Carolina Arts Unleashed

On one of the days when I was delivering our December 2008 issue of Carolina Arts, I stopped at the Charleston County Public Library’s Main Branch in downtown Charleston, SC to leave copies of our paper. This is not something I can do in every library across the Carolinas. Did you know that some library systems in both North and South Carolina will not let us leave papers at their library branches. Most of the time it’s not because they don’t like our paper, but it’s the only way they can keep other papers out of the library. It’s censorship by association, which is not so cool but understandable after viewing some papers out there. This is not the case in Charleston.

After dropping off papers I went to check out the current exhibit up in the Saul Alexander Foundation Gallery. The December 2008 exhibit was Places and Faces, featuring mixed media works and some portraits by Liza Twery of Charleston.

A handout offered at the exhibit provided the following info: “Influenced by a family of accomplished artists, Liza grew up amidst the Blue Ridge Mountains of central Virginia. She moved to the Lowcountry in 2002 and earned a BA in Studio Art and Arts Management from the College of Charleston. In 2005, she lived in Florence, Italy, where she studied the visual arts at the prestigious Firenze Arti Visive. There she began her personal exploration of layering and experimenting with a variety of materials. In her work Liza has been known to use tissue paper, tape, glue, and recycled materials such as plastic bags. From the home of an Italina contessa to the quaint shops of the Charleston Market, Liza’s work is displayed and appreciated all over.”

It was Twery’s unusual use of materials that caught my interest while viewing her exhibit. She used a variety of materials not often seen in paintings. In one image a man was rising out of bed - his body was made of what seemed like some sort of plastic material, which I later figured might have been a plastic grocery bag. I’m no artist, but I figure that was harder to do than just painting a man’s body. Maybe not, but I couldn’t do either. The sheet/blanket from the bed was also some kind of plastic material - which makes sense - plastic body - plastic sheet - think of a sheet that is skin soft. Now wouldn’t that be a nice sheet or blanket?

In another scene a naked woman is looking out a very large window - the drape is actually made of a materials that is often used for window sheers. A rug on the floor is some material which has a pattern of a typical patterned rug.

Twery supplied me with three images from this exhibit. All three scenes suggest situations where people have perhaps been sleeping in a room - just awakening. Each room has a window to look out at various views - an urban view, a blank blue sky (maybe at the beach) and a rural farm or stable view. The rooms and objects in the rooms are made up of various materials or images from other images - none of the three would suggest wealth or a longtime residence - like these could be first time apartments or even dorm rooms.

Twery also offered some images which were like portraits of different people, but they all shared the same eyes or look in their eyes. I looked around the gallery space and noticed that there was something about the eyes in all images that showed people looking out of image. What the message is here I don’t know, but I’m sure the artist has a story about the eyes. Maybe it’s that she thinks all people see her the same way - with no imagination or that all her subjects begin to all look the same once they enter her art. Who knows, but once you notice the eyes, it’s hard not to notice them. Some people say you can tell a person by their eyes - maybe Twery is protecting the innocent people (in real life) who are being depicted in her art world. I’m just saying - check out the eyes - they have a look about them.

So here is another little exhibit at the library worthy of your time to go see. You can make your trip a little more worthy by picking up a good book, a CD or a DVD and the first hour of parking is free. Throw in a public rest room and a copy of Carolina Arts and you have gotten a big bang for your buck - Oh that’s right, everything I’ve mentioned is free - or at least most of it is - if you don’t have a library card, but then why wouldn’t you? I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t.

So go see the exhibit - it’s up through December.

P.S. Two extras. Liza get extra points for knowing the correct spelling for the “Lowcountry” even though she is not a native. And the story about the eyes reminds me of a little story from my photography days. I mentioned the eyes of the people in the images looking out of the images - of course you can’t see the eyes of the people looking away.

I once worked in a photo processing shop where people brought in file to have it processed and then have pictures made - I’m talking decades ago, long before the digital world we all live in now. An older woman had picked up some slides or transparencies (these are positives films that people used to show in projectors). She had a slide on a light box and kept turning it over and over. I went up to her and asked if I could help her or if there was a problem and she asked which way she had to turn it to see the person’s face? I looked down and it was an image of the back of a person’s head, but she wanted to see the face. I offered an explanation as to why that wasn’t possible that didn’t go over very well and retreated to a back room before I busted a gut, but later in life came to the conclusion - what a tragedy of the technology of photography that the camera couldn’t take both sides of any scene - so we could see what the photographer didn’t want us to see, but then - isn’t that what every artists is doing? They only show us what they want us to see and do we even see it - right in front of us? Makes you wonder.

Home

For any regular reader of Carolina Arts over the last eight years, commentary from Judith McGrath - all the way from Western Australia - has been a sort of sounding board as to what’s going on in the visual art community - around the world - or at least the other end of the world. Although Australia is 24 hours of flight travel away from us in the Carolinas, it seemed at times that McGrath was writing about the art community right here. I know there were times when I wondered if she had installed some kind of spyware in my computer to monitor my commentary. When her e-mail would arrive - out of the blue - it often mirrored what was on my mind. Believe me, it was spooky at times.

It all started when Scottie Hodge, owner of Tempo Gallery in Greenville, SC (now closed for some years) sent me an e-mail about an article she read that McGrath wrote for an online publication called, Art Thought Journal. After reading the piece I contacted the editor of that publication to see if I could run the article in our publication. He said I’d have to take that up with McGrath. I contacted McGrath and in our Nov. 2000 issue we offered a guest commentary entitled Visual Art vs Entertainment.

The reaction to that guest commentary was very favorable - mostly because of the article’s content and insight, and some as relief from my views. So, from that day on we have offered the occasional - View From Down Under. You can see that first article and all others she offered archived on our website at (http://www.carolinaarts.com/afewwordsfromdownunder.html).

Who was this voice from down under? We have posted this description after each installment: Judith McGrath lives in Kalamunda, Western Australia, 25 minutes east of Perth. She received a BA in Fine Art and History from the University of Western Australia. McGrath lectured in Art History and Visual Literacy at various colleges around the Perth area, and was an art reviewer for The Sunday Times and The Western Review both published in the Perth area. McGrath is currently a freelance writer and reviewer for various art magazines in Australia. She also co-ordinates the web site Art Seen in Western Australia found at (http://www.artseeninwa.com).

Well, as I mentioned in commentary in Carolina Arts a few months ago, McGrath was planning a trip to the east coast of these United States and was planning a trip to South Carolina. She was actually planning to visit Bonneau. When they asked about hotel info in Bonneau - when Linda (my better half) and I stopped laughing, we explained that we might have to direct them to another city close by.

Oh - how interesting that could be - Judith McGrath in SC - in Charleston! I didn’t get my hopes up as I know all the things that can happen to derail the best laid plans. Just look at John McCain. His “straight talk express” ran aground in Alaska - much like the Exxon Valdez did. They’re still cleaning up that mess.

But on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2008, I was driving Judith and her husband Owen from Summerville, SC, to downtown Charleston for a look at what the visual art community had to offer.

I had made some plans as to what and where we would go, but like I said before - the best laid plans sometimes have to be adapted. We had to deal with what would be open on Sunday and Monday, and unfortunately, that took some galleries off my list. And, we found that some galleries are not going by the hours posted in Carolina Arts’s gallery listings. And, on the other hand, fortunately some galleries that should have been closed were open.

McGrath’s tour of South Carolina began in Spartanburg, SC, where her visit was front page news, but in Charleston we would be traveling under the radar - much like I do. If you have followed my commentary about the good Mayor of Charleston, I have to look twice - both ways - before I cross the streets in Charleston.

