Do South Magazine recently released its October issue, covering a variety of events, announcements, and more to go along with the fall season. Included in this issue is a spread on Arkansas Women to Watch 2026: Words Become Matter, featuring an article about the exhibition and a flyer for the upcoming opening reception in Fort Smith. The full article can be found on page 14 of the issue here, or you can read it below.
The Board of Directors of the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts invites you to a reception for the Fort Smith opening on October 15 at 5 P.M. We hope to see you there as we celebrate the fifth and final stop of this traveling exhibition across the state!
FORT SMITH
October 15 - December 12
UAFS Gallery of Art and Design
535 N Waldron Rd, Fort Smith, AR 72904
Words Become Matter
Published by Do South Magazine, in the October 2026 Issue
A statewide exhibition arrives in Fort Smith just as UAFS begins a new chapter in book arts. A book doesn’t necessarily have to sit on a shelf. It can be folded, stitched, sculpted, printed or transformed into something you might not recognize as a book at all.
That idea is at the heart of Arkansas Women to Watch 2026: Words Become Matter, opening October 15 at UAFS Gallery of Art and Design. The exhibition features three Arkansas artists—K. Nelson Harper of Fort Smith, Acadia Kandora of Fayetteville and Rebecca Resinski of Conway—whose work challenges traditional ideas of what a book can be.
Fort Smith is the final stop on the exhibition’s five-city statewide tour, and its arrival comes at a particularly fitting moment. “UAFS just opened their Book Arts Center,” said Demara Titzer, president of the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. “It is perfect timing to partner with them to celebrate our artists’ book exhibition.”
The Center was created to study and create works using techniques including letterpress printing, papermaking and bookbinding. The connection runs even deeper through Harper, an emeritus professor of graphics at UAFS whose work combines traditional letterpress technology with digital techniques. A longtime practitioner of book arts, Harper also played a role in the development of UAFS’s new center, making the exhibition’s Fort Smith finale something of a homecoming.
Women to Watch was created by the National Museum of Women in the Arts to bring greater visibility to artists whose work has been underrepresented on the global stage. Arkansas takes that mission one step further by bringing its nominees to communities across the state. This year, Kandora was selected from among 62 global nominees as one of 16 artists who will exhibit at the museum in Washington, D.C., in 2027.
For visitors who don’t consider themselves “art people,” that may be exactly the reason to go. Artists’ books can be sculptural, experimental and unexpected, and exhibitions devoted to the form are relatively rare. Words Become Matter offers the River Valley an opportunity to experience the form firsthand and to see Arkansas artists earning attention well beyond our state.
ON VIEW: October 15–December 12 | UAFS Gallery of Art and Design
Opening reception: October 15, 5 p.m.