worthy of being torn down. But what set him apart, was that he always created artwork.

Meanwhile, in New York City, the artwork of Tim West is displayed within the same walls as the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt and many more of the great artists in two of the most widely respected museums in the world - the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art. Tim’s story has roots in northwest Arkansas. His father and mother settled in Winslow when Tim was a child. They were both novelists and encouraged creativity in their son. They moved to Fayetteville before separating. His father moved to Eureka Springs and his mother took a job at the University of Illinois-Carbondale, where Tim would earn his MFA in art in 1962. At age 18, he sent his work into to MoMA in New York City and later to the Louvre in Paris. He was accepted into both establishments, a remarkable feat for a young artist.

Eight years later, he returned to his family’s original home in Winslow, where he continued to make art and decorated the landscape with sculptures, discarded bicycle parts and other people’s trash, ultimately creating a homestead that was a constantly evolving work of art.

West lived as a reclusive artist for 40 years. In 2006, Diana Michelle Hausam, a photographer and filmmaker in Northwest Arkansas, was driving around looking for places to photograph when she drove by a bicycle fence constructed

by West. She left a note, he responded via mail, and their friendship began. Soon after discovering that Tim was an artist, Hausam called me to set up a meeting for possible representation at M2 Gallery, which I run.

“To have such an amazing talent living right here…Tim was truly a hidden treasure in Arkansas,” said Hausam. “I feel very fortunate to have stumbled upon Tim, and even more

fortunate to have had the opportunity to document the last years of his life through photography and through film, and to continue to show my work with his.”

Tim was not the typical artist to arrive at the gallery.

The ragged and dirty sketchbooks are not what is normally brought to a gallery when an artist seeks representation. But, after only a few minutes of looking at the art and talking with Tim, I realized the brilliance in front of me.

The powerful line work and the rawness of the imagery is something that is truly rare in the art world. The dirt, the water damage and what the environment had done to Tim’s work was not, to me, a negative thing. It was, instead, a fitting final touch on his creations. Tim was as much a part of nature as anyone I had ever met. The fact that he didn’t really take care of his artwork was not a surprise. What nature did to the works was more like the final process in the creation.

“A lot of his work is soiled in some way - maimed,” said Joseph Johnson, a Little Rock collector. “But that’s okay. That’s Tim.” Aside from the condition of the work, many people will notice the two distinct styles of West’s drawings. There are the surreal landscapes with barren trees, water, cabins, old cars, trains, etc. Then, there are the scenes of bondage, torture and utter chaos that give another glimpse at Tim’s view of the world.

“We’re all a slave to the machine,” said Matt Barney, a collector from Memphis. “Some are slaves to relationships, some are slaves to work, some are slaves to our own selves.

In Tim’s work, you can see the dark, ugly side of what being a slave to something really is. It causes you to look inward and reflect on yourself.”

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IMAGE (UPPER LEFT) COURTESY OF MoMA. OTHERS COURTESY OF M2 GALLERY.

“Well, maybe four out of 100 will understand my art. For those four, they will be led by whatever force to find me and my art. It’s a long walk to an unknown destination. I have no idea what I am doing. I am ashamed of my obsession and beauty is impossible to define accurately. Still, I guess I know what I’m doing and compare it with what I could have done, but didn’t.

“I understand art; I don’t understand art. Do we really know why we are alive or what death is?

Who needs all the answers. Settle for a mystery. If words could say it all, who needs pictures?

“My work is created on impulse. Symbols and shapes take form without a clear path. Rhythm, repetition and design take shape as I fill my drawings and sculptures with my surroundings...trees, structures, bicycles. Life, eternity and death become my work. Why live, why die, why try?

“Have fun trying to figure me out and I can perhaps explain it a little better if I try. For more, I will sound like a fool. I’m 74 years old and don’t have any good explanation for how I lived or why.”

- Tim West, Artist’s Statement For many years, West thought his time to be recognized for his talent had passed him by. However, through M2 Gallery and through Hausam, he was able to see his work be appreciated for its brilliance. He had two very successful shows at M2 Gallery, and also did an artist talk where, decades after defending his thesis at the Unviersity of IllinoisCarbondale, he found himself in front of an audience once again discussing the one thing that was most important to him – his art.

West has been gone from this world for over two years now, but thanks to his artwork and to Hausam, he will indeed live on.

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Mac Murphy is the co-owner and manager of M2 Gallery, located at 11525 Cantrell Road in Little Rock. To view West’s artwork and Hausam’s photographs of him, visit M2 Gallery in Little Rock. The gallery showcases numerous drawings

by West dating as far back as 1953, engravings dating as far back as 1958 and sculptures created on his property in Winslow. Call 501-225-M2LR for more information or e-mail m2@m2lr.com.

VISIT: TIMWESTART.COM WESTLANDFILM.COM

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I L MA ES T RO STEPHEN CEFALO PLANS TO BRING THE METHODS OF THE RENAISSANCE MASTERS TO CENTRAL ARKANSAS WITH THE STUDIO ARGENTA SCHOOL OF FIGURATIVE ART. WORDS / JEREMY GLOVER 10

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IT WAS DECEMBER 28, 2005, Stephen Cefalo had been out of graduate school for a year, living in Bloomington, Ind., when his wife, Amy, gave birth to their son. It was the day he also first sketched out a 10-year plan for his dream of starting an art school based on traditions and techniques of the old masters.

Soon after he relocated his family to Little Rock for what he thought was a brief period of teaching before moving on to another place. But something about the city worked for him not only artistically and professionally, but his family thrived and made deep connections.

Last year, Cefalo took an Artist Inc. art business workshop in Argenta. During a slide presentation of his work and ideas, he decided to stick in one final slide that announced an Argenta Studio of Drawing and Painting coming in 2015. All of the Argenta developers that were there began asking him why they hadn’t known about this and were excited about the idea. A dream he first shared nearly a decade ago with his wife and newborn began to take shape.

John Gaudin, the founding board president of the Argenta Arts Foundation and a driving force behind the district’s development, knows Cefalo’s reputation as a great teacher and technical artist. Gaudin believes his ideas for the school have a lot of merit.

“The potential for the school is very promising. Stephen and Amy are approaching the idea with an advisory board in a well thought out strategy,” Gaudin said. “Great art districts typically have several anchor venues or institutions. With the THEA Foundation and the Argenta Community Theater already successful anchors, adding Studio Argenta to the mix solidifies the district’s art reputation.”

The first workshop for what is now known as Studio Argenta School of Figurative Art was held earlier this summer with plans for independent, mostly weekend workshops until they have reached a critical mass on money and resources to acquire a building. At that point, the plan is to begin offering both full-time and part-time programs.