First off, the weather was great the two days they were in Charleston. It’s like we were actually having Fall weather in South Carolina. Our weather is the complete opposite of what they have at the same time in Australia - our summer is their winter.

After a short driving tour of Charleston, our first official stop was at the Gibbes Museum of Art. Although the couple was somewhat fatigued in visiting Art Museums up and down the east coast, McGrath did fall in love with Alice Huger Ravenel Smith’s watercolor landscapes - not her works with people, but the landscapes. But, what she really wanted to see was the commercial galleries. So we headed out to see who was open.

The great thing about Charleston’s commercial art community is that it is concentrated in a few areas of the city. You can park in one stop and visit dozens of galleries in just a few blocks of each other.

After leaving the Gibbes we first ran into the sidewalk display by a few members of the Charleston Artist Guild - a Charleston Fall tradition. We next headed “by request” to Charleston’s Market area. McGrath had spotted the area on our driving tour around the city. At first I couldn’t think of what area she was describing - the Market is not usually on my tour itinerary for visitors, but I soon realized the McGraths were also interested in the full view of Charleston - including the Market and antique shops on King Street. I’m a flexible tour guide so we adapted some more.

The Market helped add to the McGraths’ worldwide collection of snowglobes.

From the Market we headed into the heart of the French Quarter Gallery Association’s district, but found few open galleries there. It’s a good thing we still had Monday for our tour. We then headed to Broad Street where we found more open doors. The couple’s favorite gallery of our first day of touring was the Mary Martin Gallery. They were really taken by some sculpture there of wooden violins made by Philippe Guillerm.

After walking and driving around one end of Charleston to the other in search of open galleries, we left Charleston heading to the promise lands of Berkeley County for some barbecued ribs and corn-on-the -cob at the headquarters of Carolina Arts in Bonneau, SC, on the shores of Lake Moultrie. The McGraths live at the edge of Australia’s OutBack and I explained that Linda and I lived in what most Charlestonians think of as Charleston’s OutBack - Berkeley County.

As it always happens - when it rains it pours. We didn’t know exactly what day the McGraths would arrive, but at the same time Linda’s sister arrived for a visit as well as some good friends from North Carolina who have a house at the lake, so Linda didn’t get to do the Charleston with us.

On our second day of touring Charleston art galleries we found more open doors, but there were still a few galleries that were supposed to be open but were not when we arrived at their door. And, we missed a few that don’t open until Tuesdays, but we visited 80 percent of the galleries in downtown Charleston in our two-day adventure. And, my feet were feeling it too. I’m used to trekking the streets of Charleston and many other cities in the Carolinas, but I usually don’t take in the antique shops too. But I learned some things in our travels that was well worth the effort.

Some galleries don’t seem to be displaying the copies of Carolina Arts we drop off every month. I made a list and will be checking this out and when we find that someone is not displaying the paper, we will stop leaving them there and take out the free gallery listing we have been giving them. Most galleries had them well displayed, a few had them hidden, but we made a game out of seeing who could spot the Carolina Arts first.

Highlights this day included a visit to Rhett Thurman’s studio where we were lucky to catch the artist at work, a visit to Nina Lui and Friends (all three floors), Plum Elements for a peek at some Japanese prints and what was hailed by McGrath as her favorite gallery in Charleston - the Eva Carter Gallery. It was a special moment of pride when I got to brag that we owned a work by each of the artists represented by the gallery. It was there that the couple almost purchased a work by Karin Olah - not having seen any work like it before. Now, that’s saying something from this world traveling couple.

Work by Karin Olah

But the joke of the two day tour was, “Owen, you’re gonna need another suitcase!” The McGraths were already going to have to purchase a very large suitcase to fit all their purchases made in the US while visiting. An extra suitcase on their 24 hour return flight home was going to be an expensive item. The thought of another one was an instant headache - for Owen.

The McGraths took lots of contact info from galleries we visited and they will let UPS do some deliveries for them once they get back home. After all, it is a small world these days.

After our second day of trekking we headed back to Summerville talking about some of the places we didn’t get to see, but I think Judith and Owen had an enjoyable tour and saw a lot of interesting art and got a small glimpse of Charleston. On the subject of the bad rap Charleston’s art scene often gets from some other areas of the Carolinas - the so called love Charleston artists have for painting the city and the surrounding environment - the two world travelers said that you see that everywhere you go around the world.

I don’t know if Judith McGrath will write anything about her visit to Charleston or what she will say. But, for me it was a great opportunity to have a give and take dialogue about what we were seeing, art in general, and various subjects covered in both our commentaries. It was also a great pleasure to meet the person who has contributed to Carolina Arts from afar for the last eight years and her husband. I hope the exchange will continue for many years.

Judith - Owen, thanks for coming to see us.

Home

About a month and a half ago I received a press release from an art gallery in Charleston who had just received the 2008 Best of Charleston Award in the Art Galleries & Dealers category by the US Local Business Association (USLBA). We receive a lot of press release about all kinds of things, but this one had a few items which caught my attention.

First, I never heard of the US Local Business Association, but I don’t know every organization out there and second, the gallery winning the award wouldn’t be my first choice as the “Best” gallery in Charleston. But, then again I didn’t know how the award was selected - what factors were involved.

I checked out the website given for the USLBA. That didn’t reveal too much info about this organization or the award process. Unlike other groups that give out awards I couldn’t find a list of all the winners - all I found was a place where you would put in a code to see about your award. Another flag when up in my mind.

So I e-mailed the gallery and asked if they knew anything about how they got this award. They responded that the USLBA surveyed 25 galleries in Charleston and they had received the highest level of customer satisfaction. Another flag was shooting up. There are a lot more than 25 galleries in Charleston. Now I really wanted to know who came in second.

I e-mailed the USLBA and asked if they could supply me with the names of the galleries surveyed and what was involved in the process. Their site said they would respond within 24 hours. It’s been more than a month and I haven’t gotten a response. Now I know why.

I read in a Post & Courier article submitted by Michael Buettner on Aug. 25, 2008, in the paper’s Business Review section that no one he has contacted has ever heard of the USLBA and he’s still waiting for a response to his e-mail too.

The USLBA is a website that sells businesses awards. You get an e-mail from them telling you that you’ve been selected to received an award - just go to their website, put in the code associated with your award and it will tell you how much your plaque will cost. You can also select how big you want your award to be - at various price levels.

The USLBA is probably nothing more than a great cover for a company that makes awards - even if you get your award after sending in your money. Very clever - banking on people’s pride and stock in receiving awards.

I get calls at least once a week and sometimes more often from people who say they represent certain companies trying to sign me up for a service. What’s funny is that many of them are representing people we already have services with and they don’t know I’m already a customer. It doesn’t take long to ask a few questions to get that special click! When they realize I’m not fooled.

After 20 years we’ve heard a lot of different pitches - some sound real, but we always run into a snag when I ask them to send me the pitch in the mail. They never seem to come. Sometimes if I’m not real busy and they seem to think we talked on the phone about this before or at a party - I play along taking up their time and running up the cost of their call.

When it comes to awards, I would at least like to have heard of the organization giving it and I would always want to know who came in second. And, I’m sure not going to pay for it.

Home

The day we went to Apple Store heaven in downtown Charleston, SC, Linda and I also stopped at the Charleston County Public Library’s Main Branch to restock. Linda headed for the novels and I headed to the selection of books on CD. I’d be hitting the delivery trail again soon so I needed to find some books I haven’t listened to before - which is getting to be a challenge. Not that the Library doesn’t have lots of books on CD to choose from. I just don’t care to listen to many of the subjects. I need authors who can keep me awake in the wee hours of the night and morning.

I picked up a few new Elmore Leonard books there, so it looks like Leonard and James Lee Burke will be doing the job of keeping me awake this month - along with NPR and the BBC.

