This exhibit is FREE to the public and will be on display during library hours Monday-Friday 9AM-6PM, starting Friday, August 21st, 2026, through Friday, September 11th, 2026.
Aida Ayers, Deborah Kuster, Melissa Lashbrook, Lisa Thorpe, and Emily Moll Wood present "Messengers & Messages"
Five Fiber Artist, five messengers, five ways of looking at the world and sharing ideas, five approaches to fiber art and five voices sharing their art.
Alice “Aida” Ayers
www.aliceaida.com / www.hearnefineart.com
Aida is an interdisciplinary artist and arts educator whose career spans over three decades across the Americas, Africa, and Europe. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master’s degree in Art Education, and her professional journey has included residencies in theatre, visual arts, and art therapy, as well as roles as an adjunct professor.
Since 1989, Ayers has been a dedicated teaching artist, completing residencies in more than 300 schools, colleges, community centers, and libraries. She has designed and led art programs, art therapy initiatives, and restorative practices for diverse audiences, while also collaborating with government agencies to organize community events such as art camps, mural projects, and cultural exchanges.
In both the studio and classroom, she encourages students to question assumptions, examine their relationships to ideas, and connect insights to broader cultural and societal contexts. Ayers’ personal artwork in textile arts explores spirituality, tradition, and belief systems drawn from African and American cultures. She works with ethnic, hand-dyed, and repurposed fabrics, found objects, and collected artifacts, using layering and hand-stitching to create rich textures that reimagine the practices of her childhood through a contemporary lens.
In addition to her visual arts practice, Ayers is the author of three books: It’s Me I’m Running From, Tomorrow’s Garden, and Lead with Love. Her work as an artist, educator, and author reflects a lifelong commitment to cultural exploration, creative expression, and community transformation.
Deborah Kuster
www.deborahkuster.com
Deborah Kuster (Ph.D.) is currently Professor Emeritus of Art at the University of Central Arkansas, having had the honor of preparing future art teachers in her 16 years tenure there. Her life’s career is in the field of art education, with experiences teaching all ages in schools, museums, and community organizations in Texas and Arkansas. She creates her two- and three-dimensional art by cutting, collaging, and sewing her personally hand-woven textiles. She states: “I am always amazed how my past weavings will fit into new artworks in ways I could have never predicted. My art has been my teacher and it has enriched my own teaching, mindfulness, and faith.
Mo Lashbrook
www.molashbrook.com
Mo Lashbrook is a practicing mixed media artist and hobby farmer. She honors nature and time through layers of abandoned objects, cyanotype, and fibers. Her work is full of symbolism and has evolved to include materials grown on her farm. Mo received a BA in fine art and MA in teaching from the University of Central Arkansas. She was a military pilot and art educator for many years. She served with the Cabot Foundation for Arts & Culture and was an Artist Inc. Fellow. Mo is a member of the Central Arkansas Art Collective, and her work is part of the Arkansas Arts Council’s permanent collection.
Lisa Thorpe
www.lisathorpe.com
Lisa Thorpe is a mixed media fiber artist and educator based in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her visual work is idea and story driven and often connected to words and writing. The art created is both personal and universal. Driven to pique and poke, she strives to invite discussion and discovery, reflection, and wonder.
Over the years Thorpe has explored many mediums, for the past ten years her focus has been on fiber and fabric art. Dyeing, printing, and marking her own fabric, and using photos printed on fabric of to create art. She is drawn to the use of fabric and stitch as a reference the tradition of stitch as a feminine art that clothes and covers and comforts. Her work plays with the boundaries of what is quilting, what is photography, what is art. Her work reaches back to her foremothers’ quilt making as an expression of self, a comfort and gift for those who encounter it.
Thorpe has a BA in Design from University of California, Davis and an Art Teaching Credential from San Francisco State University. Her identity is equal parts artist + educator and she loves to share what she has learned in her creative explorations. To that end, she has published writings and art in About Place Journal and Cold Mountain Review and numerous technique and inspiration articles in Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors magazines. Thorpe was a featured artist both Quilting Art TV PBS season 2024 and The Quilt Show in 2022. teaches at quilt guilds throughout the country and at national and international art quilt venues. Most recently, at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, the Gulf States Quilt Festival in Baton Rouge and the SAQA(Studio Art Quilt Association) conference in Toronto
Emily Moll Wood
www.emilymollwood.com
Emily Moll Wood is a visual artist who paints a lot of flowers and portraits. Lately the two subjects have been combined to explore the hidden labor of women. She holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and has taught painting classes for over 15 years, most being at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. Her work has won awards in numerous juried exhibitions and can be found in many private and public collections such as the Historic Arkansas Museum and the Springfield (Missouri) Art Museum.
This is the secondary branch of the William F. Laman Public Library located in the heart of the Argenta Arts District of North Little Rock.
