UALR receives more than $750,000 to expand art offerings
by February 2, 2019 12:04 pm 395 views
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Department of Art and Design will expand its art outreach with a $754,108 gift from the Windgate Foundation.
Part of the gift will enable the university’s Department of Art and Design to establish a series of educational art workshops for high school students and art teachers around the state and in contiguous states.
Windgate has donated millions of dollars of gifts in recent months to UCA, Hendrix College, UA Fort Smith, ASU and the University of Arkansas.
“The Windgate gift will help us promote excellence in the visual arts by exposing students to both traditional and contemporary arts and bringing students and art educators to experience our program and our facilities,” said Joseph Lampo, director of development and external relations. “Ultimately, we want to help those students who show promising talent become well-trained artists and makers.”
New outreach activities will take place during the school year and during the summer at the Windgate Center of Art and Design on the campus of UA Little Rock. Beginning this summer, the university will offer workshops for junior and senior high school students and art teachers.
“These sessions will be designed not only to instruct or train participants in a particular technique or process, but also to introduce them to our highly skilled Department of Art and Design faculty and the up-to-date equipment and facilities of the Windgate Center of Art and Design,” said Thomas Clifton, chair of UA Little Rock’s Department of Art and Design.
A $20.3 million gift from Windgate Foundation in 2015 enabled UA Little Rock to construct the Windgate Center of Art and Design, which opened in 2018. The center houses a fine arts foundry and specialized areas for ceramics, digital fabrication, graphic design, jewelry making, illustration, metal fabrication, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpting, woodworking and space for art history and art education. The state’s only programs in furniture design and metalsmithing also are housed in the center.
“The Windgate Center of Art and Design is a state-of-the-art facility with an accomplished and passionate faculty, and we are pleased to continue our partnership with UA Little Rock for their art outreach program,” said Pat Forgy, executive director of the Windgate Foundation. “We encourage high school students and art teachers in Arkansas and beyond to take advantage of this exciting opportunity to visit campus and explore workshops in areas such as woodworking, metal and digital fabrication, ceramics, sculpture, painting, drawing and more. Through these workshops, art teachers will learn the latest techniques and students will be able to discover the numerous possibilities available in pursuing a visual arts education.”