If I’m at the Library in downtown Charleston, I’m going to be visiting the current exhibit up in the Saul Alexander Foundation Gallery and this time it was an abstract photography exhibition by Greg Schmitt.

I thought I knew who this artist was, but I wasn’t sure as there wasn’t much information being offered on the handout left in the gallery for visitors. It contained three paragraphs - sort of an artist’s statement about the works in the exhibit, a request for visitors to sign the book left in the gallery and tell the artist what you thought of his work, and the name of the artist. There was nothing offered as to how you might get in contact with the artist - if you had a question or might want to purchase a work.

Most of the exhibits shown at this gallery space are always accompanied by lots of info on how to get a hold of the artist for further info or transactions. No one wants to take the chance that someone would try and find someone at the Library for further info - not that you couldn’t get that information - it’s more of how impulsive people are or how much in a hurry they often are.

I got the impression that this artist was offering these works for viewing only and was looking for people’s reactions - almost as an experiment. There were no titles on the images offered, no price list for possible purchases, and the artist didn’t even sign the images. This was not your usual exhibition.

I later learned that this was the photographer who I thought it was and he is a professor of communications at the College of Charleston. So was there more going on here than what this picture of a gallery exhibit presented? I don’t know, but part of the artist’s statement might give a clue.

Schmitt wrote, “I want you to have the opportunity to study the images without being influenced by what they are. Recognition forces you to think of the images as particular objects rather than nameless ones. Even naming these images attempts to force you to see in a particular way. I don’t want that. I want you to enjoy, for instance, the hues just for themselves.”

And, that’s what you get with these 18 images - all about 8″ x 10″ in size. You get extraordinary colors in all kinds of shades and hues - in patterns and textures run wild. I didn’t find myself looking for objects to figure out what the images photographed might have been at all. Digital photography is one of the new wonders of the ever-changing medium of photography in the art world.

Less than 200 years old, photography, unlike other mediums used to create art has never stopped evolving. Technology is wonderful and the possibilities in the hands of a creative person are unlimited. They don’t do me any good. The digital camera and today’s computers with fantastic software can only take a person with no talent into the realm of being creative - so far. These innovations are just tools to the real artists.

Like other abstract works of art there has to be something that grabs the viewer and demands their attention and hold it long enough to keep them looking - just color and patterns won’t always do it. And, I’ve always wondered what it is that attracts me to some abstract works and not others - even works created by the same artist.

I found that many of Schmitt’s works did it for me, but without titles I’m lost in my limited descriptive abilities to tell you which works did. Unfortunately this is another exhibit which I ran into near or at the end of its life.

The exhibit, A State of Mind, which I found on the Library’s website will end on July 30, 2008. Having not known that title until I sat down to write this entry, I’d have to say that maybe the experiment worked - if there was an experiment at hand here, as I was put in a certain state of mind in viewing these images - a state of wonder.

Now that could mean good and bad things, but I would think that this would be a worthy accomplishment for any artist. To have the viewer walk away wondering about what they just viewed. I think I’d be a little concerned if I was an artist and someone saw my works in an exhibit and it left them the minute they walked away - out of sight, out of mind. That does happen at times.

I’ve contacted the artist to see if we can get some of these images to show here. If we don’t, I’m sorry I wasn’t prepared with my digital camera - again.

Other Business Pertaining to the Saul Alexander Foundation Gallery

Back on June 25, 2008, I posted a blog entry about the Library’s call for exhibit proposals for the Dec. 08 through Dec. 09 season. It was called “An Overlooked Opportunity”. I included their call to artists in my entry and it can be found on our Carolina Arts website under the heading Art News - then Dated Opportunities. When I called to inquire about this exhibit and the artist, I also asked if they were getting many proposals and I’m disappointed to say that they are not, at this date. The deadline is Sept. 5, 2008, and I know how artists like to wait until the last minute to respond to such opportunities, but don’t wait too long. If artists act like this space isn’t useful as an exhibition space - I’m sure the Library can find a use for it. Like filling it up with more books on CD for me. I could live with that, but I’d rather see it continue to show art. It’s up to you artists out there.

Home

I didn’t get to attend this second meeting on July 1, 2008, entitled, Creative Spaces: Developing a Unified Center for the Arts, which was a follow up to the Creative Spaces panel discussion hosted at Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, SC, on April 24, 2008. This meeting was held at Theater 99, located at 280 Meeting Street in Charleston.

I was attending to my duties as editor and publisher of Carolina Arts - delivering papers across the Carolinas. I was in the car heading to Western North Carolina, Upstate South Carolina and eventually later the next morning to Columbia, SC. I would have rather been at the meeting, but the paper and its supporters come first.

Better yet, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall during some of the discussions by members of the Charleston Arts Coalition after they got a hold of John Stoerr’s late night blog about this meeting on Charleston City Paper’s website.

After reading the blog myself I have to say - if truth matters - according to Stoerr - I’m not sure he’s been here long enough to have developed such a harsh attitude about what can and won’t happen in Charleston. And, in my experience - he might not be here much longer. Charleston may be too small for him.

I will admit that five years ago I didn’t believe Redux would last so long - especially after its founders returned to university, but it has. These people have earned our benefit of the doubt. As someone who has been involved in Charleston’s art community for over 30 years - I’ve got a right to be discouraged or skeptical when these movements come around, but I haven’t given up hope - not yet. It’s way too early to start passing judgment on this effort.

I was really disappointed in missing this meeting as I wanted to hear comments from Fred Delk, director of the Columbia Development Corporation (CDC) which is currently exploring ideas to pull off the Columbia Art Studio Project. The project is currently envisioned to be artist-owned studios on a 1.5-acre lot owned by the Columbia Development Corporation, located behind One Eared Cow Glass at 1001 Huger Street in Columbia, SC’s Vista area along the Congaree River. The Vista is a hot bed of development in Columbia - now. Not so, 10 -15 years ago.

The Columbia Art Studio Project has been knocking around for a number of years and it seems they may be getting close, so it is a good example of what is being done in other places, but it is also an example of how behind Charleston is in supporting “some” areas of the arts - the visual arts.

Here’s a little bit from the Columbia Development Corporation’s website about their work in supporting the arts in Columbia’s Vista area: “Early in the Vista’s development, the CDC assisted in the creation of arts-related business and opened the Vista Studios. The 12-artist studio began with a grant from CDC and the SC Arts Commission, which supplemented lease rates for artists for the first 5 years. Now, nearly 15 years later, the studios still provide studios and galleries for working artists, preserving a vibrant and creative presence in the center of the neighborhood. The Vista Studios still operates at its original location as Studio 80808 at 808 Lady Street.”

“Support and strengthening of the arts community early on became a key to the growth and development of the Vista district. That support resulted in the Vista being the location of dozens of artists, galleries, and studios. The creative edge of the Vista also attracts other design professionals. Architects, graphic designers, web designers and advertising agencies abound in the area.”

Do you know of a group like the Columbia Development Corporation in Charleston? I don’t, and if they exist where have they been all these years? The Vista area in Columbia is also served by the Congaree Vista Guild. They purchase ads in Carolina Arts to promote the district and art related events taking place there.

Here’s a blurb from their website: “The Congaree Vista Guild is the voice of the district and its strongest development advocate. We are a non-profit, membership-based, organization charged with seeing that Columbia’s Vista is a vibrant symbol of our progressive Southern city. Led by a 14-member Board of Directors representing a variety of business sectors, the Congaree Vista Guild and its members are dedicated to making the Vista the place of choice for shopping, dining, and entertainment, a national and international tourist destination, and a high-energy urban environment to live and grow businesses.”