While his partners in the Argenta community take care of the business aspects of the Studio Argenta, Cefalo will handle the creative end: designing the curriculum, writing all the core philosophies and putting together the website.

“I think it always frightens me when I am taken seriously, because I still feel like a kid,” Cefalo said.

“I felt like it was never a question for me,” Cefalo said. “I never remember a point where I didn’t think I would be an artist. “

Cefalo’s earliest years were spent just outside Philadelphia where his parents owned an Italian restaurant. As far back as he can remember all he wanted to do was draw pictures.

“My first experience seeing paintings were portraits of the founding fathers,” he said. “I remember being six and seeing the velvet pants on these founding fathers and being, ‘Wow, that feels like velvet. That’s not a photograph. And somebody made that with paint and it was unmistakably velvet.’ That was really the first thing that captured my imagination and made me think, ‘Could I do that?’”

When he was in eighth grade, Cefalo and a friend produced a 20-page comic book staying up working on it as late as they could before his mom would take it to print at work and then sell them for a $1 each. They turned to an unlikely reference point for a junior high produced comic book – Michelangelo’s work as a guide for anatomy.

It’s also when Cefalo fell in love with the tense, dramatic serratus anterior muscle group that has been a showcase for everyone from old masters to modern comic artists. A lifelong pursuit of the perfect rendering of the serratus muscle has been a driving force behind his work ever since.

“They hook into your ribs like fingers. They are still my favorite muscles to draw,” he said. “My greatest obsession is the tangibility of bone through skin, giving that feeling of a rib cage or bone in forehead through the skin. It’s like the Holy Grail and you never get there (laughs).”

His reclusive aunt Marilyn, who is a realistic painter and sculptor, gave Cefalo his first oil painting lessons, which sparked his interests in learning all that he could. For Cefalo, much of his adolescence was spent alone, filled with days skateboarding to library and reading every art book that was available.

“It was this unquenchable hunger for visual stimuli,” he said. “It was like feeding my soul, you know?”

While he admittedly struggled with a lot of the aspects of traditional public school education, his interests in drawing and painting led to teaching himself about mythology, anatomy and the mechanics of lighting.

“The common thread through all of it was just the love of moving torsos around – making poetry out of the movement of torsos and faces,” he said.

An ultimate goals for Cefalo that he pursues through his

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Above: Self-portrait as a Family Tree (Oil on canvas, 20”x16”) Right: Iconoclast (Oil on wood, 36”x24”) Previous page: Starsheep (Oil on wood, 10”x10”) paintings is creating a world that he can continually return to that is real and resonates with the essence of life, like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth or the Star Wars mythos.

“I think that world kind of exists in a way,” he said. “The history of art is like this world. If you walk through a museum you’re not looking at your own world, you are not even looking at a world that existed. It is this kind of otherly place that I’m always trying to get to in the paintings – build my own wing on it.”

When speaking with Cefalo for even a moment, his enthusiasm and appreciation for where he has been in his life, and what he wants to do next, is always evident. Much of what has lead him to living, working and teaching in Arkansas while pursuing his dream of an art school is based on formative experiences of learning what he did not want professionally.

After attending undergraduate school at the former Savannah campus of the School of Visual Arts, Cefalo’s studies took some interesting twists and turns when he moved to New York. He was training to be a romance novel illustrator when he was contacted by perhaps the most famous living artist, Jeff Koons, to work as an assistant painter in his studio. He then spent time working as an in-house illustrator for Nickelodeon. Upon returning to graduate school at the University of Indiana, Cefalo realized he was unable to focus all of his energy, drive and talent into furthering his understanding and

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application of the techniques of the old masters.

“I was wanting to go really deep into traditional painting techniques,” he said. “I found art school limiting and I couldn’t put all my energy in one spot.”

Most art schools now are based on the Bauhaus model that originated in early 20th century Germany, where they are multi-disciplined and different disciplines learn from one another instead of a more highly specialized and focused instruction. In the 90s, the Atelier movement was growing in the Northeast and based on more historical models of art education. The basic model allows for students study under one person’s vision, with a few instructors that teach variations of an overall philosophy that remains consistent.

“It’s building one skill on another in a sequence that is logical,” he said.

Besides working toward his dream of an Atelier-based art school, Cefalo is also pursuing an active painting career, teaching at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the Arkansas Art Center as well as private painting classes in his home studio. On top of all of these artistic and professional pursuits, Cefalo and his wife Amy, who works as a midwife, have six children. The sense of connectedness in the arts community in the state also feels like a big family for Cefalo.

“When you are the culture community, it’s all connected and it’s very easy to meet virtually everybody that’s interested in art,” he said. “There’s almost no kind of snobbery in Arkansas, everybody is just kind of folks.”

He admitted that it took a while at first for the state to

grow on him, as he felt it was a family and he was something of an outsider. This began to change when the community started taking an interest in his work and coming to him to learn and he, in turn, learned more about what the state and its people had to offer.

“It’s almost like the way things were in New York. In New York, New York mattered. And here it’s kind of an island. If they just think you are just blazing through the state, they are not really interested in what you are doing. If they see you as an Arkansan and you identify as an Arkansan, it’s a different thing,” he said. “It’s been the best decision we ever made, living here in Arkansas – for sure. We are here. We are Arkansans for life.”

VISIT: STUDIOARGENTA.COM

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FORGED FROM STEEL. INSPIRED BY SKY. HANK KAMINSKY DISCUSSES HIS WORK, HIS TRAVELS & FINDING BEAUTY IN NEGATIVE SPACES. INTERVIEW / KATY HENRIKSEN PHOTOS / KAT WILSON

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“I KEPT MAKING SCULPTURES OF MOUNTAINS, but they didn’t quite satisfy my understanding. Then one very early morning, suddenly it came to me that I should sculpt the sky, working in the negative.

Then I would pour plaster into that to get a true picture of the mountains, one that would be removed from my direct experience by the fact that I had sculpted the sky.”

-- Sculptor Hank Kaminsky Sometimes an artist must leave the New York art world to become an artist, which is exactly what sculptor Hank Kaminsky did in 1971, when he first fell in love with the Ozarks. A friend he’d worked with at lower Manhattan’s prestigious art school Cooper Union asked him to come down and build a metal shop for an artist cooperative.

Whether creating on a grand scale, such as the majesty of the spinning orb Peace Fountain at Fayetteville’s Town Center, or through meticulously wrought tiny pieces of jewelry that he sells at the Fayetteville Farmer’s Market, Kaminsky’s aim is always the same. He wants to find God. Not that pointing a finger “thou shalt not” kind, but a universal truth that binds us all together.

