Now in its third year, the Creative Exchange Fund, administered by The Medium in downtown Springdale, supports local artists by providing financial support and a space to take creative risks. KUAF is partnering with The Medium to profile some of this year’s 37 multidisciplinary artists. We’ll hear about their art, their process, and what it means to be a creative in Northwest Arkansas right now.
Today we hear from Jennifer Baugh, a multimedia artist born and raised in Fayetteville. Her interactive work will be exhibited at The Medium at the beginning of next month. Baugh describes herself as being an immersive artist.
Baugh: I started out being a visual artist, and then I just wanted to incorporate more to that. All of my exhibits that I do, when I do solo exhibits, they’re immersive, and they really only work if people become part of the exhibit, because that’s my goal. I just want people to be immersed and to play with the manipulatives. It kind of makes the art come alive, and they become part of the art in doing that.
You know, I feel like there’s so much in life we have to just watch go by, and we don’t have a lot of control over it. And sometimes art is that as well. You walk by and — I just want people to be a part of it and to be immersed in it.
My sons — I have one son on the autistic spectrum, and I have another who dealt with stuttering as a kid — and we went to a lot of occupational therapy and speech when they were growing up. They’re adults now, great people. And so we did a lot of sensory therapy, and everything we did at OT and speech, we did at home.
I would take them to art exhibits, particularly my youngest son, who really enjoyed them. He’d be walking along and want to become part of the picture, and I’d say, “Can’t do that, buddy.” So when I started doing my own stuff, I thought, I’m going to make this where it is a sensory experience, where people can be part of it — where they can immerse themselves or be curious, to get out of it what they want. It’s okay to look at it, and it’s also okay to be part of it.
I’ve always been creative and I’ve always played around with stuff. Some of my favorite memories with art were up the street across from the high-rise building. Mrs. Cammack had an art camp that I went to every summer, and she had the coolest walkout basement. Every day I would go there — I think I was five to ten years old — and she’d say, “What do you want to work on?” And I could pick whatever. She gave guidance, but she gave me the freedom to do what I wanted to do. There was no, “This is the picture we’re making today, so recreate this.” It was just, “What would you like to do?” She’d let me try anything. She was so kind, and it gave me the freedom to feel like I could do something.
But I didn’t start doing art — art that I would exhibit or show to anybody — until 2014. I guess that’s when I started drawing. The first two years I would put stuff on Instagram, get really scared, and take it off 30 seconds later because I was so afraid somebody was going to go, “Oh my gosh, did a two-year-old do that?”
The first solo one I did was at Brick and Mortar in 2022, I think, and it was really scary. It was fun, but I struggled with perfectionism and people-pleasing. I guess you could say a little bit of codependency, too, because I worry about what people think. At that time, I really did. I was worried people were going to walk in and go, “What is this?” But they played — they came and they played.
It was the first sensory exhibit. All my immersive exhibits are sensory-focused, and people actually came and played. They walked in, took their shoes off, and walked on the funky rugs I had out in front of all the artwork. They put on funky glasses and they touched the artwork, and they had a really good time. That’s the best part of it — watching people become part of the artwork.
It’s a real supportive community here with other artists, especially. It’s been really nice. I had different experiences — I was in an exhibit this past July at the university’s new Art and Design Building, and the collective that did it was so helpful. I’d say, “Hey, what if we do this? Would this be okay?” They were really receptive and had such great ideas.
So it’s going to be called Drum Roll, Please. I managed to procure from our fabulous community five different drums. I have a kick drum, a couple of tom drums, a snare drum, and some cymbals — which sounds really obnoxious, and I guess it could be, but it’ll be fine. I’m branching out here — I have no musical talent at all. My husband is extremely musical and I’m not. I just kind of clap and cheer for him.
But I really love it. A lot of people on the spectrum — a lot of neurodivergent people, people with sensory issues — like music with a 4/4 beat, something that kind of grabs you, that heavy percussive feel. I’ll have a kick drum set up, all these drums set up, and I’m going to affix audio-reactive lighting to them. Then I’ve got pictures that I’ve drawn that I’m going to put in front of them. When people come up and drum on the drums — I’ve got these hammer-looking mallets wrapped in felt or wool so the noise isn’t too much — when they hit the drums, the lights will change and project onto the pictures, changing the color scheme as they drum.
I think it’ll be fun. The heavy impact of drumming or stomping on the pedal for the kick drum, I’m hoping, will have just a sensory impact — something different, something new.
The other area I’m doing, I’m wanting to reorient, because my big thing with every exhibit — people, everybody’s different because they are. If we were all the same, how boring would that be, right? We wouldn’t be a society. Nobody needs the same person everywhere. So my big thing that I try to push is: just be curious. Rather than judge, be curious. Be brave enough to ask a question — “Hey, what’s happening for you today? How are you experiencing life now? What’s going on for you?”
I do that by trying to make art a little bit different so people can experience it differently. I just want to encourage people to be curious rather than judge — just be curious. So with the other part of the exhibit, I’m mounting several pictures onto lazy Susans — the little spinny things — and I’m going to backlight the frames so that people can walk up, look at it, and go, “Hmm, doesn’t do anything for me,” and turn it some, or maybe they like to look at it spinning slowly. Just give them an opportunity to manipulate their environment a little bit.
It’s at The Medium, and the exhibit dates are Nov. 7, 8, and 9. Maybe it’ll be a fun activity as the holidays are starting up — just a little bit of an escape to go play for a bit. That’s what I always invite people to do — come in and play.
It’s a lot of fun. I’ve had a lot of help along the way — my husband in particular. He’s my collaborator because I hang a lot of lights. Whenever I do an exhibit, I hang a lot of funky lights for people to touch and get wrapped up in or to look through the glasses. He comes in a day or two ahead of time before every exhibit and hangs all the lights for me. He’s the one who’s going to help me affix the lights to the drums, and he helped me buy the drums because he’s musical. We went to I don’t know how many places throughout the community trying to procure these drums, and I’m really grateful for him — that he comes along, is willing to help, and says, “No, that’s your thing.”
Jennifer Baugh’s exhibit Drum Roll, Please will be on display at The Medium in Springdale Nov. 7–9.
The Creative Exchange series is produced by KUAF Public Radio in partnership with The Medium. Support for this project comes from the Tyson Family Foundation. The Medium and the Creative Exchange Fund are projects of the Creative Arkansas Community Hub and Exchange, or CACHE.
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