Do you know of a group like that in Charleston? We don’t even have an arts council here anymore. So the Charleston Arts Coalition is working at a disadvantage.

I know there are some who think that with a Mayor like Joe Riley, who is so supportive of the arts - who needs all these organizations? But, my experience is that Mayor Joe is very helpful to the performing arts but not the visual arts and although The Peoples Arts Center is for visual and performing arts groups - Mayor Riley hasn’t been very productive lately. The Charleston Symphony Orchestra has been pushing for a new facility for years and there is nothing on the drawing board.

Some would say - Well what about the City Gallery at Waterfront Park? Didn’t the Mayor deliver that? Not really - that was purely a trade with developers to get their hands on a prime piece of real estate. The Mayor then had the designers turn the space into a party palace more than an exhibit space and hasn’t properly funded the facility. It’s a city stepchild and under-used with no real focus or direction.

In the Post & Courier on 7/06/08, the Mayor announced that he (the City - one in the same) was giving one of the buildings Charleston got from the SC Highway Department “for free” to be used as research and laboratory space - a business incubator. The same article also mentions that the former SCE&G trolley barn, which the City now owns is next to the building which will be used for research and states that the City has no plans for it - at this time. So, why doesn’t that art supporting Mayor step up with another donation to help the local arts community - with an arts incubator? Or are there plans for this building - just no one is telling what they are?

Some would say - What about the City of Charleston’s Office of Cultural Affairs? Wouldn’t they be a source of support for a new arts center? Please - talk about people who have too much heaped on their plate already. They got kicked out of the Dock Street Theatre - even after renovations are finished, the City Gallery at the Dock Street is gone too. It wasn’t much but it was light years better than a couple of hallways in a bank building. Also the new city gallery space doesn’t have the Dock Street audience anymore as built-in viewers. That’s a major loss for the artists exhibiting their works.

Plus, back in the days when Diane Abbey was director of the Office of Cultural Affairs - that was the last days of equal treatment between visual and performing arts. She spent major bucks on renovating spaces all over Charleston for visual art exhibits during the Piccolo Spoleto Festivals. We haven’t seen that kind of commitment from the OCA in years.

The Columbia Art Studio Project is being headed up by the business community in Columbia. They have learned that the arts are good for business development - something the business community in Charleston just hasn’t come around to yet as a concept. Oh, they like the Spoleto Festival USA, but that support isn’t trickling down to the local art community that well - if at all.

Frankly, Charleston is and always has been a performing arts town when it comes to financial support and I don’t see any changes on the horizon. Look at the support the Gibbes Museum of Art isn’t getting from the local business community and the local governments. And, I’m sure the Charleston Ballet Theatre group won’t be left out in the cold for too long. They seem to have been a pet project of the City of Charleston in the past. Don’t worry about them.

But, things could be different and the steps the Charleston Arts Coalition are making are in the right direction. After all, more help may come from outside Charleston. And, if the artists are smart this time around, they won’t wait for help from others in Charleston - they’ll put themselves into this project wholeheartedly.

But hopefully one of the next steps will be a better name for this proposed center. The Peoples Arts Center is going to be a problem in the future. It will remind potential supporters of the old Soviet era or of China. Besides, if you ever want support from the City of Charleston - you better get the word Charleston into your name - somewhere.

I for one don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade - even before the parade starts, but I also won’t be viewing this project with rose colored glasses on either. I’ve been down too many dead end roads before. Frustration is a hard pill to swallow - over and over again.

So let’s give these people a chance. Let’s hope things will be different this time - anything is possible if you want it badly enough.

Home

It’s going to take some time to wrap my head around this blog thing - although not new to the world - it’s new to me. I have a lot of things rolling around in my head I want to keep aware of - don’t write too much (that’s not easy), make sure it’s not all about the SC Arts Commission (almost impossible), don’t just write about things in my own backyard (tough with $4 a gallon gas), and make sure you finish all the points you want to get across.

When I did the entry about the Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art, on view at the Gibbes Museum of Art in downtown Charleston, SC, through Aug. 23, 2008, I forgot something I wanted to mention. I had intended to let readers know that The Charleston Museum - America’s first museum, located across from the Visitor Center in downtown Charleston, also has an exhibition on slavery on view through Feb. 28, 2009. From Slave to Sharecropper: African Americans in the Lowcountry after the Civil War, presents an original exhibition to commemorate the bicentennial of the abolition of the international slave trade in the United States and the British Empire. The exhibit is centered around the recollections and memories of Lowcountry descendants of slaves and sharecroppers. It includes artifacts and images of African American experiences in the Lowcountry after the Civil War from the Museum’s collection.

You can find further info about the exhibition on our website under the heading South Carolina Institutional Gallery listings.

Home

One of my first blog entries was about the meeting held at the Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, SC, by artists looking for a solution of finding spaces for artists in Charleston. I just received the following notice about a second meeting - found below.

An open discussion will be held on July 1, 2008, from 6:30-8pm, at Theater 99, located at 280 Meeting Street, downtown Charleston, SC. The discussion entitled, Creative Spaces: Developing a unified Center for the Arts, will be a follow up to the Creative Spaces panel discussion hosted at Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, SC, on April 24, 2008. All interested parties are invited to join the newly created Charleston Arts Coalition in this discussion.

The format for the follow-up meeting will be more of a roundtable discussion and continuation of the conversation that began in April. The panel will consist of at least Chris Price, of PrimeSouth Group, LLC, urban planner Tripp Muldrow, of Arnett Muldrow & Associates, Jonathan Brilliant, local artist and Gibbes Museum employee, and Fred Delk of Columbia Development Corp., with Buff Ross, serving as moderator. The panel is comprised of individuals that have worked on collaborative projects similar to the vision of The Peoples Arts Center. The goal is to create a roadmap of what action needs to be taken based on successful examples of Arts center development in other cities in the Southeast.

The panel discussion at Redux in April was a rare moment for Charleston artists, musicians, performers, writers, and patrons to discuss the rapidly diminishing real estate available to the arts in Charleston. Panel members and the more than 100 people in attendance discussed this issue.

From this panel discussion, the Charleston Arts Coalition was formed. It is a group of artists, arts professionals and members of the community who have joined together to work towards creating an all inclusive unified center for the arts, encompassing visual, performance, music and literary art. Their goal is to find and modify real estate through out the city of Charleston, to house production, presentation and education space for the creative arts. The ultimate project goal is the creation of the Peoples Art Center.

The purpose of the first panel discussion held at Redux was to open a dialogue about the lack of art space in Charleston. The focus of the follow-up on July 1 will be on how to effectively begin to solve this problem and foster collaborations between the arts and the real estate development community.

The arts are a vital part of Charleston, benefiting the economy, tourism, real estate and the general cultural capitol of the city. The arts in Charleston must be advanced through the development of a space that could provide the living artists of Charleston with support and a venue to interact effectively with the public. This would foster collaboration among artistic disciplines enhancing each other and the community through exciting cultural events throughout the year.

Visitors planning on attending the event on July 1 are encouraged to draft questions and e-mail them to (questions@peoplesartcenter.com) ahead of time as there will only be minimal time to answer questions the night of the event. Theatre 99 has graciously offered their space to host the discussion in a format that will accommodate a large audience comfortably. Theatre 99 is located at 280 Meeting Street, downtown Charleston, South Carolina, above the Bicycle Shoppe, with an entrance to the upstairs at the rear of the building. For info call 843/853-6687.

Visit (www.peoplesartcenter.com) for more information about the roundtable discussion and to see some of the ideas being discussed.

