FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – An exhibition titled "Timothy F. LaTourette: Inspired Works" is on display through Dec. 2 in the Fred and Mary Smith Exhibition Gallery in Vol Walker Hall on the University of Arkansas campus.

A closing reception will be held at 5 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2.

This exhibition explores the creative life of LaTourette through his art furniture, lighting, prints and other pieces. In the works for more than a year, the show is layered in meaning and now holds a bittersweet tone.

LaTourette, an instructor and woodshop director for the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, passed away suddenly in April at age 59. Before his death, he'd made a list of pieces he wanted to include in the show. His wife of 32 years, Rebecca LaTourette, brought in additional pieces that she felt supported the overall exhibition.

She designed the exhibition and how its elements would be displayed. She included pieces of a variety of scale and placed many of them in pairs.

"It was important to simplify and make things cohesive because Tim's work is so complex," she said.

For years, they had salvaged things together and then made them into new things. She realized that some old boards — decayed and showing the tracks of termites — were a perfect way to display his prints while also giving them a more monumental scale. She used cherry boards from a friend's barn to display his lighting pieces — referencing her husband's love of nature.

She included pieces from the start of his artistic career — like a larger print with butterflies — so viewers could see the continuity of imagery throughout his work. He used several images and forms repeatedly in different ways in his prints, cabinets and furniture.

Photo by Rebecca LaTourette Tim LaTourette

He liked butterflies for their symbolism of life, resurrection and reemergence — transforming from one thing to another.

"They have a rich symbolic heritage. That was important to him," she said.

The prints in the gallery's front room were inspired by dreams he'd had in the last year about family and relationships, and the importance of maintaining and repairing relationships.

She gathered several pieces in the back room of the gallery that weren't complete. Among those is "Glass Houses," a piece that holds a rock he had picked up in February on a hike while visiting friends.

"It was finished enough that the intention of it, of where it was going, is clear," she said. "He was so inspired by the beauty and perfection that is the natural world."

There are a couple of sketchbooks opened to the drawings of pieces displayed nearby, including one atop the table it details. That room also features an assemblage of pieces from their Fayetteville home and his studio, items collected while on hikes and travels.

"It was important to me to make that back space a room of inspiration, with his ideas," she said. "It's a rare opportunity for people to see some of the inner workings of how an artist works through ideas."

All of his pieces started with sketches, she said, and then he developed his idea, figuring out details such as scale and how the elements of a piece worked in relationship to one another.

As an instructor for furniture making classes, LaTourette required all of his students to keep a sketchbook of their work through the semester. He knew the value of that practice.

"It was a real important part of his process to sketch and to doodle," she said.

He was also interested in words, language and poetry — and often referenced language and literary details in his work.

One print, "Life is but a Dream," was inspired by the Lewis Carroll poem of the same name, and it stands as an artist statement for the show. She said he had been reflecting on that thought that life is but a dream.

Though he liked complexity, he'd reached a maturing of his artistic vision in some of his final pieces "where he wasn't trying to do too many things in one piece," she said. "He was really coming into his own as an artist. He was working through visual structure problems that made some of his earlier pieces not quite fully realized."

And, maybe because of that, he had received certain outside validation of his artwork in recent years. In 2013, a portfolio of his work won him an individual artist fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council, in the Creating Contemporary and Traditional Crafts category.

His lithograph "Rise Above" was part of the 2016 Small Works on Paper touring exhibition. That featured 37 Arkansas artists and was scheduled for exhibition in 10 cities across Arkansas throughout this year, including earlier this year on the U of A campus.

"His life's work was to be an artist — not just to be a craftsperson but to be an artist," she said.

A fairly recent interest for him was making guitars. Once he was captured by the idea, he started reading about it and taught himself to do it. This past year, he led a guitar making class in the school.

"That was Tim. He would decide he wanted to do something, and he would learn how to do it," she said.

Working in the school gave LaTourette pride and belief in himself, and it added meaning to his life, she said. He loved teaching, mentoring and interacting with students.

"It gave him a full life," she said.

Admission to the exhibition is free. The exhibition gallery is located on the first floor of Vol Walker Hall, and it is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.