It was nearly impossible to get out and about in Fort Smith last month without soaking up a little “cul-cha.”

We may love our fairs, rodeos, festivals, car races, horse races, bike races and blues, rock and country music, but by golly we like the arts here, too.

To some, the word culture implies stuffy, pretentious, expensive art, classical music or literary events. But one of the most spontaneous, popular downtown happenings in a long time took place the opening night of the first Artists on Garrison exhibit in the historic Kress Building on Garrison Avenue.

Volunteers cleaned out the vacant building and gave its vast expanse of bare walls a fresh coat of paint, creating a perfect exhibit surface for the diverse and engaging works of 10 area artists.

From Don Lee’s colorful spider web-ish, three-dimensional art in one of the building’s front windows to Travis Brown’s larger than life charcoal portraits and a tin-foil covered room with live (at first) goldfish in a big, clear plastic, water-filled bag suspended from the ceiling, there was lots to see. And people of all ages and walks of life turned out in droves to see it.

For more than four hours they came and went in a steady stream. They walked around the open, spacious building looking at the paintings, photos, sculptures and other works and nibbled delicious finger foods. They chatted with friends and artists, met new people, shared opinions and in general just had a great time. And over and over you could hear them saying, “When is somebody going to do this again?”

A couple of days later, people of all ages and types also turned out in force for a night at the opera in the Fort Smith Convention Center’s Performing Arts Theater.

Pucinni’s classic,“La Boheme,” a show in this year’s UA – Fort Smith Season of Entertainment series, was performed by a talented, young-looking Russian troupe – the Stanislavsky Opera Company.

Thank goodness English subtitles were projected onto a screen above the stage, so that those of us who don’t speak Russian could keep up with the plot. Of course the plot was tragic, and I’m the kind of person who likes stories with happy endings. Oh well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned by both the program notes and by Bill McCord, husband of my long-time friend Dinah (Cates) McCord, whose seats were directly in front of me and Entertainment Fort Smith calendar editor, Annie Shaw.

“Mimi dies at the end,” Bill informed me.

Drat. Did the poor girl have to be named Mimi? That’s what my granddaughter Emma and grandson Nils call me. Mimi’s shouldn’t have to die, I complained.

I don’t think there are many happy endings in opera, but it was nice to be able to see a good one here instead of having to travel to a larger city. The music in La Boheme was lovely, the orchestra and conductor were super, and so was the cast. Kudos to Stacy Jones, the “booking agent” deluxe for all the UA – Fort Smith Season of Entertainment shows.

It was fun to notice how everyone dressed for the occasion. Opera-goers here wore everything from jeans to sequined gowns. Darby Junior High student Whitney Wasson (daughter of Joe and Lynn, our esteemed managing editor) and her grandmother Wanda Wasson, both tall and slender, were elegantly dressed in black. Some of us came in the clothes we had worn to work and several of the men were better turned out than the women. One of the best-dressed seen at the scene was the Dream Car guy, Randy Blythe.

Another well-attended cultural happening in Fort Smith last month – this one for the writers and book lovers amongst us – was the Southern Writers Symposium hosted by the Fort Smith Public Library.

The five writers featured in the symposium all have short stories in a new, critically acclaimed anthology, Stories from the Blue Moon Café. A reading and reception was held in their honor later that day at the Fort Smith Little Theater.

The authors were Fort Smith native Jennifer Paddock and her husband, Sidney Thompson, Barbara Robinette Moss, Suzanne Hudson and Sonny Brewer. Brewer, who put the anthology together and edited it, owns a book store in Fairhope, Alabama, where he hosts regular readings by established and emerging Southern authors.

Brewer told the Little Theater audience how he got award-winning authors like Rick Bragg and Pat Conroy to include stories in the anthology. He also talked about Jennifer’s story that appears in the book, and how he was unable to put it down once he started reading it.

As Jennifer read the story aloud at the Little Theater, her mother, Anita Paddock, watched proudly yet anxiously, from the audience. The story is about the death of Jennifer’s father and she read it as she wrote it, in a straight-forward, no self-pity style that makes it all the more heart-wrenching. Anita, who is also a writer and the head librarian at Miller Branch Library, is justifiably proud of her daughter’s skill. Jennifer’s first novel, “A Secret Word: A Novel in Stories” is to be published next year by Simon and Schuster.

The symposium and the Little Theater readings attracted packed audiences.

 

Linda Seubold, editor of Entertainment Fort Smith Magazine, can be reached at lindaseubold@efortsmith.com. Read her archived columns and articles online.

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