We have some more changes that we are making to the blog links found to the right. One is coming off the list and replaced with another blog by the same artist and we’re adding some new ones.
Christopher Rico as ended his blog, Machinations of a Distracted Mind, but he also does a studio blog called Working Space (http://workingspacerico.blogspot.com) which is mostly a photo blog, but does carry some comments from time to time. Rico’s blog, MDM, was giving readers a view at an artist working and living in a small town in South Carolina (Clinton, SC) with a big city drive. MDM was one of our first blog links almost two years ago – I’ll miss it. He has hinted at offering some guest entries to Carolina Arts Unleashed and I hope he does.
We’re adding a blog I discovered a few weeks ago – it is just the kind I like as it is not just the blog of an individual artist, but also does a good job of covering the visual arts scene of a certain area. If you know of any such blogs in the Carolinas – let us know about them. We’re always looking to broaden the view we offer readers of the Carolinas’ visual art scene.
This blog is Art Seen Asheville (http://artseenasheville.blogspot.com), written by Ursula Gullow. What I like about it is that Gullow is not a native so she is not influenced by the Asheville, NC, hype. She arrived on the scene six years ago and has lived in other art communities, but I think she offers an interesting view of what’s going on there. One ofher latest entries gives artists wondering about moving there a good rundown of what the community is like for an artist – at least a visual artist.
Having pulled Carolina Arts out of Asheville (due to a lack of support) long before Gullow moved there – she fills in a view of the city after I stopped going there. We still include the area on our website version of our paper and receive regular press releases from the area, but I have to scratch my head every time the name comes up.
At least every other month I get a call from someone from there that discovered Carolina Arts somewhere else in the Carolinas and wonders why we don’t include Asheville in the printed paper. I have a well-practiced explanation and remedy – which everyone agrees with and then I never hear from them again. Most really get frustrated when they learn that every month I drive within 25 miles of Asheville to deliver papers to Hendersonville, NC, and then turn around and drive back down the mountains to Tryon, NC, and then Spartanburg, SC. Business is business.
Speaking of Spartanburg, we’re adding the blog of Carol Beth Icard (http://carolbethicard.blogspot.com) of Spartanburg, SC. She is a visual artist who also works at MYST Gallery, a sister gallery to Carolina Gallery. Both are located across from each other on Morgan Square in downtown Spartanburg. Icard’s blog is another opportunity to follow an artist’s regular life – not just the art side. It’s a side most of the public never sees and seems to not understand.
I’m also adding the blog, Tilting Windmills (http://david-tiltingwindmills.blogspot.com), written by David Halsey. Does that name sound familiar? His mother and father were Corrie McCallum and William Halsey of Charleston, SC – two of my favorite artists over the years. He is running The McCallum-Halsey Foundation and is also a thinker and writer, who I hope will write more once people start following his blog. Not all blogs are daily journals. He has also been a potter and photographer in other lives and member of an artistic family – so his experiences in the art world are reflected from within the Carolinas and from outside. Meaning, although he has lived within the Charleston hype for many years – he’s been elsewhere and has seen other worlds – unlike some in Charleston who seem to have never been anywhere else – it’s the only reason I can explain their overuse of the phrase – world-class.
So, check these blogs out, I know I will be from time to time to expand my view of the Carolinas’ art scene.