We caught up with Kaminsky at his new studio in the basement of The Art Experience, where his wife practices art therapy and teaches art classes. The entrance reads “The Village Sculptor.” Although he only recently relocated from a much larger warehouse he was forced to vacate, it’s already brimming with artifacts, such as a brass horn given to him for scrap metal that he decided to salvage instead and small clay pieces he’s had, some since the 1960s, which he holds on to, knowing they will at some point lead to inspiration.

On your website you describe connecting with the mountains as a pivotal moment when you looked at the sky and realized you could sculpt from the negative. Why mountains?

HK: What I saw there was an aberration, a thing I couldn’t explain. The mountains seemed to be moving with respect to each other and I didn’t understand that. It was a trick of vision. When you’re in a moving vehicle it looks like the thing behind the mountain and the thing in front are shifting because you’re moving and that really excited me, because it was a visual thing I didn’t understand.

I began to see myself as a bird moving up into the sky and looking down on the mountains and realizing that the mountains were made of something other than mountains, that there was a word in the mountains. I started following that as an artist, inventing things that would explain why one mountain was moving with respect to the other.

You talk about the sky forming negative, can you elaborate on this thought?

HK: When you’re observing the universe through tools and oscilloscopes and meters and sensors, things that show you a picture of some feature of this field, you really don’t get it. The only real way to get it is to imagine it. Imagination is what I ended up believing in, wow, believing in my imagination was valid.

Maybe that’s the crisis I’m going through now. Maybe I’m beginning to think it’s not valid. It brings me to tears thinking about that because it’s true. I’ve never thought of it until just now. If you believe what you are is an impartial observer - and it turns out you’re not an impartial observer, you’re influenced by all kinds of things - you have to grow to expand and understand that or you can be buried by the idea that this stuff is never going to be understood. When I had to leave my big studio where I could do anything I wanted and move into this place, all of a sudden I had to change who I was or at least I thought I did. I’m going through a bit of a

crisis about that now.

You made a giant public work of art in the peace fountain and you also craft tiny little pieces of jewelry. I’m interested in if you approach big works differently than small.

The difference is how much you can talk about in a given space. If you write a poem you pack a lot of stuff into that poem. With an essay you have more time and approach more questions than if you were working in a small space.

With the peace fountain I had all kinds of room but I still kept it as simple as I possibly could.

When I was working on these landscape sculptures that started with the mountains moving I read a paper about tectonic plates on the Earth’s surface. If you look at the Western half of United States and South America you’ll see a spiral pattern. If you look at the other hemisphere there’s another spiral that goes through the Himalayas. Scientists measured those patterns and they came up with a measurement for the geometry of those patterns and it’s precisely the same geometry as the DNA molecule. That blew me away and it said there was a connection that went from the spiral galaxy down to the tiniest forms on Earth. And it was the same connection. It was the spiral and it was more than just the spiral, it was the spiral of life.

You showed me all these different little pieces you created back in, even the 1960s, that you carry with because you know that they will lead to a discovery?

HK: At times I’ve told people I’ve only been working on one piece all my life. It has manifestations that are different. It comes in different shapes, different sizes, different forms but it’s all the same piece and it has to do with how we got here.

That joining together of two tauruses. I have a word that I use to describe their relationship but it isn’t printable.

As an artist you were drawn to working with clay and metal - sculpture, how did those media find you?

HK: Those are all molding techniques. The thing that fascinated me most was clay. In fact when I was 19 years old I had this group of friends and they were all artists and I was just this goofy engineer type guy and one of them said, “You know, you write this really awful poetry about girls. You’ve gotta do something else. He handed me a piece of clay and said, “Play this and see what happens,” and I did. I fell in love with the stuff it’s amazing what you could do with it.

And that was the beginning.

My ex-wife and I took a trip - we spent three months driving around the country. I saw these pueblos out in New Mexico and Arizona and all these amazing forms and I wanted to sculpt them. I tried sculpting them in clay and then reproducing them with molding techniques. Then one night at about 3:30 in the morning, I was just exhausted, but I wanted to figure out what to do and I decided to sculpt the sky and pour the metal in. It’s still the molding technique but, instead of working in a form that I could reproduce, I worked in the negative. I was sculpting the sky and pouring the Earth out of plaster onto it and there it was. It was amazing.

When I moved to Arkansas I fell in love with the place, decided to stay here and was hired by Silver Dollar City to

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“AT TIMES I’VE TOLD PEOPLE I’VE ONLY BEEN WORKING ON ONE PIECE ALL MY LIFE. IT HAS MANIFESTATIONS THAT ARE DIFFERENT. IT COMES IN DIFFERENT SHAPES, DIFFERENT SIZES, DIFFERENT FORMS BUT IT’S ALL THE SAME PIECE AND IT HAS TO DO WITH HOW WE GOT HERE. THAT JOINING TOGETHER OF TWO TAURUSES. I HAVE A WORD THAT I USE TO DESCRIBE THEIR RELATIONSHIP BUT IT ISN’T PRINTABLE.”

design their silversmith shop. I took Joanne and we went on a trip around the country looking at antique reproductions of silversmith shops. In Williamsburg, Va., I watched someone who had a sand mold to cast a candlestick. He made an impression of the candlestick and with this negative mold of the candlestick and he took a tool, carved through the sand and the path he left behind him was a perfect reproduction of the movement of that tool through the sand and I said, ‘Wow, that’s home.’ That’s where I want to be. That’s the place that does it. It says everything that I can put into the negative of the sand would come out as the positive in the cast metal.

That started everything.

It’s a big change to move from New York City to the Ozarks.

I like to talk to artists about such transitions. What was yours like?

HK: New York has a lot of cultural advantages. It also has a disadvantage and that is there are trends that are being set in New York City that you have to be into if you’re going to make a success as an artist. I wasn’t interested in that.

I’d been running the sculpture studio labs at Cooper Union in New York City and one day I ran into this fellow on the street who’d recently left. I asked what he’d been up to and he said he’d moved to this wonderful little place in the Ozark Mountains and that he’d started a craft persons’ cooperative. “Why don’t you come down and see us and build a metal shop?” he asked. So I did.

When I got here I realized what kind of extraordinary place it was. The physical characteristics of the place were beautiful. It was in the woods. More bugs than I’d seen in my entire life were there one day when I looked outside the window, bugs with claws, it was incredible. I just was moved terribly and it was a perfect time for me to do that and then I met Joanne and that was it.

We’ve discussed the intersection between art and commerce and the fact that as an artist you have to pay for rent, materials, etc. But you have a creative artistic vision you are always honing in on. How do you personally navigate that intersection between art and commerce?

