Press Room:
Plans for Terry Mansion unanimously approved by Arkansas Arts Center Board of Trustees

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September 8, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Plans for Terry Mansion unanimously approved by Arkansas Arts Center Board of Trustees

(LITTLE ROCK, AR) - The Arkansas Arts Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously at Monday's meeting to approve a new concept for the historic Terry Mansion. They accepted the recommendation of a special task force to re-open the former home of activist Adolphine Fletcher Terry as a center for community collaborations in the arts.

The task force, made up of representatives from the Arts Center Board of Trustees, community members and Arkansas Arts Center staff, began in June to evaluate new uses for the historic home. The home has served as the Decorative Arts Museum since 1985.

The task force considered many alternative scenarios, examples from other museums and input from arts and community organizations. They concluded that the best use of the building would be as a space for exhibitions and educational events created in collaboration with other organizations that promote the arts and artists, as well as community service organizations that use the arts as a way to fulfill their missions. Staffed and managed by the Arts Center, the mansion would house exhibitions by Arkansas artists' clubs and guilds, youth, environmental, social justice organizations and the AAC Museum School. Educational events designed to promote dialogue about and through the arts would revive the role of the Terry Mansion as a place for people and groups to share ideas and work together.

Executive Director Ellen A. Plummer emphasized that, while the process began in response to lower levels of funding from the City of Little Rock and other sources, there were exciting opportunities embedded in new uses for the mansion's intimate spaces as well as advantages to showing exhibitions of contemporary craft in the Arts Center's well-trafficked new spaces. The Terry Mansion was deeded to the City of Little Rock for the use of the Arkansas Arts Center in 1964. The house has been closed to daily visits since July 1 of this year due to a consolidated exhibition schedule that moved contemporary craft exhibitions from the Terry Mansion to the newly expanded Arts Center building. Today's decision does not spell out a timetable, budget or name for the new concept but allows the Arts Center staff to move forward with planning.