Home

I finally made it to the exhibit, Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art, on view at the Gibbes Museum of Art in downtown Charleston, SC. The exhibition examines plantation-related works of art from the eighteenth century to the present. Organized by the Gibbes, this exhibit was on view at the University of Virginia Art Museum in Charlottesville, VA, from Jan. 18 through Apr. 20, 2008. And, after its viewing at the Gibbes will travel to the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, GA, to be on view from Aug. 23 through Oct. 19, 2008.

The Gibbes exhibition started on May 9 and will be on view through Aug. 3, 2008. So this was the exhibit Spoleto Festival USA visitors would see - if they fit a visit to a visual art museum into their busy performance schedule - they may have for this exhibition. I think it’s exactly the kind of exhibit which the Gibbes should be offering visitors during the Spoleto Festival. Why try and compete with the contemporary art they can see in their own home cities - New York, Pittsburgh, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, or any other northern city or from Europe for that matter.

These folks don’t want to see art that was probably in their cities years ago. They want to see art from Charleston and the South. The success of the exhibitions Spoleto offered when they were offering visual art exhibitions was due to the fact that they were site-specific to Charleston and the South.

I went to the Gibbes on a day when they had free admission. The normal admission is $9 - almost twice the cost of visiting other museums in South Carolina and the region. I had to drive around the area of the Gibbes three times to find a parking space that wouldn’t cost another fortune for a short visit. That free parking at the SC State Museum in Columbia, SC, is great.

This was the first time I have set foot in the Gibbes Museum of Art since 2002 when a few members of the board of the Carolina Art Association figured it was a good idea to boot out long time director Paul Figueroa on the trumped up charge that the Gibbes was in the red for the first time in many a year. Does anybody remember what happened to our economy after the Fall of 2001?

Now here they are, two directors later and a lot more red ink, the board has recently named Angela Mack the new director (and curator of this exhibition) - a hire from inside the Museum - also someone who worked as curator under the administration of Figueroa. I hope those board members are long gone too.

On my walk to the Gibbes I passed the house at 76 Queen Street that was once used as the Gibbes Studio School where they offered art lessons to students and adults - under a Figueroa administration. I understand the building is for sale for $3 million. Why, I don’t know. Even if they found someone to pay this price, it is hardly worth the value of the Gibbes future expansion as this property is adjacent to the Gibbes. The space would allow for a healthy expansion - unless they plan on one day leaving the peninsula for a totally new museum space. But I doubt that - I can’t imagine where that money would come from in Charleston - a performing arts town - when it comes to support from the City of Charleston and its Mayor.

So into the Gibbes I go and at the front desk I learn that there is no exhibition handout for the Landscape of Slavery exhibit, other than a family activity booklet for parents and children to play a game while visiting the exhibit. Of course there is the exhibition catalogue or book, but if I went on a free day and had to look for cheap parking - I don’t think I was going to be investing in the book. Look we didn’t name our publishing company Shoestring Publishing Company just because it might sound cute - it’s a reflection of reality. That’s OK - I brought a pad and pen to take notes.

They did have a map of the museum which was an interesting legacy of Todd Smith, who was director for the last two years. Except for the Main Gallery and the Rotunda - all the galleries at the Gibbes are now identified by a letter of the alphabet - A - L. Now that’s classy. At one time people gave good money for the names of those gallery spaces or were honored for one reason or another by having a gallery space named after them, but in Smith’s new contemporary view of the Gibbes a letter of the alphabet was cool - I guess.

I’m sure this all sounds like I’m leading up to a not so good review of this exhibition but it couldn’t be anything further from that notion. This exhibit was a winner - a real education and I hope an eye-opener for some. The juxtaposition of the old view of slavery in artworks by white artists of the colonial days, revolution, civil war and even Charleston’s renaissance period against the works of African American artists working in the present time - was quite an exhibit.

The slaves in the works of Winslow Homer, William Aiken Walker, Anna Heyward Taylor and Alice Ravenel Huger Smith portrayed slave life on the plantations of the South - as not so bad, while the contemporary works created by African American artists gave an entirely different view on how they viewed life on the plantation. Especially in works like Joyce Scott’s, No Mommy Me I, a leather and bead creation of a nanny and her golden charge and Juan Logan’s Foundation, a wall of metal blocks on one side but each block on the other side was shown to be the back of a slave on all fours - holding up the next block of another slave holding up another block and on and on. Two views of this wall - both very different.

When family and friends come to visit and I take them on the traditional tour of downtown Charleston someone always brings up the wonderful homes Charleston is full of and so lucky to have. They remark about the skill and craftsmanship it took to produce such masterpieces of architecture. I always reply, “Yes, it’s the best city slavery could build - I just want you to remember that.” It’s something everyone should remember in Charleston.

Slavery is a part of Charleston’s history and past, it’s not one of the better parts of that history, but it is part of the history. That said, that history, if told properly, can be a major part of Charleston’s cultural tourism. All we can do is apologize for that past, learn from it, and embrace it as part of the history of the city and the people who lived here - free citizens black and white and the slaves and the indentured. They all made Charleston what it is.

The artworks in the exhibition come mostly from collections of regional art museums and from regional contemporary artists. So this is pretty much a homegrown exhibition with a few exceptions. The works are placed in various sections including: Introduction, Protest, Politics, Nostalgia, and Identity - each interesting for their own reasons.

I think it was in the Politics section or maybe Protest - I can’t remember now - that I found two very interesting artifacts. One was a first edition copy of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, from 1852. What historical events did this small book set off?

The other item was one of the Dave jars, now famous in South Carolina’s history. Dave “The Potter” Drake was a slave and pottery maker, who could read and write, in Edgefield County, SC, who wrote info on some of his creations. This one had the following written on it: “Dave belongs to Mr. Miles where the oven bakes-the pots biles/31st July, 1840″. Slave Dave probably would never imagine where those writings would take him in history. Just think about how many pots, jars, jugs, plates, etc. were made by slaves on plantations throughout the South, but if found today are just old examples of pottery. A 15 gallon jar by Dave sold at public auction in 2000 for $83,600. It is said that the jars have been sold for higher amounts at private auctions or in sales among private collectors and dealers. Most slaves were not allowed to learn to read or write - good thing Dave did or we may never of had a glimpse into his life.

Well, go see this exhibit before it moves on to another museum and the works are returned to their owners. And, if you have the time - go see one of Charleston’s plantations - Middleton Place or Drayton Hall - to get a close up look at a plantation.

Before I left the Gibbes I walked through the exhibit, The Charleston Story, an ongoing exhibit featuring artworks that tell the story of Charleston or show off some works by artists from the area. The first sections includes what some young people might refer to as the old paintings of old people. Except for a few recent additions these are works that anyone who has visited the Gibbes over the last two or three decades has seen many times before. When I got to the section identified as Charleston Today, I was a little taken aback. Yes, there were works by William Halsey, Corrie McCallum, Jill Hooper, Brian Rutenberg, West Fraser, and even Jonathan Green and Jasper Johns, but there was much more work on display by artists who at best have a very loose connection to Charleston. As a poster stated, these are artists who may have visited Charleston, taught here at one time or - reflect the complex story of the region.

I’m not sure viewers were making that subtle distinction and didn’t end up thinking that these artists had something to do with Charleston Today - artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Diane Arbus, Forrest Moses, or even Jeremiah Miller and Herb Jackson - both from North Carolina.

The Gibbes has works by artists with real connections to Charleston in its collection who would offer good examples of the works - styles - subjects - displayed by these artists. They may not have the same name recognition value in some people’s minds, but at least they are from Charleston.

This exhibit may be an example of former director, Todd Smith’s transformation of the Gibbes into a more contemporary art museum, but the Gibbes needs to do some repair within the Charleston visual art community. They may need to dust off some of those works by local artists to bring some back into the fold. Plus it would be a more honest representation of art being created in Charleston Today.