HK: Ed Bradbury, who commissioned the peace fountain, called me a very good service oriented artist. I’m willing to compromise in some ways and take the symbolic requirements of a commission into account. But I’ve generally found that when you take jobs they get you through this period, but they don’t lead to the future. The only thing that really leads to the future is the kind of work that is at the heart.

I want to find out what God looks like. I couldn’t accept the guy with the shaking finger, you know, “thou shalt not do that ...” That never was my cup of tea. To me God is the glue

that holds it all together but it’s an impersonal something. It isn’t anthropomorphic. It isn’t the kind of God that has any say in your life. It’s just the facilitator of all of life, of all the energy that makes everything happens. That’s God. So that’s what I look for.

Community is so important to you. Your Sacred Ground project is about celebrating our land and our community.

Why is community so important and how as an artist can you help bring the community together?

HK: I’ve been talking about networks and fields. Fields are made out of discrete elements that pass information through.

There may be tens of thousands of those discrete elements between your nose and my nose but they are always moving around. Molecules of air. Each entity in the field is a part of that field. In a community, each person acts as a member of the field. And that’s the only way it will work if we’re going to change this world.

Talk specifically about your Sacred Ground project - why is this project important to you and what is the importance of getting people to think about space and the ground we’re on.

HK: There’s several levels of thinking in that project. One level is the words, which speak to the community. “You are standing on sacred ground.” Pay attention. I like to think of them as windows to the invisible. If you look through this window you will see energy moving. You will maybe get the idea of what I was talking about, about the existence of God as the field, as the glue that holds it all together. Hopefully, if you look at one of my sculptures, you’ll see the field and that will get you one step further into this perception of God. You’re fascinated with the intangible but you’re working in the tangibles of clay and metal. Explain how you’re able to do this.

HK: One of my favorite phrases is, “how do the birds perceive the air?” They obviously perceive the air differently than we do, I mean they travel through it, they move around knowing the air will support them if they give a little flap.

When I was sculpting the big slab, the one I intended to go on the trail, I would look at it to generate an idea. It came from this notion that the Earth has its own answers. The Earth will tell you when you need to know. I put together an idea of a slab. That’s simple enough, that’s a simple geometric shape, standing on a pedestal and hinged like an Egyptian obelisk. I started scratching lines across the surface and I heard the sculpture go “shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” and that felt like energy moving through and I could hear it.

See Kaminsky, pg. 42

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CROWNE of

GOLD BRIAN CROWNE WENT FROM STRUGGLING MUSICIAN TO NWA’S TOP PROMOTER. WORDS / KODY FORD PHOTO / CHAD ARNOLD

BRIAN CROWNE IS AN ANOMALY AMONG MUSICIANS. Performers, for better or worse, aren’t usually viewed as the most responsible people in the room.

Crowne, a saxophone player since junior high, found himself in the position of being the driving force for his own career and those around him at an early age. He formed his Oreo Blue with Rod Williamson on bass, Bryan Martin on guitar, Billy Rigsby on vocals and a rotating drummer in late 1990 and Crowne soon found that his role went beyond the stage.

“My role was everything,” he said. “I put the band together, I was the band’s manager, the band’s agent. I also produced the CD’s and was one of the primary writers for the band. I sang out of necessity and played the guitar with the band as well.”

Such versatility built a solid foundation for the second act of Crowne’s career as one of the driving forces behind music in northwest Arkansas with George’s Majestic Lounge and the Arkansas Music Pavilion.

As Fayetteville’s oldest music venue still in operation, George’s has been a staple on Dickson Street since George Pappas opened it in 1927. The venue changed hands over the decades before it found its way to Crowne and his former business partner Suzie Stephens.

For Crowne, owning George’s was something he’d never fathomed until the opportunity presented itself. He first played a happy hour in late 1989 and fell in love with the room (what is now known as the lounge in the front of the building). He became friends and eventually a roommate with the son of Dr. Bill and Betty Harrison, who owned the venue for several decades.

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“I told [Bill] that if they’re ever selling this place to give me a chance at buying it,” Crowne said. “So a few years later they told me they were selling it and wanted to give me a shot. I was fortunate enough to have a great friend and a great business partner [Stephens].”

According to Stephens, Crowne approached her about buying the bar. She felt that given his business acumen and music connections they had a chance to continue the legacy of such a storied locale.

“It made sense for us to buy it because I had the money and he had the talent,” she said. “He totally revamped it and made it a very successful place. He is brilliant. He is one of the toughest most amazing businessmen I have ever encountered. He is straightforward, honest as the day is long and he gets results that are necessary.”

Stephens said that Brian always had a natural business acumen and that he was the only musician she ever met who “had a savings account.” Having toured and performed for several years often while acting as de facto band manager, Crowne transitioned to his new role as club owner with relative ease. The experience gained from years of playing venues had begun to pay off. He said, “I was the guy that everything I went to, I learned something from. You see what’s working and what’s not.”

Crowne sought out bands and some sought him out, but he developed a brand for George’s, one that catered to lovers of blues, red dirt, rock ‘n’ roll and even electronic dance music. It’s provided him the opportunity to rub elbows with

a variety of bands. One that stood out was his favorite band Tower of Power, an funk group from Oakland.

“After two years of running the club, I was fortunate to book them,” he said. “I got a table in the front, got a drink and told the staff not to bother me. I just wanted to soak it up. It’s not like I was starstruck or anything. It was just cool.

I listened to these guys’ records when I was a first starting to play saxophone and now they’re playing in my club.”

Booking bands successfully can be tricky. For Crowne, it’s all about cultivating relationships. You get big names and make sure they leave happy. This gets the attention of booking agents and managers. This philosophy has followed Crowne to his most recent venture the Arkansas Music Pavilion or, as it is now known, the Walmart AMP. For years, the AMP called Fayetteville home, first on the back lot of the Northwest Arkansas Mall, where artists like Ben Folds performed, and then onto the Washington County Fairgrounds, where fans shuffled across the dusty fields to hear bands like Vampire Weekend, Wilco and Alabama Shakes.

A businessman named Dan White originally built the AMP. Crowne first heard White’s vision one night during a conversation at a Tyson Foods event at George’s. White told him about how he missed all of the outdoor summer concerts he had grown up with in New York. He had an idea to do a summer concert series. His group of investors met at George’s a few times and even recruited Crowne to book the first concert featuring the Doobie Brothers with Crowne’s own band Oreo Blue opening the show. Still, Crowne’s involvement was strictly peripheral. This soon changed.

White lived in Atlanta when the AMP entered its third season. He called Crowne to see if there was any interest in purchasing the AMP. Crowne didn’t know if he could, but he consulted Stephens, who encouraged him, and he made the leap. He expanded the concert season and moved the facility, then located at the mall, about 80 feet so it was near the grass, which added the lawn to the venue. He instituted several other small changes over the next three seasons.

