Society Profile- Arkansas Pastel Society
I had the opportunity to converse with Catherine Spann, president of the Arkansas Pastel Society. I was interested in how this newly formed group had come about.
The Arkansas Pastel Society is a regional group that embraces both soft and oil pastels. They are having they’re first National Exhibition this fall with total awards in excess of $4000.
(Check out the Competitions page for further information)
Catherine is excited that Maggie Price agreed to jury their show, as well as holding a five-day workshop there. (According to the APS website: Maggie Price is a member of Pastel Society of America, a signature member of the Pastel Society of New Mexico and APOW (Associated Pastelist on the Web). She is co-founder and former editor of The Pastel Journal, a national magazine for pastel artists. She has served as juror for exhibitions in several states and also for the Pastel 100 competition sponsored by The Pastel Journal.)
Catherine is also thrilled to be
able to exhibit in a stunning location. The Community Gallery of the
Arkansas
Arts
Center
is an historic mansion located on beautiful grounds that occupy a city block in
downtown Little Rock. You
can see a picture here:
http://www.arkarts.com/facility_rentals/terry_house/.
So
listen in on our conversation as I ask Cathy Spann about this dynamic new group.
The
Arkansas Pastel Society is fairly new. How did it get started?
A couple of years ago, pastel artist and teacher, Mary Ann Stafford, published a
notice in Pastel Journal that she would like to start a pastel society in
Arkansas and began compiling a list of interested contacts. When she became too
busy with teaching and related activities to develop the group, I took over her
list of contacts and established a Yahoo Groups email discussion list, PSARK, to
have a place to coordinate everyone's preferences for time and place to begin
meeting as a group. We had our first meeting in February 2004 with eleven
potential members.
Mary Ann’s Workshop
What drives your members to be so active?
I think there was a need for an organized group among pastelists in Arkansas,
and there are enough of us who really want this to succeed to do the work to
make it happen. We have active members not just in the Little Rock area, but
also members who drive from 40-50 miles away to be at each meeting. Many of our
members exhibit regularly, some are teachers, some just want to learn more about
working with pastels and share the company of others who share their interest in
pastels.
How do you see the society growing to achieve your goal of
being a regional group?
We
currently have several members who live a considerable distance from Little Rock
and may not be able to attend regular meetings, but still participate in
activities such as exhibitions. We have a Saturday paint-out planned for May 7,
where members will meet to paint at a botanical garden about 50 miles from
Little Rock, in Hot Springs, where several of our very active members live. We
hope that this kind of activity will help widen a sense of community by
including members who can't always attend the regular meetings. We would welcome
out of state members as well.
Do many of your members work in Oil Pastels?
We have one very active member, our Vice President, Bill Burgin, who is quite
committed to oil pastels, although he also works with soft pastels and other
media. We have other members who sometimes use oil pastel, but it is primarily
Bill's influence which led us to open our definition to include oil pastels. He
will be teaching a workshop for us on using oil pastels in May, after a recent
working visit he made to John Elliot's studio in New York.
Do
you have any advice for artists considering starting a local pastel society?
I think the most helpful thing for organizing a group is to find a way to
facilitate communication among potential members even before that first
organizational meeting. For us, setting up the email group gave us a way to work
out details about preferred meeting times and places that would allow the
greatest number of interested people to participate, right from the start. We
still use the email group to stay in touch between meetings, discuss issues that
need to be dealt with quickly, distribute information, etc. But that original
notice in Pastel Journal was what started the ball rolling.