Press Room:
The Arkansas Arts Center Presents the 33rd Annual Toys Designed by Artists

For more information contact:
Lyndsay Hansen
501-396-0308
lhansen@arkarts.com

October 11, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Arkansas Arts Center Presents the 33rd Annual Toys Designed by Artists

(LITTLE ROCK, AR) -

The 33rd Annual Toys Designed by Artists will grace the Arkansas Arts Center's Jeannette Edris Rockefeller Gallery as art and toy-making combine in an exhibition running from November 11 through December 31, 2005.

Creating toys with an artistic flare, juried artists will display 54 works with a nontraditional contribution to the concepts of art, craft and toys. The works of art displayed in the exhibition don't necessarily have to be functional toys but rather be either modeled after toys or deal with the concept of toys or play.

Artists enter their works into the exhibition by submitting slides of their works to the Arts Center. Each artist can only submit two works per exhibition. Each work will be reviewed and selected by Juror Kenneth R. Trapp, former curator of the Renwick Gallery. Lecturer and writer on contemporary craft, Trapp has curated and written extensively about all aspects of contemporary craft. In addition to the Renwick Gallery, Trapp has been the Curator of Crafts and Decorative Arts at the Oakland Museum of California. Trapp is the Arkansas Arts Center's first outside curator for the Annual Toys Designed by Artists Exhibition.

After each work is selected for the exhibition, the Arkansas Arts Center will award purchase awards to add to its collection of approximately 300 toy art objects.

From the simplest pull toys to intricate robots, the 33rd Annual Toys Designed by Artists Exhibition is an event that the whole family will enjoy.