Making such a leap from club owner to outdoor concert promoter was not one that Crowne took lightly. Rather than fear the change, he saw the opportunity to expand his skill set and network.

“I felt like I got to the point as a venue owner and promoter that there was an opportunity for me to hopefully be the guy in the market that I’m going to grow your career with

you. So an agent books a band that’s gonna play my front room and back room, and maybe the town center and then the AMP. That was part of my reason to expand.”

After three seasons as the owner of the AMP, Crowne decided he wanted to sell it. He entered into conversations with Peter Lane, president of Walton Art Center. Negotiations occurred between the two parties and, eventually, Walton Arts Center decided it fit their vision for the future and purchased the AMP with Crowne on board as the manager. Next, they chose a permanent location, a swath of land just off of Interstate 49 near Pinnacle Hills in Rogers. In June, they opened the Walmart AMP with a concert by country artist Blake Shelton. They have hosted shows with musicians like Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss and Darius Rucker during the summer. Having seen the transition of the AMP to a new level, Crowne feels the pressure, but he doesn’t buckle under it.

“I feel a responsibility to the Walton Arts Center board and Peter to have the faith to say, ‘We are going to buy this from that guy’ and it helps us grow. Moving into this venue you have more and more people supporting it and, for me, it’s like I don’t want to let them down and I’m not going to let them down. I’m fortunate enough that I’ve got a great team and the [Walton Arts Center] has some great people.”

Besides, the AMP and George’s, his company the Crowne Group has produced the LPGA concert for the first five years until it was moved to the AMP in 2014. They also book and help produce the Cox Community Concerts in Fort Smith the last four years. Along with event planning, consulting and staffing for events in the region, the Crowne Group produces private parties small, large and and even festivals.

Now that he’s reached a new level of success, Crowne has a few words of advice for any struggling, young sax players out there. “[F]ollow your dreams no matter what. It’s not cliché at all. Also, life is kind of like water, it finds a way to go different directions and tells you to follow your dreams and its okay to fail.”

VISIT: GEORGESMAJESTICLOUNGE.COM ARKANSASMUSICPAVILION.COM

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HANDMADE MOMENTS IS brewing up a stew of savory jazz, tangy folk, and tender lyrics that’s going to have everyone hungry for more. From how the two members met, to the instruments they use to how they perform, Handmade Moments has been nothing but handcrafted.

Now the Fayetteville musical duo is back with more of Anna Horton’s sultry jazz vocals and folk instrumentals by Joel Ludford on their new selftitled album, set for release on Trout Records on July 24. The record borrows from a variety of different genres with each song featuring a mixture of different elements ranging from jazz to folk to salsa. In a many of their songs, like “Crazy He Calls Me” and “Do It Again”, Anna’s velvety voice puts you in a hazy state of contentment that you don’t want to leave. However, a fresh folk sound is introduced on tracks like “Feel Alright” and “Little Girl”, where Joel’s honest, southern vocals have no problem translating his emotion through the speakers to the listener, almost making you feel like you had written the song yourself.

THE LITTLE THINGS With the support of Local Flavor Café in Eureka Springs and Five Bar & Tables in Lawrence, Kan., the duo is taking to the road with their second album on their third tour out west.

Starting July 31 in Memphis, Tenn., and then heading out to California and Washington, the tour will end in Austin, Texas, in November.

The two Arkansas natives met while attending the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. Their musical career together started in the six-member band, Don’t Stop Please. After graduating, Don’t Stop Please moved to Fayetteville, where Anna and Joel decided to start their own band, Handmade Moments.

Only acoustic instruments are used on the album, which is no accident.

Without the hassle of cables and electrical outlets, Joel and Anna are able

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HANDMADE MOMENTS CRAFT INTRICATE FOLK TUNES & COOK UP A LOVE STEW ON THEIR SECOND RECORD. WORDS / JANE URQUIZU PHOTO / KATY TIPTON

to play at farmer’s markets, benefits, or even house parties where people can enjoy their music without having to touch their wallets. Joel explained, “A big part of our band is being acoustic, so that we can spread our music to people for free.”

During one performance, the band got its name while Anna and Joel joked about sentimental moments, or rather “handmade moments”, that most of their songs convey. As Joel would put it, Handmade Moments is “making a love stew” for their audience. “We like the love-vibes,” they both said.

“The best moment of my life,” Anna added, “was when we were playing a show and there was three different couples making out in different parts of the audience, and I was like ‘Yes! This is what I live for.’ It was bold. And it was bonerific.”

Handmade Moments cooked up a “love stew” one last time in Fayetteville before their tour, at Smoke & Barrel Tavern on July 24 for their album release. This stew was extra spicy, as Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet, of the four-time Grammy nominated band Trout Fishing in America, accompanied Joel and Anna on stage that night. If you missed this show, you missed out on a rollicking hoedown with superb sax playing, and comical songs like “My Booty Is So Luxurious” and a cover of Destiny’s Child’s “Bills, Bills, Bills”.

If at all possible, see them on tour.

Don’t miss out on a good time and spanking good music.

VISIT: HANDMADEMOMENTS.NET

REVIEW

Luke Pruitt - Songs for Home (Pt. 1)

S

Self-released, 2014

torytelling is something that gets forgotten in music these days. It’s all about the beat or the hook and when Autotune gets involved, the song is just a lost cause. When a singer/songwriter like Luke Pruitt comes along, it’s refreshing to hear something real again.

PHOTO / JADE HOWARD The Fort Smith native and parttime Nashville resident almost gave up on music after he finished college, but coming back home and starting a family reignited his love for music. He began revisiting his literary and musical heroes while furiously scribbling and strumming what became Songs for Home (Part 1).

The EP doesn’t disappoint. The instrumentation is simple and slick, showcasing Pruitt’s voice and lyrics.

The songs are thoughtful and detailed. “Eric and Lily” is the true tale of Vietnamese immigrants who fled Saigon as it fell to the communists, only to settle in Arkansas. “If I didn’t tell their story, no one would,” Pruitt said. Given his promising start, let’s hope he has more stories to tell.

Visit: LukePruitt.com - Kody Ford

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TERMINALLY

CHILL

FAYETTECHILL BLENDS THE OUTDOORS WITH ART & FASHION TO CREATE A LIFESTYLE BRAND THAT’S ON THE RISE. WORDS / RACHEL HILL PHOTOS / TRENT SUGG & BEN MATTHEWS

A GROUP OF 14 STRANGERS ASSEMBLED in front of the Ozark Mountain Smokehouse at 5 AM on the first Friday in June. They paired up in groups of three to four and hopped in their vehicles and followed Devin O’Dea through the darkness to an unknown location.

