University of Arkansas at Little Rock

The UALR College Republicans and Bowen Law School Young Democrats are sponsoring Arkansas Decides, an issue debate, on Tuesday, September 30th at 7:00 p.m. in DSC room C.

Republican panelists will include Dan Greenberg, Arkansas State Representative, District 31; Keith Emis, Young Republican; and Amanda Price, President of the UALR College Republicans.

Democratic panelists will include Pat O’Brien, Pulaski Circuit/County Clerk; Michael Cook, Chief of Staff for Lieutenant Govorner Bill Halter; and Antwan Phillips, Vice President of the Young Democrats of Arkansas.

Those interested in attending are welcome to submit questions for the debate to issues@arkansasdecides08.com or by going to Arkansas Decides online. Click to view a flyer for Arkansas Decides.

Three weeks have passed and I am still enjoying our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.  Things are beginning to roll into place and I love it more and more each day.  The scenery here is beautiful.  I enjoy seeing the large monuments, museums, and the nightlife.  I am definitely going to arrange to see the Smithsonian Museum and attend the zoo. 

The Washington Center Program is well- thought out and demanding, but I love it.  It keeps me busy and the programs that we have are very informative.  I also like my class that I have here in D.C.  My forensic psychology class is awesome.  This course is a combination of the law, criminal justices, and psychology.  Within this course, I will be responsible for understanding the application of psychology as it is applied to certain aspects of the legal system and crime.  This course will help my previous academic training in that it will clarify questions that I may have had about forensics.  I will then use these answers and apply them to my internship at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

In the upcoming weeks, I will be taking a tour of the Pentagon, going to the shooting range, and viewing an autopsy.  I look forward to keeping you updated.
Â

The sculptures are complete! Here are a few photos…

Visionary, in bronze

  Read more »

Here are a few photos of the large sculpture Michael is constructing — in progress!

Read more »

Last Thursday, I volunteered at the Pentagon for the 9/11 Memorial Ceremony. I have posted photos of the event.

Click here to read an article about the ceremony from the US Department of Defense.

Â

After a quick breakfast I finished packing and met Angela and her father at the first floor of the hotel so they could take me to the airport.  I enjoyed talking to him a bit. 

I did not get a chance to say goodbye to everyone but did see Sandy and Kamal on my way out the door.  We mugged for one last photo together.  I enjoyed their company very much.  I made many friendships with sculptors from around the world in those seven weeks.  That was one of the great things that I experienced on this trip.

I’m having a break at an Internet Cafe in the Seoul Korea airport to catch up on e-mails that I’ve missed for the last two days.  In a few hours I’ll be on my 13-hour flight over the top of the world to Chicago.  Homeward bound.  AAAAAHHHHH!

Angela and I went to a few of the lectures at the conference hall and then off to the sculpture park to deliver some tools and donations for the tool room.  It was a very empty place and a ghost town of artists and their work.  From there we went to the Sister City International Sculpture Park to photograph “Visionary” in a little different light.  We met three Chinese photographers and mugged for a few photos with them in front of the sculpture.

Read more »

It was dress up day. We loaded in the bus at eight twenty and went to the museum plaza for the kick-off of the 2nd International Sculpture Symposium.  Many speeches, a few thousand people, Certificates of Achievements and a few hundred doves were set free.  A few hundred doves flying over was the best part.  Then it was time for a 500+ people panoramic group photograph, do TV interviews, and document all the other artists’ works that were on the plaza.  After lunch the lectures at the conference started.  Angela and I sat in a few lectures and then left to go shopping for a carry on bag for me.

As I go to the sculpture park today the “Visionary” head was already loaded in the truck with Kim’s from Korea and Marco’s from Serbia.  Marco was saying a few choice words in Serbian to the workers who had cracked one of his pieces by handling it carelessly.  He unloaded it while they finished loading Kim’s granite base elements.  Angela and I found the paint I had used yesterday, a mixing bowl, a few brushes and caught a cab to the Government Building where the new four acre Changchun International Sister City Sculpture Park was located.  After they placed Kim’s elements the workers flipped the rails on the side of the big truck and ten of us unloaded and carried “Visionary” to its site on a low slope within a grove of saplings that overlooked a 20-acre lake.   It could not get any better than that.  I touched up the piece within an hour, photographed it and all the other Sister City sculpture.

Read more »

I worked all morning on changing the copper patina on the large  “Visionary” work so that I could live with it.  Flat color does not appeal to me some how.  I worked with the “color man,” to mix a brown/green black and found the copper brown that they had used on the piece.  We went over the whole work with a thin to thick coat of black to diffuse the copper brown down a bit.  Then I dry brushed the copper lightly over the black so it created a layered affect that highlighted the texture and darkened the piece down.  It looked like a bronze work and the dark terra cotta oil based clay that I modeled the piece in.  I walked away just before lunch and decided to commit to whether it was done after lunch.

Read more »