The Famous Hardware Building in Downtown Springdale will feature their final art installation of the year. The Downtown Springdale Alliance with funding from the Tyson Family Foundation has once again collaborated with curator Dayton Castleman of Verdant Studio and selected artists to activate the windows at the Famous Hardware building in Downtown Springdale for one last time this year. This time the artists, Conrad Bakker of Urbana, IL and Jay Walker of Philadelphia, PA bring a festive spirit to the windows.
Artist Conrad Bakker’s installation Untitled Project: Smithson’s Books transforms the historic Famous Hardware facade into an imagined vignette of a vintage bookstore. Smithson’s Books is easy to envision as the setting for a Norman Rockwell holiday painting, only in this case with the human characters inserted in real time by curious shoppers in downtown Springdale, cupping their hands against the windows.
Multi-modal public artist Jay Walker’s Receiving is a bright, translucent, multilayered mural filling the windows. Beams of brightly patterned color radiate from a point high on the windows, streaking toward a pair of waiting outstretched hands. The quality of the vibrant image transforms after sunset.
“My hope is that Conrad Bakker’s and Jay Walker’s Famous Hardware installations create a little vibrant oasis in Downtown Springdale to warm up eyes and imaginations during the cold winter months,” says Dayton Castleman, curator and Director of Visual Thinking at Verdant Studio.
The Famous Hardware Building is located at 113 West Emma Avenue. The art installation will be in place from November 18 through February 11. Explanations for the art installations will be translated into Spanish and Marshallese. An opening celebration on the sidewalk will be held Thursday, November 18 from 5-7pm. The community is invited to meet the artists while enjoying the festivities in the Outdoor Dining District.
The Famous Hardware art installations have taken place throughout the year and make art accessible to the Springdale community and create new experiences for people visiting the downtown.
“I'm excited to see these two artists bring a new perspective and spin to Famous Hardware,” says Olivia Tyson of the Tyson Family Foundation. “It’s always been our goal to inspire curiosity and bring a playfulness to Emma Ave — Conrad's vintage bookstore and Jay's play with color and light do just that and I'm thrilled they are closing out a year of incredible artists visiting Springdale.”
(Exhibition images by Meredith Mashburn photography)