Art Amiss was started a few years ago as a one-night-only event to showcase the scads of little-known Arkansas painters, writers, fashion designers, photographers, and musicians. The event quickly blossomed into an annual gathering and then into a website, which now promulgates 131 artists and 643 pieces of art, then a bi-annual show. Thus far, each event – four shows and two benefits – has been hosted at the Dickson Street Theater in Fayetteville (excluding the benefit shows which have been held at both JR’s Lightbulb Club and Teatro Scarpino,) which seems to be an ideal location for such a space-sensitive event.

There are many places across Arkansas to get your work in front of people and more than a handful of them are in Fayetteville. The significant bonus of showing your work at Art Amiss is their devotion to betraying those who have not had work shown in those places or have not been published to any significant degree elsewhere. The benefit of this being that one who attends the show is guaranteed fresh, original work, most often for sale. I have picked up on a “first dibs” friendly competition at times when one certain piece is particularly favored.

Every event so far has also featured several Arkansas bands and performers and each show is genre specific. Art Amiss 4 featured Little Rock’s 607 and Conduit Family and Big Jake with Lucio and Rasmey of Fayetteville. Art Amiss 3 was an all instrumental show. And so on. And then there are the chapbooks and compilation cd’s.

The next Art Amiss, I believe, is scheduled for sometime this next fall and may or may not be a two night event this time. For more information about Art Amiss check out their website at ArtAmiss.org.

Or you may email the folks at Art Amiss if you wish to ask a question or talk about all things concerning art in Arkansas.[tag]art, art amiss, arkansas, music, gallery, painting, sculpture, photography, Fayetteville, Little Rock, hip-hop[/tag]