My final thought about my return to the Gibbes. It has been at least six years since I was last inside, but it seemed much smaller to me now. This may be from visiting much newer and bigger art museum spaces in North and South Carolina. With over 10,000 works in the Museum’s collection, you wonder where they are keeping them all and how long will it take to get many of the works into some kind of display so people can see them? But I’m sure that’s a problem for all art museums - too many works and too little space.

After leaving the Gibbes I popped into the new digs of the Wells Gallery at 125 Meeting Street, which used to be the old Virginia Fouché Bolton Studio & Gallery - almost a decade ago. Of course the space had gone though a major make-over - no one would recognize this as the old Bolton space. The new gallery space has two glass windows in the floor so visitors can see the building’s old cistern below.

This was the fourth location in the history of the Wells Gallery in Charleston. The gallery started out on Market Street, but eventually moved to Broad Street - then State Street and now - as owner Hume Killian said ( I caught him dropping something off at the gallery on a Saturday morning) - to it’s final location on Meeting Street, almost next to the Gibbes Museum of Art. This is an example of how Charleston’s commercial gallery owners have constantly been forced to move from one location to the next - due to raising rents in the City. These galleries help make Charleston a destination and then turn around and have to pay - more and more for their own success. It would be nice if the City or the landlords would give them a break for attracting visitors to Charleston.

The gallery had on view an exhibit by Karen Larson Turner entitled, Way of Life. Turner has been a staple of the Wells Gallery for a number of years - since Broad Street I think. She is one of the area’s excellent landscape painters and this show was a good example of that fact. Works ranged in size from 11″ x 14″ to 3′ x 4′ and larger. I spotted a number of red dots on tags so I think the public was in agreement. This show may be over by the time anyone gets to read this but works by Turner can be found at the gallery on a regular basis.

The Wells Gallery has a good group of artists which it represents including local, regional, and as Killian told me - more artists with a national reputation.

You can see their lineup of artists in our paper or on our website. This blog may be new, but it’s just part of the Carolina Arts offerings of info on the visual arts of the Carolinas.

Home

On Saturday, June 7, 2008, I headed to Charleston, SC, on one of the last days of the Spoleto/Piccolo Festivals to see as much of the visual art exhibits as I2 could before some closed. This was my one window of opportunity. After this day it was on to the July 08 issue. That’s the way it always is with us - Carolina Arts. By the time we have finished our May ‘08 issue the Festivals haven’t even started. By the time the Festivals do start we’ve finished the June ‘08 issue and are delivering it throughout the Carolinas. When I’m finished with my 2,000 mile trek - at best, there are a few days left to see exhibitions which end with the Festivals. So it’s a mad dash.

Let me correct that statement. There’s no use mentioning the Spoleto Festival USA - they don’t offer any visual art exhibits - anymore. They did a long, long time ago, but not lately. So we’re talking about Piccolo Spoleto Festival shows and exhibits taking place during that time.

First stop, Charleston Artist Guild Gallery at 6 North Atlantic Wharf, which is near the City Gallery at Waterfront Park, another destination of the day. While I was still delivering papers in Charleston on June 4, one of the Guild’s former Presidents told me to check out their Painted Palettes at Piccolo show. I understood it was on view till Saturday, but I must have been mistaken. That show ended Thursday. If I had only checked my car copy of Carolina Arts, like others do before starting an art trek - I would have known that ahead of time. Don’t leave home without it!

I was shown a few works that had not been picked up by the artists or by people who had purchased some of the creations during the exhibit. It was nice to see that this wasn’t one of those shows where artists were given all the same shaped items to decorate. Just in the few I saw, you could see that some artists were thinking outside the box in putting their own creative touch on the theme of the exhibit. So I was on to the City Gallery at Waterfront Park which is at 34 Prioleau Street - less than fifty steps from the Guild’s Gallery.

The Vanishing Landscapes exhibition was the Piccolo Spoleto Festival’s 24th Annual Juried Art Exhibition, on view through Aug. 8, 2008. This is not the ending date given to us by the City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs - who operates the Piccolo Spoleto Festival. That’s why in Carolina Arts our May and June issues say the ending date is June 7, 2008. This is pretty typical of the info we receive from - whomever the new intern is each year - way back in April - before our deadline to print the May issue. Our July issue will have the correction, but as I’ve always said in the past - change is what Piccolo Spoleto is all about when it comes to the visual art offerings. Some years we had to promote exhibits where the location was still TBA at printing time. Other times new exhibits show up in the final copy of the official program - exhibits we never received notice of for our publication.

I picked up one of the exhibit catalogs upon entering the building and started looking at the works. Within ten minutes I was beginning to wonder if this was supposed to be a photography exhibition - there was a lot there and I also was wondering about how environmentally connected many of the works in the exhibit were - beyond being photographs taken of nature and an artist working the word “recycled” into the medium offered on the exhibit tag.

It ended up that photography in some form or another represented just under a third of the entire exhibit and that not many of the works in the exhibit would be sending viewers rushing out to change their habits - as far as wasting our environment away.

A photograph of a heron in the marsh is not an image of our vanishing landscape - at least not yet. It could be soon. Look - all our landscapes as we know them are going to vanish eventually - no matter how much conservation we do. I expected more images of what is responsible for the loss of landscapes now. Like an image of a heron floundering in an oil slick with an oil rig off the coast in the distance. I don’t think the Coastal Conservation League, co-sponsors of this exhibit, exactly got the exhibit they might have hoped for.

Hey, don’t get me wrong. There was nothing wrong with the artworks in the exhibit - there was some exceptional work there. And, I have nothing against photography. My background is in photography. I had a photography-only gallery in Charleston in the mid-’80s, but I was also the president of the local Sierra Club and an officer in the SC State chapter of the Sierra Club. Linda (my fair wife) and I did their newspaper before starting up our first arts newspaper. I’m very concerned about our environment and our landscape, but I just didn’t see a lot of imagery which should have made the cut into this exhibit.

It says in the exhibit catalog that 146 artists submitted work for the exhibition. Each artist could have submitted up to three works. There could have been 438 works submitted. I don’t know how many were submitted - it doesn’t say in the catalog, but only 65 were included in the exhibit. Many have little to do with a vanishing landscape other than words in a title. And, that’s too bad.

It’s still a good exhibit, worth seeing, that has a lot of good work and some great examples of the exhibition’s theme. So go see it and see what you think.

So what was the problem?

Well for one thing, contrary to what the written words in the exhibit catalog would lead you to believe, this was not the original exhibit planned for the City Gallery at Waterfront Park. Ellen Dressler Moryl, Director of the Office of Cultural Affairs had planned some sort of exhibit of Cuban works which fell through and the Vanishing Landscapes exhibit was plan B. The only problem was, she still wanted her friend, Dr. Mokhless Al-Hariri to curate this exhibit. It is my opinion that a better, more environmentally oriented curator could have attracted better entries and selected better works to be in the exhibit. Or at least made the exhibit smaller if good works fitting the theme were not submitted. As is, many works in the exhibit dilute the exhibit’s intent.

The exhibit’s Best of Show winner, an oil painting by Carol McGill entitled Scorched Earth, is a good example of this dilution and I’m sure it made the co-organizers cringe. This same work entered in another juried show might have been titled, Colorful Sunset.

Titles don’t make works an environmental work or an example of vanishing landscapes.

Another example is the work, Under the Oaks, an oil on canvas painting by Sally Hughes Smith. I like the image as a stand alone work, but as an example of vanishing landscapes - no. How many large oaks are we losing that are not victims of natural aging? We have laws about cutting trees this size in the Lowcountry. Of course it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. But is it a current threat? Are our oak trees on the verge of vanishing? Maybe underwater if we don’t change our habits fast.

