Carolina Arts Unleashed

This was an interesting catch phrase to promote one of the seasons of the NBC TV show - Heroes. I’ve never watched that program, but I liked the phrase. I’ve used it before in commentary as it shows how interconnected we all are - one person to the next, one person to the environment, one person to the economy, etc.

Like - save your environment - save the planet; save a hungry child - save the next world leader; and save one species - save mankind. Of course some people have been saying - save the banks - save the economy or save US automakers - save millions of jobs. It just goes to show that not all combinations make sense. With some things it’s save them once - save them again and again and once more for good measure.

I’m offering the phrase - save the NC Potter Center - save Seagrove potters too.

Not too long ago we told you how the financially strapped NC Pottery Center in Seagrove, NC, battled to raise $100,000 to keep its doors open. The Center with the help of potters around the Carolinas and pottery lovers raised almost $125,000 in three months during a downturned economy. This was hopefully a temporary situation as it is hoped that the State of NC will eventually take the NC Potter Center under its financial wing - much like it did the troubled Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC, last year. But, we have all seen recently what a difference a few months can make.

A lot of that help came from local Seagrove area potters - donating pots for auctions, raffles, and for benefit sales - as well as blogging to get the word out and keeping people informed about the fundraising efforts. A lot of other people helped too.

But, now these same potters are preparing for their biggest financial event of the year - for themselves - the first annual Celebration of Seagrove Potters, taking place Nov. 21 - 23, 2008, at the historic Luck’s Beans cannery in Seagrove. The event starts off on Friday night with an opening Gala which will offer attendees a first chance at special auction items and first chance to purchase from participating potters - over 60 in all. Check out the website for complete details, there will be a lot of stuff going on. There is also a link on that site for accommodations in the area.

This will be a special weekend in Seagrove offering the beginning pottery collector a great introduction and the seasoned collector a chance to update their collections with the newest pots - straight from area kilns - still warm. Believe me, from what I have read about some of the preparations for this important weekend - some pots might be downright hot.

It will also be a great time to visit the recently saved Pottery Center. Admission is free this weekend, but you can still make a donation. And, from what I’ve heard - there may even be another pottery festival going on at the same time in Seagrove.

The important thing is that this holiday shopping season is going to be a critical time for all artists. It will determine how well the holidays and their future year will be. Support them if you can and end up with some beautiful art created by a Carolina artist.

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On my recent delivery trip - what we now call - The Search For Gas In The Carolinas - I got to see two exhibitions by Columbia, SC, area photographers. One of the exhibits was in Columbia and the other was in North Charleston, SC. Both exhibits fell into what seems to be a developing trend in photography - as least in recent exhibits I’ve seen - a move toward abstraction or near abstraction in the imagery offered. Both artists demonstrated that the camera is but a tool in the creative process - not a machine that takes pictures. The artist using the camera is the creative force.

Don’t get me wrong, I love straight photography, whether it be nature photography, portrait photography, journalistic photography, architectural photography, etc. Good photography takes skill and creativity. Otherwise anyone could do it. And believe me - everyone can’t.

With the invention of digital cameras and computer programs like Photoshop - photographic imagery can be manipulated in numerous ways - even creatively in some people’s hands, but they are only tools.

You can put a paintbrush in my hands and it is the same tool an artist uses, but the results will never be the same.

“Overflow” by Todd Oelze

While delivering papers in Columbia on a Sunday, I ran into an unexpected - open door - at Gallery 80808 at Vista Studios, at 808 Lady Street in the Vista. The exhibition was, Strokes of Light, featuring abstract photography by Todd Oelze (Blythewood, SC), on view from Sept. 26 - 30, 2008.

It’s not that I don’t read my own paper - I process a lot of information and usually by the time I’m delivering one paper, I’ve been working on the next month’s calendar of exhibitions. It’s hard to keep it all straight. What’s not a problem for me, but still seems to be for a lot of people in Columbia, is the fact that I know that Gallery 80808 is open when exhibits are taking place - even on the weekends. Not many galleries are open on Sunday in Columbia.

It was not too long ago that I did a review of another photography exhibit at the Saul Alexander Foundation Gallery at the main branch of the Charleston County Public Library in downtown Charleston, SC, It was abstract photography too. So here was another very interesting exhibit of more abstract photography.