Once at the destination they left their cars and hiked behind O’Dea through the wilderness. They stood side by side reaching their arms in the air as the sun rose across the horizon. Night became day, dark became light, and each of their bodies balanced together.

“Sunrise Yoga is an awesome part of Fayettechill because it helps build a community among strangers who are passionate about the outdoors,” O’Dea said. “By the end of each yoga session the strangers have become friends.

The philosophy behind Fayettechill is being okay with the unknown.”

Mo Elliot was a freshman at the University of Arkansas in 2009 when he came up with the idea to start Fayettechill.

“No one expected Fayettechill to become such a hit,” O’Dea said.

“Mo had made stickers that said Fayettechill on them and he started sticking them around our fraternity house at parties just for fun. We never thought it would become a business.”

Elliot made the stickers to portray a laid-back lifestyle that can be found in the Ozarks. The stickers became a hit so Elliot decided to turn his stickers into a business with the goal of creating a community of people who share the same passion and love for the lifestyle of the Ozarks.

After Elliot created the stickers he began to create t-shirts with designs that depicted personal experiences in the outdoors. O’Dea said that every design found on a Fayettechill t-shirt was created by an actual photograph from the outdoors. “I had just been accepted to medical school in 2011 when I jumped on board with [him] because I saw the potential in the company,” O’Dea said. “I was scared at first but I’m glad I took the risk because Fayettechill brings people together by transcending isolated groups who share the same passion into one community.”

By 2012, Fayettechill had grown into a company that had 13 different retailers selling its gear and equipment.

But Fayettechill is more than just a T-shirt store - it’s a lifestyle. Fayettechill sponsors athletes and pairs up with

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nonprofit organizations to hold events like last year’s Summer Solstice. During Summer Solstice, Fayettechill premiered their Farmhouse ale - a beer created by Fayettechill and brewed by SaddleBock.

“We decided we wanted to create a beer because of our own experiences with beer,” O’Dea said. “After mountain biking all day we would always go to a bar or brewery and get a craft beer. We wanted to create a beer that had a lot of substance, so after sampling 40 different concoctions of beer we chose the Farmhouse Ale, which has eight percent alcohol content.”

Fayettechill’s headquarters are in the Ozark Mountain Smokehouse, which was founded

by Frank Sharp in 1974 and produced meat and cheeses. The hallways are lined with pictures of the past, including one of Bill Clinton when he visited the smokehouse, a juxtoposition to Fayetechill’s history in the making at the location.

O’Dea said that the smokehouse fit perfectly for their future ideas. “We are going to turn the downstairs into a social/cultural hub, with live bands and entertainment,” O’Dea said. He pointed to the far side of the room which used to be a kitchen and said, “This area is going to be used for environmental classes.”

Fayettechill shirts are worn by many in Fayetteville, but Fayettechill goes beyond the T-shirt. It’s about sharing a passion, building a community and ultimately taking risks towards the unforeseeable future while abandoning the anxieties of life.

“It’s that moment when you are scared on top of the mountain but you get on your mountain bike anyway heading down the rocky path, and then the beauty of the Ozarks dismisses your fear and finally you chill,” O’Dea said. “That is Fayettechill.”

VISIT: FAYETTECHILL.COM

TARAH HILL AND JOEY NELSON are bringing a new light to the extremely popular swimwear industry. By pulling inspiration from memories and experiences throughout their individual lives, they hope to give their customers a shopping experience that feels rooted in southern authenticity.

The details are clearly strategized, from blog posts to product selection, as opportunities to reflect a genuine southern theme. Southern Swim aims to become an e-commerce powerhouse for all things Southern-related. You can shop through an array of trendy pieces suitable for a range of personalities, from the forest warrior to the southern belle.

Nelson, a creative entrepreneur with experience in creative directing, serves as a board member for several Northwest Arkansas companies and as a mentor to the ARK Accelerator. His experience launching multiple companies, apps and websites led him to create Southern Swim

A TOUCH OF THE SOUTH SOUTHERN SWIM IS THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK, BUT THEY’RE ALREADY MAKING WAVES. WORDS / DANIELLE GREEN PHOTO / MEGAN BURGES with the help of Tarah Hill, who worked directly with consumers across multiple mediums - exploring and testing marketing tactics and management as a part of the core team at Riffraff.

“Southern Swim is a brand built on the culture and lifestyle of activities around water in the South,” Joey said. “While most swimwear brands are focused on the West Coast and Caribbean, we want to highlight the rich culture of going to the lake, floating the river, or simply hanging out by the pool. While this culture of spending time on or around the water is so intrinsic to living in the south, it is often overlooked. Each trip to that favorite body of water is an experience; memories are created and stories told.”

One of the stories Southern Swim is helping to create right now is that of country music’s hottest newcomers Backroad Anthem, who recently signed with William Morris Entertainment in Nashville, and just announced a Fall 2014 college campus tour sponsored by Southern Swim.

The tour is set to kick-off August 22nd college campuses include: Kansas State, University of Tennessee, University of Georgia, University of South Carolina, Southern Missouri State University, Louisiana State University and Texas A&M.

VISIT: SOUTHERNSWIM.COM idleclassmag.com

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AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY...

MAXINE’S TAPROOM OFFERS UP THE PERFECT WAY TO CLOSE OUT THE WEEKEND WITH THEIR SUNDAY NIGHT SERVICE. WORDS / KODY FORD PHOTOS / JAIME HOLLAND

SUNDAYS AREN’T USUALLY KNOWN for being the height of the week’s social calendar.

While more people are beginning to fly the banner of “Sunday Funday,” many bar patrons still prefer to take the Sabbath for what it is – a day of rest before hitting the grind again.

What if there was a way for business to give the community one last night of fun that didn’t lead to a miserable hangover come Monday morning? If this sentence caught your attention, perhaps the Sunday Night Service at Maxine’s Taproom is for you.

Few bars in Fayetteville have such a celebrated history as Maxine’s Taproom. Opened by Marjorie “Maxine” Miller in 1950, the bar was a regular haunt for everyone from college students to professors to hippies. After Maxine passed away in 2006, the bar caught on fire and, due to extensive damage, remained closed for a year. In 2013, Maxine’s received a new lease on life after being purchased by Hannah Withers, Ben Gitchel, Rebekah Champagne and Matt Champagne.

The group of Block Street business owners reinvented Maxine’s as a cocktail lounge. Along with some aesthetic changes and an expanded drink menu, they decided to broaden their entertainment options.