A few good examples are: Monique Morales-Kroll’s digital photograph, Really, Lilies Have No Need For a Couch, which shows a sofa floating in a pond; Katy Perrin’s digital photograph, Recycle, which shows a mountain of compressed plastic bottles; or Karen A. Silvestro’s oil on canvas, Loss and Bloom, which shows a young woman with her head leaning on a large tree’s stump. In her hand is a new seedling. In the background is a forest of tree stumps.

One last thing about this exhibit. I found it strange that in the catalog there is no mention of where these artists are from. I know many are from the Lowcountry, but there was also a rumor going around that some artists were having their works placed in the exhibit by invitation. Rumors are rumors but this same rumor surfaced in another “juried” Piccolo Spoleto show Dr. Al-Hariri handled for the Office of Cultural Affairs. Could this be a reason for not mentioning where the artists are from or was it just an oversight? Who knows. But, it’s not a true juried show if some are being placed automatically.

But again, this is not a reason to not go see the exhibit and enjoy the works as they are. It’s just another opportunity lost in Charleston’s visual art soap opera.

While I was in the neighborhood - I was parked in front of the gallery - I poked my head into the Eva Carter Gallery, at 132 East Bay Street, as I can never get enough of the late, but great, William Halsey’s work and that of Eva Carter’s. After all I am an abstract kind of guy.

Next, I drove over to Nina Liu and Friends gallery at 24 State Street, to get a look at what was left of Aggie Zed’s exhibit, Bestiary. I can’t say this artist’s drawings speak to me but I can never get enough of Zed’s small human/animal sculptures and contraptions.

I then walked down (going South) Queen Street to the Corrigan Gallery at 62 Queen Street to see the exhibit, Celebration, featuring works by Richard Hagerty. This was one of several Piccolo Spoleto Invitational Exhibitions.

I know, I know, I know! In my travels from East Bay Street to Queen Street I was passing lots of other art galleries within an arms reach at times. My mission for the day was to see the Piccolo Spoleto Festival’s visual art offerings and a few things that would be gone by the time I would get back to Charleston next month. Damn me if you will, but there are just so many hours and too little me to get around. And, it’s been a tradition for me to talk about the Festival visual art offerings. At least those I get to see.

Anyway, Hagerty’s work is well known to Charleston’s visual art audience - he has been featured at Piccolo Spoleto several times, but this show was highly promoted so I didn’t want to miss seeing it. I had also promised an artist I would drop off a few exhibit catalogs there from the SC State Museum’s 20th Anniversary Exhibition, taking place in Columbia, SC. (See several blog entries here about this exhibit.) With gas near $4 a gallon, I’m going to make the best of all my travels these days.

Hagerty definitely has more vivid dreams and imagination than most people. His work is colorful and fanciful. His style is noticeable on first sight in any grouping of artworks - if you’re familiar with his work, but I saw - at least new to me - geometric works which I found interesting. By all the red dots (symbols of sold works) it looked as if a lot of other people found Hagerty’s work interesting too. This was an advantage for him - having his show in a commercial gallery. If this show had been in one of Charleston’s institutional exhibit spaces some people would have never considered that the works would be for sale. Yet, many times they can be purchased. Good thing for him and the gallery the City Gallery at the Dock Street Theatre was closed for renovations.

It would be nice if more commercial gallery shows were sanctioned as official Piccolo exhibitions. But then how do you choose and be fair to all?

Next I was off to the Charleston County Public Library at 68 Calhoun Street to return some books on CD - from my nightly travels delivering the paper and to see the exhibit, Intuitive Responses, by members of the Women’s Caucus for Art at the Saul Alexander Gallery - on view through June 30, 2008. This was their second exhibit (during Piccolo?). I don’t remember the first, but this was a really nice exhibit for the small gallery space.

I think many artists in the Charleston area overlook the library’s exhibit space, which is a shame. I think it gets a lot of exposure from library visitors - more than some bigger, more established exhibit spaces.

I want to list the names of the women participating in the exhibit. We didn’t have their names when we were sent info about the exhibit for the paper. They are: L. Jaye Bell, Sandra Brett, Betsey Carter, Leigh Ann Davis, Stephanie Drawdy, Rachel Herbsman, Tina Hirsig, Kate Landishaw, Laura Liberatore Szweda, and Sandy Tedesco. This might have been one of the better surprise exhibits of Piccolo. It didn’t get any press, but then not much of any of the visual art exhibits got much press, other than one or two - which seemed to get it all.

From the library I moved down Calhoun Street to the Addlestone Library (205 Calhoun Street) at the College of Charleston to see the exhibit, Richard McMahan’s MINI Museum, another Piccolo Spoleto Invitational exhibition, presented in the Sanders Rotunda. The exhibit was organized by Mark Sloan, Director of the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the college. This exhibit is also on view through June 30, 2008. Make sure you see it.

For 18 years, Richard McMahan, a savant living in Florida, has been creating his own personal museum collection featuring miniature replicas of the world’s greatest works of art from the collections of the world’s top art museums. It’s an amazing sight to see and wonder how someone could spend so much time working on this project featuring over 1,100 works - from modern installation works to Egyptian artifacts. Students with the Clemson Architecture Center in Charleston added much to the success of this exhibit by designing and constructing a structure to house and present these mini reproductions of art. Magnifying glasses are provided.

It kind of reminded me of a flea circus of the arts. “Step right up - for just five cents you can watch fleas reproduce the greatest artworks known to man.”

From this library I ventured over to the Redux Contemporary Art Center at 136 St. Philip Street to see, The Constructed Image, featuring works by five American photographers who challenge the concept of truth - as documented by the medium of photography. Photos don’t lie - right?

I ran into a snag here. There was a note on the door announcing - “out to lunch - be right back.” I was beginning to run out of time and this was the last day of this exhibit.

I went back to the College of Charleston to see the exhibit, Calin Dan, at the Halsey Institute for Contemporary Art, but this space was already closed for the day. The exhibit is up through June 20, 2008, but I doubt I’ll get to see it. Deadlines!

I went over to Marion Square, at the intersection of Calhoun, Meetings and King Streets to visit the Piccolo Spoleto Outdoor Art Exhibit 2008, for the third time. I took some pictures and talked to a few artists. Considering how bad things could have been this year for this show - it seems things went all right. Not great, but all right. There were a lot of artists there with works that caught my attention. New artists from the Lowcountry and new artists from around South Carolina. Even artists all the way from the Upstate - Greenville and Seneca. Slowly this show has gotten more diverse - offering anyone something that fits their taste in art. This show is also a great place for me to get a sounding of how the visual art community is doing and what the artists are up to - from year to year. It’s interesting watching the growth of some artists, seeing how some can still surprise you, and catching up on gossip. There’s lots of gossip to be had.

This show is the “Iron-man/woman” event of the visual arts. Imagine spending the span of three weekends - outside in Charleston’s weather - sometime good - sometimes brutal. There are good crowds on the weekends but the middle of the week can be like being stuck on a ship with Ulysses during the doldrums. An artist can begin to wonder if they will ever make another sale, and then they see that familiar face walking their way - a return customer. And, life is good again. They have the wind in their face once more.

For me, a visit to this show can be torture. Linda and I have a great collection of art, but my eye - it feels I’m shortchanging it. It sees things it wants - things it covets. My eye has seen works made by some of these artists and it remembers - I have to walk away in shame. I spend a lot of time convincing my eye - someday - someday things will be different. Someday, you will not just look. But this is a burden I carry everywhere I go. It’s a curse - it’s the eyes are too big for your wallet syndrome.

