UCA ceramics professor Liz Smith (left) unveils “United: The Acorn Project” during the campus 2020 Suffrage Centennial commemoration hosted in October. The exhibit was installed at the Arkansas State Capitol in May and will be on display at the second-floor rotunda through June 4.
The University of Central Arkansas College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences will host an exhibit reception for “United: The Acorn Project” at the Arkansas State Capitol, second-floor rotunda, on Monday, May 17 at noon.
This event is free and open to the public. Guests are asked to enter through the ground-level tunnel on the east side of the building. Masks and social distancing are required for attendance.
The exhibit will be on display through June 4, 2021.
“United: The Acorn Project” comprises 3,000 hand-built ceramic acorns by UCA ceramics professor Liz Smith and hundreds of community collaborators. Created in honor of the 2020 Suffrage Centennial commemoration at UCA hosted in October. The exhibit was moved from the lawn in front of Old Main on the UCA campus to the Capitol Rotunda in May.
The artwork was crafted by 600-plus volunteers from across the state including minoritized and marginalized communities who often experience barriers to voting: adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, people experiencing homelessness, and seniors. Delta Sigma Theta Sorority chapters from across Arkansas created more than one-third of the acorns. Founding members marched in the first suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. in 1913, the only African American women’s group to participate.
This project is supported by awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Arkansas Arts Council, Delta Kappa Gamma International Educators Foundation, Kappa State Educational Foundation, Mid-America Arts Alliance, the UCA artists-in-residence program funded by UCA arts fees, UCA Foundation, UCA Sponsored Programs, UCA Women’s Giving Circle, Pat Becker Wallis and gifts from other generous donors.