Enter Sunday Night Service, a co-production between Maxine’s Taproom and the Artist’s Laboratory Theatre, an experimental theatre company run by Erika Wilhite and Joseph Fletcher that holds “site specific” performances in non-traditional venues. According to Wilhite, the “inciting incident” that spurred Sunday Night Service was a conversation with

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Withers about the recent Speak for Yourself storytelling events produced by Artist’s Lab at various locations around town.

The co-owner of Maxine’s liked what she heard and invited them to bring the show to the Taproom in August 2013. “[W]e were having slow nights at Maxine’s and I thought it was a good fit to experiment to see what happens,” said Withers. “[S]o it kind of organically evolved into something that’s filled every Sunday night.”

The goal of Sunday Night Service is to create a home for quality live performance that celebrates the talent of the NWA community and to create community experiences through programming that engages, inspires and entertains.

Since it’s inception a year ago, Sunday Night Service has spawned four shows.

SPEAK FOR YOURSELF The performers at Speak for Yourself are not professional actors, just patrons of Maxine’s. Each show has a theme and people who have a related story are welcome to take the stage. Each storyteller has three to five minutes, is not allowed to read and the story must be told off the cuff.

“It’s like we’re carrying around stories and you know it’s a good story because you’ve shared it before, but you’ve never

had the gumption to get up and tell it. It’s not a professional thing,” Wilhite said. “These people normally wouldn’t have this moment but they’re all crammed in here on a Sunday to experience community in a different way.”

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW SHOW Once “Speak for Yourself “ had been established at Maxine’s, they needed something else to add to the line-up. Developing the “All You Need to Know Show” brought certain creative constraints.

“For the shows, you have to always be able to hear the story of the narrative and be able to follow with your ears,” Wilhite said. “Even if you’re not at home, you’re at the back of the bar and you can’t always see what’s happening so everything has to be heard. And then you have to be able to share the space with the bar. People need to be able to have their drinks and get loud. It’s still like a real bar atmosphere which is important to [Maxine’s]. They don’t want to turn this into a quite theatre. It’s not going to make them any money.”

Wilhite co-writes and directs the “All You Need to Know Show,” which is hosted by Morgan Hicks and Elliott James (who recently took over for Houston Hughes). Each week has a theme and features experts, actors and musical performers who are carefully chosen to enhance the discussion of the topic at hand. A few of the past experts include a beekeeper, a sleep scientist, a comic book writer, and a professional Santa. The live show is full of video projections, costumes, and other experiences. Each show usually includes a minievent within the show: pie eating contest, costume contest, egg hunt, etc. The winner of each contest throws a dart and picks the next month’s show topic.

“We call [it] an ‘information variety show’ because we truly do a lot of research on each month’s topic, but we use the performances as a way to dig deeper into the thought,” said Hicks. “A song can bring up a question or tease out an idea. A poem can capture an irony. We always talk about how we never expected to learn so much about each month’s topic. It’s always a surprise how much there is to explore with each randomly selected topic.”

WHOSIE WHATSIT “Whosie Whatsit” is a live game show featuring local actors and comedians. It is crafted in the tradition of classic game shows such as “To Tell the Truth,” “Match Game” and “Hollywood Squares.” This 1970’s aesthetic is infused with Fayetteville flavor. Audience members have their names drawn from a hat to compete for prizes from local busi-

nesses (including this writer who won a “Grow Your Own Oregano” kit). Mark Landon Smith hosts the show. He feels that the show’s Fayetteville-centric themes add to the appeal of “Whosie Whatsit.”

“The audience really gets into the shows,” Smith said. “It’s a combination of knowing the people involved and having each show be specific to audience and topical. Elements of the show will change depending upon what is going on in the region.”

SINGLED OUT During “Singled Out,” a host deconstructs a local band within a show by singling out each member during interviews and after songs to explore the musical and personal elements that create the band’s identity. Providing a unique perspective on the local music scene, the show gives insight into each musician’s personal relationship and history with music.

Sunday Night Service has developed a devoted following over the last year, something Wilhite attributes to one factor in particular. “There are people [in the audience] who are probably never in the same room together and now they’re all here for this. It’s the diversity of scenes merging that makes it great,” she said.

Having spent that last year experimenting and tweaking Sunday Night Service, Wilhite, Withers and the rest of the cast and crew now have reason to celebrate. KUAF, the northwest Arkansas affiliate of National Public Radio, has signed on to broadcast the shows on KUAF-HD3, a digital radio station they run. Each week’s performance is recorded live with an audience by Dave Embree and edited into a 29-minute radio show by Meredith Martin-Moates. The broadcast time will be announced soon.

Withers is excited about the opportunity to reach people beyond the walls of Maxine’s Taproom.

“We’re ecstatic that KUAF thinks this show is up to their quality to air,” she said. “We’ve all been working extremely hard to learn to develop a radio show. Erika and the Artist’s Lab team have included all the elements that we thought needed to better for a good show: it’s clever, funny, and highlights so much of the local talent in NWA that is so abundant. We think it’s great, and we’re thrilled that KUAF agrees!”

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A GRAVEDIGGER’S WORK IS NEVER DONE

SCHULER BENSON LEAVES NO HEADSTONE UNTURNED IN HIS DEBUT SHORT STORY COLLECTION. INTERVIEW / NICHOLAS CLARO PHOTO / VIKRAM DESAI

SCHULER BENSON’S FIRST BOOK, a collection of short stories, The Poor Man’s Guide to an Affordable, Painless Suicide, published by Alternating Current and featuring artwork by Ryan Murray and Patrick Taylor, is a tour de force. These stories are strong and unabashedly gritty. Benson has successfully earned himself a seat at the growing table of contemporary Southern writers.

An El Dorado native and a recent University of Arkansas graduate, Benson has been published in Kudzu Review, The Lit Pub, Hobart, The Idle Class online, and elsewhere.

He has received three Pushcart Prize nominations, as well as nominations for the 2014 Best of The Net Award and the 2014 storySouth Million Writers Award. In July, he relocated to Myrtle Beach, S.C., to study in the M.A. Creative Writing program at Coastal Carolina University.

The Idle Class recently caught up with Schuler to discuss his writing and the publication of the book.

SB: Thank you, man. It’s a surreal experience, and I’ve had a great time with the process so far. I like to think of my writing as Southern stories about broken people. Most of the linchpin characters I write are speaking from very flawed places, and I think that lends itself to stories that have the capacity to go in interesting directions. At the same time, I try to keep a familiarity to the rhythm of the dialogue. I use a lot of dialect.

And, of the dialect, are you yourself a native Southerner?

SB: I am. I’ve lived in Arkansas for most of my life.