“Cosmic Sneeze” by Todd Oelze

When I later checked the Vista Studios/Gallery 80808 web blog (http://www.gallery80808.blogspot.com/) I found this statement offered by Oelze. “Strokes of Light is a result of my recent endeavor to produce digital photographs that convey movement, while accentuating color and displaying the illusion of depth. I achieve this look by employing uncommon camera and lighting techniques, while keeping post-production effects to a minimum. My ultimate goal is to establish a recognizable style that I believe is extremely difficult to accomplish in photography. This collection of photographs is my first step in achieving this vision.”

I believe Oelze was very successful in pulling off his stated goal and look forward to seeing where his work goes in the future. I got him to send us a couple of images (another post exhibit review) and you can see more work on his website at (www.toddophotos.com).

My drive on Sunday started Saturday night and lasted well into the afternoon, but the short break in viewing Oelze’s works stayed with me a long time.

James Cheatum

On Monday, I was roaming from Calabash, NC, through Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand, eventually making my way down the coast to Mt. Pleasant and Charleston, SC. Some of my last stops were in North Charleston where I ran into the exhibition, Lens Paintings, Flower Photography by Jim Cheatham, from Columbia, at the North Charleston City Gallery at the Charleston Area Convention Center Complex, 5001 Coliseum Drive. This exhibit started on Oct. 1 (put up just hours before I arrived there) and will be up through Oct. 31, 2008.

In this exhibit, the images were sort of straight photographs, but taken so close in that they were abstracts of the real thing. They are images of objects, in this case flowers, that can’t be seen by normal vision - well maybe if you get real close and squint your eyes.

In a handout offered at the exhibit, Cheatham offered the following statement about his work. “My photography of flowers attempts to give expression to what might be called the spiritual dimension present in all living things - to the reality ‘behind’ the reality. In doing so, I am not concerned with presenting images that are photographically ‘correct’, but images that are ‘painterly’ as well as beautiful from a textural standpoint. I also strive for a strong graphic quality. Particularly in the collage mosaics.”

The results is a presentation of “sort of” straight photographs of flowers with the abstraction being offered by the closeness to the subject. In the photography world this might be considered “macro” photography - using lenses which are designed to take crisp images - real close in on subjects, but focus in not a goal here by Cheatham - delivering that “painterly” look - which is soft and sensuous.

You can see more images of Cheatham’s at (www.lenspaintings.com), but the exhibit will still be up through Oct. - so you can go see this one.

Both results seen in both of these exhibitions are nothing new in photography, the techniques have been seen before, but these two artists are taking the techniques to different levels - using their cameras and subjects as just tools to achieve abstracted imagery which reach beyond traditional photography.

I know some people in the art community don’t respect photography too much - they think it’s easy. Photography is an evolving fine art medium. If you’re not threatened by it, you might be able to see the possibilities and recognize that in the hands of the right people it can be as creative as any art medium.

Keep an eye out for further exhibits by Todd Oelze and Jim Cheatham - I know I will.

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One of my favorite stops on my monthly delivery run is at One Eared Cow Glass Gallery & Studio, located at 1001 Huger Street in Columbia, SC, in the Congaree Vista district. Columbia is one of the few stops on my runs where I’m there during regular gallery hours - at least some of the time. When that happens you can be sure I’ll stop in and watch Tommy Lockart and Mark Woodham make works of glass art - from molten sand.

From the first time I watched the two work I’ve been amazed at the transformation of a glob of molten glass into - well whatever you can imagine. And, even after all these years of watching them create, I still can’t tell you what they are making when they start - as it always seems to take some turn in the middle and ends up being something the farthest from my first guess. If I think it’s going to be a bowl or vase - it can end up that those pieces would be the stand for a more elaborate sculpture or lighting fixture. If I’m lucky, I might figure it out three-quarters of the way after all this time.

Another thing that puzzles me is when I see other people watching them work - most of the time they just watch. From the very start I was asking questions every step of the way. How hot are those ovens? How can you work all day in this heat? Where does the color come from? Why do some colors cost more? What happens to the pieces you break - can they be recycled? Why do you have to put finished works in a cooling oven? What’s a cooling oven anyway?

I don’t see how you can watch them work and not have a thousand questions. I even asked them if they minded people asking questions. They don’t - at least good questions. So, I can understand how dumbstruck someone can be when they first see the two work, but you have to have questions about what you’re seeing. How are you going to learn something without asking questions? They move so fast you might miss half the things they are doing to the glass.

