What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/928490
JANUARY 21-27, 2018 WHAT'S UP! 9 COVER STORY "Dad always said art has meaning according to what its purpose is," Murphy remembers. "You could do a pretty good pen and ink or watercolor or gouache of a church, make it look just like the church, add some cars and trees, but you bring community and purpose in when you show people coming and going from the church service. When you look at his paintings, they all show community, the actual spirit of what might be happening at the time. If he was going to paint Garrison Avenue, he was going to paint the parade, because that was a big 'purpose' for the avenue." Murphy's first memories of her dad as an artist date back to a little art shop he had in downtown Fort Smith. "It was in an old carriage house that went along with the home the Fort Smith Art Center was in," she remembers. "He and a partner had art supplies for sale, gave lessons. I think he sold some paintings from there. But what I remember most was the smell of turpentine. That's the stuff that sticks with you when you're a kid." Murphy says she was always interested in art and took some lessons, but it was "really hard to be the daughter of an artist that's pretty well known. I wasn't handed that spoonful of talent. They expected me to be awesome, and I wasn't." Instead, she pursued a career related to the disabilities she accepted as ordinary in her childhood, becoming a vocational rehabilitation counselor. "I was always a daddy's girl," she says. "I just didn't know there was anything different about him — or Mother — until I started school. Then kids tell you stuff." Although he wanted his disability separated from his art, Bell was president of United Cerebral Palsy and traveled nationally in the early days of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Part of the exhibition of his work at FSRAM includes a video of "some of the people that knew John best" talking about their memories of the man and his art. "It adds not just a multimedia component but really brings to life the man as people knew him," says museum director Meluso. "And some of those stories are just tremendous and heartwarming." Meluso came to the museum from the Art Institute of Chicago after a tenure of 13 years at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City and previous experience at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Bell exhibit was already on the schedule, he says. "It was just left to me to execute it — which was a lot more involved than I thought." Many of the 65 pieces in the exhibit were loaned by private collectors in Fort Smith, "so it was a matter of me doing the shoe leather work and going around to all these homes and businesses and the courthouse," Meluso says. "It was a wonderful introduction to the town." The Bell exhibit is a perfect example of what Meluso was seeking when he took the job at FSRAM. "I wanted to go someplace where I could make a difference and see that difference," he says. "Where I could help create the cultural fabric of the community — John Bell was already such a big part of that — and where the community could really benefit from my experience." FAQ 'Fort Smith Legend John Bell' WHEN — Through April 22 WHERE — Fort Smith Regional Art Museum COST — Free INFO — 784-2787 BONUS — The video "John Bell Jr.: The Man Behind the Legend" can be viewed at fsram.org. Courtesy Image John Bell Jr. worked in oil, water and gouache to create vibrant images of Fort Smith's past, like this one of Garrison Avenue. Courtesy Image The Bells traveled often to Eureka Springs, says daughter Lisa. This painting is titled "Light Snow on Mud Street." Photo Courtesy Lisa Murphy John Bell Jr. was photographed with daughter Lisa about 1980.