Artists K. Nelson Harper of Fort Smith, Acadia Kandora of Fayetteville and Rebecca Resinski of Conway have been selected for the Arkansas Women to Watch 2026: Words Become Matter exhibition. 

Arkansas Women to Watch 2026: Words Become Matter is the latest exhibit in the Women to Watch exhibition series organized by the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (ACNMWA) for the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., the only major museum worldwide solely dedicated to championing women through the arts. 

Curated by Dr. Catherine Walworth, the Jackye and Curtis Finch Curator of Drawings at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, the traveling exhibition will make stops at five galleries around the state, starting mid-February.  

The Words Become Matter exhibition will feature Artists' books. Those can take many forms, including pressed, painted and folded. Words Become Mattercelebrates three nationally recognized Arkansas artists who use text and shape to make objects that carry words.

From Walworth’s short list of nominees, NMWA’s Elizabeth Ajunwa and guest curator Tia Blassingame will designate the artist whose work will represent Arkansas in Washington, D.C. in Women to Watch 2027: A Book Arts Evolution open from April 11 to August 15, 2027.

 The Women to Watch exhibit program was developed by NMWA to feature underrepresented and emerging women artists from the NMWA’s 29 U.S. regional and international affiliated committees. NMWA curators select the theme and committees invite nationally approved local arts professionals to guest curate submissions to the national museum exhibit.

The international Women to Watch curated exhibition in Washington, D.C., affords an Arkansas woman artist national visibility, press and curatorial connections. 

About the artists: 

K. Nelson Harper of Fort Smith specializes in combining traditional letterpress technology with new digital techniques, often adding humor. Under the name Ars Brevis Press, she has produced many artists' books and broadsides. She is an Emeritus Professor of Graphics at the University of Arkansas–Fort Smith. 

Acadia Kandora is a print maker who favors zines to explore the natural landscape and her relationship to it, as well as the intersection between the imaginary and the concrete. She teaches at the University of Arkansas, where she earned her MFA. 

Mail artist Rebecca Resinski is a classics professor at Hendrix College in Conway. She publishes her intricate and delicate chapbooks and pamphlets under her imprint Cuckoo Gray. She also is a co-founder of Heron Tree, an online poetry journal. 

2026 Tour Schedule:

Opens February 13, runs through April 18
CALS Roberts Library of Arkansas History and Art Underground Gallery, Little Rock

Opens May 1, runs through June 13
Blytheville Air Force Base Exhibition, Blytheville

Opens July 9, runs through August 15
Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas, Pine Bluff

Opens August 21, runs through October 3
Kresge Gallery of Lyon College, Batesville

Opens October 15, runs through December 12
UAFS Gallery of Art and Design, Fort Smith

About the Arkansas Committee National Museum of Women in the Arts:

Founded in 1989 and celebrating its 35th year, ACNMWA is a nonprofit volunteer organization that highlights the accomplishments of Arkansas women artists and shares the groundbreaking work of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C., with a statewide audience. For more information, visit acnmwa.org. 

For more information on NMWA, visit nmwa.org.