One Eared Cow Glass is a gallery of finished works and a working studio. Many times when I’m out front in the gallery looking at new works - there are always new works, new designs, different color combinations, or different shapes - I have to go back into the studio to ask - How did you get this color and design to work? After they explain, it all seems logical, but I would have never figured it out on my own. They have often admitted that many things work out by trial and error. Over the years I’ve learned somethings about how the colors and designs work, but sometimes I’m stumped.

A few years back, I got to see the progress of a large commission piece over a few months time that Lockart and Woodham created for the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center (http://www.carolinaarts.com/oecg505.html) on Lincoln Street in the Vista. The piece is called Intermingling Convergence a.k.a. Flo. The work is a 20′ long x 10′ wide x 3′ deep creation of blown glass and stainless steel suspended from the ceiling of the two story lobby of the convention center. We have a photo essay of the installation of the work and finished images at the link for the Convention Center.

One of the first Special Features we added on our website - way back when we first launched it in 1999 - is a photo essay of Lockart and Woodham doing their thing (http://www.carolinaarts.com/glassmaking.html). Since that time these pages on our site have ranked in the top 30 pages visited - month after month after month. And we have thousands of pages on our site.

If you go visit One Eared Cow Glass, go see Flo at the convention center too - it’s just down the street and there are a lot of other good works of art there to see. With gas prices what they are you want to make the most of every trip you make. You’re in the Vista area, so you’re close to other commercial galleries and the SC State Museum and not too far from the Columbia Museum of Art.

Now plan ahead. They do not work in the studio on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but the gallery is open, and on the days they are working - they work from 9 to 11:30am in the morning, stop for lunch, and then work again between 1:30 and 4pm. But, call ahead to make sure the day you are going - they will be working to make sure. Something can always happen and the experience just isn’t the same if you don’t get to see them work.

One more thing. After you’ve watched them for a few hours and asked all those questions - buy something. They have works that fit anyone’s price range from $30 to $2,000. And, they’d be happy to make a special commission piece for you too (another shameless plug).

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Take the same location, some of the same supporters, the shield of being a non-profit, and what do you get? Another close-knit group of well connected people doing something that doesn’t seem to be available to others - mixing and matching the commercial sector and the non-profit sectors together.

Let’s take the old group:
701 Whaley Street (non-profit project)
Jack Gerstner - charlatan
BlueCross BlueShield - fat cats with money to give
SC Arts Commission - state arts agency
Jeffrey Day - arts writer for The State
City of Columbia (Mayor)

Here’s the new group:
701 Whaley Street (commercial project)
Wim Roefs - commercial gallery owner & freelance curator
BlueCross BlueShield - fat cats with money to give
SC Arts Commission - state arts agency
Jeffrey Day - arts writer for The State
plus people formerly connected with Columbia’s City Council and board of the Columbia Museum of Art

The building at 701 Whaley Street has vastly improved now in the hands of commercial developers.

Jack Gerstner is out of the picture I hope - still dealing with the IRS, I hope when he’s not being described as an arts angel by a local Columbia magazine.

Wim Roefs replaces Gerstner as the third of the mighty art triangle in Columbia. Roefs as the organizer, Jeffrey Day as the promotional agent, and the SC Arts Commission for official sanction and funding.

BlueCross BlueShield seems to be always waiting in the wings with funding. Have your rates gone up lately?

Gerstner seemed to have had the ear of Columbia’s Mayor until things got out of hand and the new group has the support of those well connected to Columbia’s City Council and the Columbia Museum of Art.

What more do you need to be successful? Maybe they could get the Pope’s blessings.

What burns me is that the SC Arts Commission is always telling most of the people in the commercial side of the arts that there is no room at the inn for them when it comes to funding and assistance - but this project - this new Arts Center - this new non-profit - will do nothing but benefit commercial developers and a commercial gallery owner - even with a one-year promise to not promote the artists he represents.

And, when you’ve got the support and blessings of The State newspaper - who is going to cry foul? People in Columbia have read negative things about themselves in print when they oppose the dealings of the powerful and well connected - under the protection of the local newspaper.

This is another example of a project that gets overwhelming support - because of who is behind it - while others are rebuffed on technicalities. And the current track record is mixed at best. Just take the Columbia Festival of the Arts - under the leadership of Marvin Chernoff and many of the same players; or a collaboration between the Columbia City Ballet and Jonathan Green (another Chernoff project) or the first Gallery 701 project - all highly praised and supported projects - all financial disasters.