First off, congratulations. Your first book, a collection of short stories titled, “The Poor Man’s Guide to an Affordable, Painless Suicide,” will be released by Alternating Current this summer. How would you describe it to people who are not familiar with your work/writing style?

Now, when you began writing, did you always keep it very Southern in style, or was this something that came to you later?

SB: I think the “Southern-ness” happened over time, very

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gradually. In like 2001 or 2002, I was assigned a collection of Scottish short stories. It was called “A Tongue In Yer Heid,” and some of the pieces were written in Scots. Reading it was hell, man. I had to sound a lot of that shit out aloud in a Connery voice. But something about that really clicked with me. It added something to the writing that wasn’t there for me when I read cold text. I wasn’t writing much back then, but I can say that was definitely a moment when I saw something someone else had done and thought, “This. I want to do something like this, but using what I know.” The rest is just striking a balance, I think. The themes, ideas, character aspects... they pull a lot from the kind of people I knew growing up, and that’s something that finds its way into what I do whether I like it or not. As for the rest of it, the dialect and so forth, it’s just trying to find a natural way to make the text bend to fit how I hear it, how it’s spoken. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I think it works a little bit better now than it did in 2002. Haha.

Who, or what else, do you think has had a major influence on your writing style?

SB: My mom and Gran. They’re both English teachers, and especially my mom did her best to get me reading early. I loved horror fiction when I was a kid, and I think I carry a little of that with me now, but as I got older, some of the bigger names really worked their way into me. Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty have been huge for me. Faulkner, to a lesser extent with the length, but definitely in the way he captured people speaking. The music I love has played a huge part, too. Guys like J.R. Hayes and Ryan McKenney are amazing poets, amazing storytellers. It’s unconventional, but there’s narrative there, and it’s given me a lot. And then there’s just the trial and error. Writing the same thing over and over in different ways, knowing it didn’t work, trying to figure out why, and then trying again.

I also take a lot of cues from comics. Garth Ennis’s “Preacher” series, as well as his run writing “The Punisher,” was just amazing storytelling.

When you sit down to write, do you ever have a clear ending in mind? Or are you more extemporaneous? Writing down a line until something sticks and going from there?

SB: Haha. At this point, I think the more certain I am of how

I want something to end when I start it, the less likely it is to even find its way to that point. There’s a story in the book called “Ace Damage” that ended up as something wholly different from what it started out as. I just try to entertain a good idea, and let it work itself out. It’s not always fun.

Which do you find easier to write, the first-person point of view, or the third?

SB: First-person. Man, I feel like I’ve got a lot to learn about points of view. At the moment, and for the last several years, certainly, first-person feels the most natural.

Now that you have a collection of stories under your belt, can we expect to see a novel from you next? Or are you focusing mainly on short fiction?

SB: I’m sitting on a few stories I finished after turning in the stuff that ended up in the book. I’m not too sure what I’m gonna do with them right now. Short stories and flash are very much where my interest is strongest, both as a writer and as a reader. There are some incredible journals publishing really engaging short fiction right now, and that’s inspiring thing to watch... and, fortunately, to be a part of, from time to time. I’m also working on a novel. It’s called Dirty Annie. The plot’s carried by several of the characters from different Poor Man stories, as well as some new folks. I’m having a lot of fun with it.

You’ve had a good year of publishing; apart from the book you’ve had pieces accepted in journals such as Cheap Pop, Go Read Your Lunch, and others. Any advice for writers out there on how to go about submitting?

SB: Go into marketing. Haha. I guess just read as much as you write. Find journals out there that publish stuff that hurts you, inspires you, makes you feel something. If you think your stuff is a match for what they’re into, submit it. Submit, submit, submit, get rejected, get feedback if you can, and keep submitting. For all the negative bullshit that gets pinned on significance of the internet and social media in our lives, I try to remember that it’s a great way to connect with people whose stuff you like to read and who eventually may enjoy reading yours.

FOLLOW ON TWITTER: @SCHULERBENSON

Trolley Line Books Used, Rare, Signed & Arkansas-related Books Located in Downtown Rogers 110 W Walnut St Rogers, AR 72756

(479) 636-1626

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SUMMER TIME SIPPIN’ Arkansas isn’t known for it’s hospitable climate during the summer. From sweat to mosquitoes, this season takes it’s toll.

Luckily, our mixologist Rachel Hill has you covered with some beer cocktails.

Core’s Coco Cocktail Ingredients: .5 of coconut rum .5 shot of clear rum 3 oz of Pina Colada mix 2 oz of pineapple juice 2 oz Core Coconut beer

Prep: Pour all ingredients excluding the beer into a blender. Then blend. After the drink has been blended top off the cocktail with 2 ounces of Core’s Coconut beer.

PHOTOS / COLLEY BAILEY

FayetteNAm Bomb Ingredients: .75 a pint glass of Fayettechill Farmhouse ale .5 a shot of Crown Maple whiskey .5 a shot of Irish cream liquor

Prep: Fill half a shot glass with Crown Maple whiskey, then fill the other half of the shot glass with an Irish cream liquor. Fill 3/4 of a pint glass with Fayettechill’s Farmhouse Ale.

For more summer beer cocktail recipes, visit: IdleClassMag.com/ beercocktails

Kaminsky, cont. from pg. 29 It’s like I could perceive the air the way a bird could all of a sudden, or understand water like a fish. I thought, wow, I just entered into another world, and so then I just followed it and it just kept telling me what to do and I did it. The same thing with the peace fountain.

The peace fountain had to be done in consort with a lot of other artists and most of the people who came to me weren’t artists. They would come to me and ask, “where do you want to put these letters?” I said, “The sculpture will tell me where to put these letters.” And they’d walk around and they’d walk around and then I’d smile and say that’s the spot. Put it there.

It fits perfectly.

The answer is, you predicate an idea and you begin to work on an idea and then the idea will tell you where to go.

You take the idea, put it down and then just stand there. It will show you exactly where it goes.

You’re creating art that really touches people. Do you have a particular story of when your art touched someone personally?

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That’s a tough one. I stand there at the farmer’s market and people come up to me and say, “You can’t imagine how much that piece means to me.” I say, “I can, thank you. I can understand that.” It’s a powerful concept. Everyone all over the Earth is speaking the same thing, all of them pointing to the center. It’s a wild idea, a beautiful idea.When Ed Bradbury died, I went to the fountain and spun it. That’s what it means to people. That piece connects them.

Ego is a powerful pattern, a powerful force in life. Everyone has one, and in order to be able to make it through the day I’ve got to be able to keep my ego available, powerful enough, but not so much that it says, “This is your thing, you did this. You’re the one.” Come on now. I had help. I had the community that supported me and wanted it and liked it and I can make it.

VISIT: HANKKAMINSKY.COM

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