Back at Redux, the door was open this time for The Constructed Image, featuring works by Luis Gispert, Daniel Gordon, Lori Nix, Chris Scarborough, and Nathan Baker. Talk about being the last hour of the last day - this was the last 15 minutes, but they kept the doors open a little longer. I’m glad they did.

That old saying - photos don’t lie - well, maybe to most people who don’t know anything about photography, but to the people who know - photographs have been lying since the beginning of the camera’s invention. Just like many painters take liberties with their subjects - so have some photographers. Imagine Matthew Brady dragging dead bodies of soldiers from a Civil War battle to make the scene look better for the photograph. It happened.

In this case, some of the photographers constructed the entire image to be photographed - controlling every small detail of the image, where others used modern technology to manipulate the image - after the fact. If you’re good at it - the average viewer will never know - left to wonder how the photographer was so lucky to catch such an image. Isn’t that what cameras do - capture images in a moment of time?

I hope a lot of people managed to see this exhibit - I was glad I did - just in the nick of time. I understand the exhibit got some national attention in Wired magazine which drew some people to Charleston to see this exhibit. How nice that they had the bonus of the Spoleto and Piccolo Festivals too.

That was it - that’s all I could see in my short window of opportunity.

One final thought. It’s a shame that with Charleston being the destination of the most art savvy audience to visit South Carolina each year that more people in the visual arts community around the state don’t take advantage of this audience. It’s a challenge with limited formal exhibition space, but it would be the best time and location for a sampler exhibition of the state’s best artists. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have transported the SC State Museum’s juried exhibition to Charleston during the festivals. Now that would have been a wonderful opportunity for the artists and festival visitors alike.

I’ve always thought that Charleston would be the perfect location for a state art museum. Just thinking out loud.

Home

Downtown Charleston, SC, is where you’ll find a trail of broken promises and shattered hopes of generations of artists looking for a glimmer of hope and respect.

How many times do I have to go listen to a group of artists voicing their frustrations about the lack of a decent space for artists to create and show art - in the heart of historic Charleston? Too many.

This time it was, Creative Spaces: A panel discussion addressing the lack of artistic production and presentation space in Charleston, held Apr. 24, 2008, at the Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston. The powerhouse panel included: Jeanette Guinn, SC Arts Commission; John Paul Huguley, Founder of the American College of the Building Arts; Todd Smith, former director of the Gibbes Museum of Art; Seth Curcio, Director of Redux; Sharon Graci, Director of Pure Theater; Mark Sloan, Director of the Halsey Institute for Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston; Linda Fantuzzo, local visual artist; and Ellen Dressler Moryl, Director of the Office of Cultural Affairs, City of Charleston. The panel mediator was Marian Mazzone, Dept. Chair of Art History at College of Charleston, and President of the Redux Advisory Board.

This was a wonderful panel of people who have carved out their own niche in Charleston - except for one (Todd Smith, outgoing director of the Gibbes Museum of Art), but they were not the people who had much to offer in the way of solutions to the - Charleston space problem.

The conclusion of the meeting was that a task-force might be formed. Wait for it…

The Harsh Reality

Charleston is a small city with no throwaway spaces left for artists who want cheap rent. Those days faded after Hurricane Hugo came in 1989. The first half of the 1990’s was the opportunity to carve out a multipurpose home for Charleston’s art community, but the city leaders blew that chance. Now, here we are in the last years of the first decade of the 21st century and no one has figured out that they just are not making anymore downtown Charleston.

A few artists seem to want their cake and eat it too. They want to stay in downtown Charleston where they can create and show their art, but they want to do it for less than everyone else who pays to be in downtown Charleston. Some feel Charleston may owe them this - because they make the city the cultural wonder that it is. If they are forced to leave - the city will become just streets, buildings and sidewalks. I’ve heard that before if the community didn’t bail out the Charleston Symphony Orchestra when they get in financial trouble - which is often.

Funny thing about that view of Charleston, this opinion has probably been voiced for over 300 years, but the city just seems to keep on getting by with what it has. If you’re the new kid on the block you better be ready to fight the old guard for every inch you get. And, if you survive long enough - soon you’ll be the old guard fighting off the new kids.

Opportunity in this area can be found in North Charleston, SC - up at the old Navy Base, but many of the artists at this meeting couldn’t hold their noses long enough to wrap themselves around that concept. But, if they are the cultural engine that drives downtown Charleston - why can’t they move that culture to the Navy Base - then those seeking culture will follow. It’s not going to be that long before downtown Charleston will be extended all the way to the Navy Base anyway. The old worn out industrial “neck” area of Charleston will soon be a thing of the past. This will be the new Charleston and developers have already carved up the spoils between themselves. That’s another opportunity lost. So the Navy Base will soon be at the gateway to the emerald city.

Being Positive

It was suggested at the meeting and during following discussions about the meeting that venting old frustrations wouldn’t get the group anywhere - positive thinking was called for to solve this problem. So I’ll offer a positive solution based on my years of working with the local and state Sierra Club and other observations.

You can spend years lobbying leaders to protect the environment and you just might win a battle or two, but if you really want to protect the land - you better own it. Leaders change and so does policy. The Nature Conservancy has a better plan to protect land - own it or tie its future up in easements.

So if artists want a space to work, a space to show their work, a place to practice their music, dance steps, or theatre craft - you better own it. If someone else gives it to you - they can take it away.

Oh wait - a lot of these artists don’t have money or they say they don’t. So how are they going to own anything?

Where I live in Berkeley County, SC, it seems like you can’t throw a stone without hitting a church. People are building churches everywhere. People with not a lot of money themselves. If the arts are your religion - build yourself a house of worship.

You form a congregation, you find a spiritual leader, members of the congregation pledge money to the church on a yearly basis, that spiritual leader and some congregation leaders go to a bank and get a loan to build their church - a church of the arts. You pay your pledge and practice your religion.

That’s pretty much what commercial gallery owners have done in Charleston. They find their flock, pledge their financial future and practice their trade in art. Also, there are a lot of organizations with lodge facilities all over the area. Lodge members build these lodges - together.

Nobody hands you anything on a platter that’s worth having and without strings attached. That’s life.

So artists of Charleston - don’t look for anyone else to solve your problems. Help yourselves and forget about downtown Charleston - it’s sold out. The Charleston Symphony has wanted a new concert hall for over 20 years. They’re on the top of the list along with the African-American Museum. Have they broken ground for either of those projects lately? Don’t put yourselves on that list - you’re not that young.

A Change in Attitude Needed

I agree with comments made by John Stoerr writing about the arts for Charleston City Paper (5/7/08) about the undertones expressed by people at this meeting dealing with entitlement, victimization, and a preference for space in downtown Charleston or nothing. The artists with these feelings will have to come to terms with the reality that - they are the only people who are going to hold those feelings - especially in today’s economy.

Artists will get nowhere with the general public or business community expressing these attitudes or trying to convince them that the arts are necessary, economic generators, more popular than sports, or comparing Charleston to what’s been done in other cities. There is no other city that can be compared to the space situation in Charleston.

Most things they want are possible and possible with the help of the community - once the artists - like commercial gallery owners - are willing to put their own money and futures on the bottom line. Money makes the world go round and it’s the mother’s milk of the arts. Once artists stop waving around pumped up economic surveys about the impact of the arts in front of the community and adopt a healthy respect for other people’s money, they will find that many are willing to become partners with them on sound projects. Don’t continue to delude yourselves or insult the intelligence of the public. The call for this movement - if there will be a movement, should be - get real, get serious and you might just get what you want.

Carolina Arts will do its part - if presented with a sound proposal, but then we have to fight to survive everyday to keep what we have.

Home