Don’t get me wrong. This new 701 Center for Contemporary Art will probably be a good thing for the overall visual art community in Columbia and for South Carolina - at least let’s hope it will, but wouldn’t it be nice if the playing field was equal so that anyone could come with such a proposal and get the same support - or even half the support - this project is getting.

But isn’t it amazing how this new project has already received $45,000 from city accommodations and hospitality taxes, from a group that just formed - with no record of accomplishments as a group - except who they can get behind them.

That’s what’s wrong with the way the arts are supported and funded in South Carolina. It’s not what you can do - it’s who you know.

And, those people - when things fall apart - they seem to disappear into the gray areas of responsibility where they didn’t know what was going on or better yet - they didn’t know they were still being listed as a supporter. It’s one of the wonderful things about being involved with a non-profit in South Carolina - you can take all the credit for the good and have no responsibility for the bad.

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A few months back I stopped to take some early morning photographs of the new fountain in front of the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC. Well, it’s not so new, but new enough.

I hope you enjoy some different views of this fountain, named Apollo’s Cascade. The fountain was created by Rodney Carroll in 2007.

While there checking out different views and angles, I stopped to read the plaque posted about the fountain and the people who gave money to make it possible. There were three groups of names (contributors) that made me start thinking. There were lots of other names - businesses, people I don’t know, and corporations.

One was - Mr. and Mrs. Guy Fleming Lipscomb. Here are truly some visual art patrons. The main art gallery space at the SC State Museum in Columbia is named the Lipscomb Gallery, as is the exhibit space at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville, SC. There are also Lipscomb funded awards in juried exhibitions. You don’t get these kinds of honors without giving some money along the way.

Another name on the plaque was that of the Cultural Council of Richland & Lexington Counties. I was wondering if their contribution came from funds raised from the Palmetto Trees Project auction. Money raised from that effort was supposed to go to sculpture projects in Columbia. I hope this was one.

The third names were of Wendyth and Warner Wells. Wendy Wells is the owner of City Art, an art gallery located at 1224 Lincoln Street in Columbia. That is also the home of Art Express, an art supply store serving artists’ needs locally, regionally and nationally (there’s a plug). Wells is one of the owners of that business too.

My mind was flashing back to a photograph I had seen in one of the Mint Museum’s newsletters - from a year or so ago. It was a picture of Wells standing, looking at a painting by Amy Fichter, that she and her husband had donated to the Mint’s contemporary collection. Fichter earned her MFA in Drawing at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

I have to say I was a little surprised to see that picture in the Mint newsletter - not to say I was surprised in that I didn’t believe it - more like unexpected seeing someone from SC giving to the Mint collection. I’ve seen a lot of these newsletters and this was new. I’ve also learned that Wells and her husband have donated works by Fichter to the Columbia Museum of Art and to the Birmingham Museum in Alabama. The Birmingham Museum is a surprise too, but I didn’t ask the why question. It didn’t matter.

How interesting.

What am I getting at? Well here was another example of a commercial gallery owner giving back to non-profits. It happens all the time. It probably happens everyday somewhere in the Carolinas. Whether it’s donating artwork for a fundraiser, framing some work for free to be displayed, or making a major contribution for a fountain or a work for a museum collection - people in the commercial side of the art world are always giving, but are often treated as just greedy capitalists - by the same people they are giving to - or at least some of them.

You know, Guy Lipscomb is an artist too. I checked and I didn’t see his name included in the SC Arts Commission’s State Art Collection. Not that giving money to the arts qualifies you to be included in a state collection, but neither is a work by Elizabeth O’Neill Verner and the Arts Commission co-opted her name to be used as an award for SC’s top art award. She was a commercial artist. She sold postcards of her works to early Charleston tourists for pennies. Her artwork isn’t good enough for the State Art Collection, but her name is for an award. In fact, I bet the Arts Commission now wishes they could afford a Verner - just to say they had one.

It’s the double standard. Commercial people - good enough to give, but not worthy enough to receive.

This double standard almost - almost spoiled my viewing of this wonderful fountain. This is what can happen when you know too much about the arts. Your head is filled with the good, but the bad is lurking inside too.

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As my last act during this month’s delivery of the paper I stopped in Columbia, SC, on my way back home from Charlotte, NC, to see if the Gene Speer exhibit, Line • Circle • Square, was still on view. I was in luck, but it was the last day of the exhibit (July 3, 2008).

