The 2022 Festival was held October 20-30. You can still view the exhibitions and videos from most sessions.

Exhibitions

Oliver Jeffers: 15 Years of Picturing Books

Jeffers is a visual artist and author working in painting, bookmaking, illustration, collage, performance, and sculpture. Curiosity and humor are underlying themes throughout Oliver’s practice as an artist and storyteller. While investigating the ways the human mind understands its world, his work also functions as comic relief in the face of futility. Jeffers’ engagements and practice are truly international in scope. His critically acclaimed picture books have been translated into over fifty languages and sold over 14 million copies worldwide. His original artwork has been exhibited at such institutions as the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Palais Auersperg in Vienna. Jeffers has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award, Bologna Rigazzi Award, An Irish Book Award, and a United Kingdom Literary Association Award. Oliver grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

His books include There’s a Ghost in this House, Once Upon An Alphabet, The Fate of Fausto, The Incredible Book Eating Boy, Stuck, A Child of Books, What We’ll Build, Here We Are, The Great Paper Caper, The Moose Belongs to Me, The Heart and the Bottle, The Hueys series, the Once there was a Boy series including How to Catch a Star, Lost and Found, The Way Back Home, The Working Mind and Drawing Hand of Oliver Jeffers, and illustrations for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Imaginary Fred, The Day the Crayons Quit, The Day the Crayons Came Home, The Crayons Christmas, and more.

This exhibition was organized by the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature, Abilene, Texas and originally debuted in June of 2018 for the 7th Annual Children’s Art and Literacy Festival.

Exhibition will run from October 20 to December 29 at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library & Learning Center. Regular library hours.

Sponsored by John & Robyn Horn Foundation, the Windgate Foundation, The Rodger S. & Barbara Ann Kline Foundation.

Photo of Oliver Jeffers: Yasmina Cowan

Illustrated Arkansas: The Art of Comics

The Illustrated Arkansas exhibition features artists living and working in the state who have created or contributed to print or digital comics and graphic novels. The exhibition will represent a wide range of illustration styles and media of the comics art form. Some of the artists represented in the exhibition are: Gustav Carlson, Frank Fentress, Greg Fischer, Sean Fitzgibbon, Marko Head, Michael Jukes, Stephen Koch, Alex Langley, David Orr, Michael Tierney, and Freshawn Womack.

CALS is excited to display the artwork of graphic artists and spotlight their efforts in the creation of comics and graphic novels in all their forms. Exhibition runs from October 14, 2022 to January 28, 2023.

CALS would especially like to thank Randy Duncan, the director for the Center for Comics Studies at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, for the concept of the exhibition and all his challenging work in making it happen.

Underground Gallery, Galleries & Bookstore at Library Square  
CALS Roberts Library, regular gallery hours

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