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ACANSA
A Little Poetry: The Art of Alonzo Ford
September 15 – October 25, 2015
Organized by the Arkansas Arts Center in conjunction with ACANSA Arts Festival.
For its second year participating in the Acansa Arts Festival, the Arkansas Arts Center is exhibiting the art of Arkansas native Alonzo Ford. Acansa brings together people and resources to present unique and exciting visual and performing works which celebrate the unique influence of the south and champion excellence and innovation in artistry. Events take place September 16 to 20, including this retrospective of Ford’s career.
Alonzo Ford’s art is rooted in his heritage as an African-American farmer in the Arkansas Delta. He grew up in the 1940s and 1950s working on the family farm near Lexa. His parents, Henry and Cornelia, and their eleven children cultivated cotton, hay and a large garden. They worked the farm with mule drawn equipment until 1961, when Henry Ford died. Alonzo Ford’s drawings vividly depict the routines of those days plowing, harvesting hay, and cutting wood. His drawings show neighbors attending local churches and schools that no longer stand. He is best known for his distinctive profile drawings of local people he remembers, such as a young woman playing with her beloved pet in the AAC’s My Cat Skip. Fast Ball depicts a baseball player who played alongside the artist on the local team.
Ford left the farm as a young man to work in factories around the country, but he was not content until he returned to his Arkansas home. In 1980, he began preserving the fanciful forms and colors of cypress tree knees. Aesthetic interest in these objects helped Ford to turn to making art. He attended Phillips College in 1981 and 1982. A college sketchbook shows him already making striking portraits and abstract drawings. He continues to make dynamic non-representational drawings alongside his figurative works. Ford’s art includes his beautiful garden, which appears in his paintings. The artist cultivates irises, roses, lilies, hollyhocks, zinnias, and sunflowers in the fields where sixty years ago he drove mules.
The Arts Center is proud to be an important part of Alonzo Ford’s life in art. Despite the daunting distance from his home to Little Rock, he has been a member of the AAC for many years. Now, the Arts Center is presenting the first retrospective of this Delta region artist’s work.
Featured Works from the Exhibition
Ball point pen on paper, 25 ½ x 19 ½ in., Collection the artist.