Highway 101 Series, oil pastel

We didn’t receive notice of this exhibit until after our deadlines for the June or July issue, so this exhibit wasn’t included in the printed version of the paper or on our website, but I was interested in seeing the exhibit since seeing the work Speer had in the SC State Museum’s juried exhibit. And, I wasn’t disappointed - there, as a centerpiece of the exhibit at the McMaster Gallery exhibition, was another one of Speer’s mixed media works in his Highway 101 Series. I am really attracted to this - at least new to me - work by Speer’s. He had seven works in all under the Highway 101 Series title, but the other six were several monotypes, a lithograph and several oil pastels. I liked the oil pastel works too. Well, I liked the entire exhibit, but I’m really taken by the mixed media works and the oil pastels in this series. Some of the works are just titled Highway 101 Series and others were given subtitles like Hwy. 78 East or I-26 South.

I really didn’t see any highways in these images, but I didn’t have to in order to enjoy the works. Speer is an abstract expressionist so the works are his reaction to what he sees and feels. My reaction is on a whole different level to color, texture and shapes. Besides, if the highways I travel each month start looking to me like Speer’s works - my delivery days are over.

I’d love to see an exhibition of just the mixed media works in this Highway 101 Series.

The exhibit as a whole is a view at a wide range of techniques and media done in variations of Speer’s basic concept of vertical runs for the Highway 101 Series, grid patterns, and circular works. I read in a review by Mary Gilkerson for Free Times in Columbia that all of the works were done over the last two years. I would have thought that it might have been a longer span of time. It would seem that Speer’s has been a busy artist with a lot of ideas on his mind.

The least structured work in the exhibit was a black ink on white paper monotype entitled Bare to the Bone #4. There were no grids, no rows of symbols or any sign of organization in this piece. I guess it was a sign of Speer really letting go.

There was a small mixed media piece tucked away in a little corner of the gallery titled Short Circuit. I would have liked to take this piece home with me. I’m talking about buying it of course - if I had some money. (As many opportunities that I have had over the years to walk out of a not-so-well attended gallery with a work of art - it has never crossed my mind to do so - other than worry about whether other less scrupulous individuals do.) This work was maybe 5″ x 5″ square with small pieces of copper placed in a grid pattern against a darker gray/black background. This was sort of a 3-D version of Speer’s usual grid prints. They may have been pieces of a copper plate used to make some other print. The title might refer to a print that didn’t work out so well - who knows, but it was interesting to speculate as the piece was so different from the rest of the works - and after all it was sent to a corner of the room all by itself.

Adding to the total range of media used in this exhibit there were two other small works, one was Untitled, which was a grid pattern in acrylics, and one titled Yellow Can, which was a grid in watercolors.

A work entitled Month of June was comprised of six monotypes of black ink on white paper, with two rows of three images. These were circular shapes which looked like moonscapes. They looked more deliberate than most of the other works, so they stood out a bit in my opinion.

There were also four large circle-shaped monotype works - with lots of bright colors and lots of different shapes in the circles. They were more like the last work I can remember seeing of Speer’s in an exhibit - some time ago.

Another work in the - don’t you want to come home with me category was - This Way, an oil pastel. I can’t remember how it fit into the exhibit - line, circle, square - grid or what. I just remember writing down in my notes - I like this one too.

Highway 101 Series, mixed media

But, my all time favorite was the largest piece in the show, the Highway 101 Series mixed media work which was like the one found in the SC State Museum show - on exhibit through Sept. 7, 2008. I’m not really good at judging the size of some works, but this was maybe a 7′ long by 5′ tall work with eight rows running vertically down the piece. It’s white with colors breaking through from behind the white layers. There are some splashes of color on the outside of the white, but most of the color in the work comes from layers behind the white - making this work more muted than Speer’s other works. There could be a lot of layers of colors - it’s hard to tell, but the effect is wonderful - it had my abstract taste buds popping.

I’d love to say go see this show, but it’s over. All I can say is that if any of this sounds good to you - keep an eye and ear out for the name Gene Speer. Maybe another show is in the works somewhere in the Carolinas.

I know Speer is represented by Corrigan Gallery in Charleston, SC. And, I was disappointed that he doesn’t seem to have a website. I was hoping to link to some images of his works, but I didn’t find any sign of a site in a Google search. And I didn’t take my camera with me, so I’m sorry we don’t have any images at this time, but I’ll still be looking for some - so check back from time to time.

P.S. Since writing this we received two images from Gene Speer of works in the show and have received a web link to some other photos of his work. You can see the images @ http://web.mac.com/mcmastergallery/McMaster_Gallery/Gene_Speer.html

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