| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
October Issue 2006
Gallery 80808 Offers Exhibition in Support of Columbia, SC's Women's Shelter
Shelter, an invitational exhibition by Open Eyes, opens on Oct. 20 at Gallery 80808 at Vista Studios in Columbia, SC. The exhibition continues through Oct. 30, 2006.
Shelter draws its inspiration from the work of the Women's Shelter in Columbia, and from the courage of the women who cross its threshold. The Women's Shelter houses and directs its residents as they pursue employment, counseling, education, and healthcare, and build functioning lives. In time the women move from the shelter to transitional housing.
Open Eyes formed in 2005 to support women's triumphs over staggering odds. It stands as a unified visual presence and an affirmative voice for women's singular acts of bravery in today's world. Its fall 2005 exhibition Art for Awareness illuminated the struggle of Mukhtaran Bibi, the Pakistani woman who defied tribal law as reported by columnist Nicholas D. Kristoff in the New York Times.
Susan Lenz
Artists participating in Shelter include Jeff Donovan, Pat Gilmartin, Dorothy Josey, Susan Lenz, Sharon Licata, Leslie Pierce, Jean McWhorter, Leslie Kendall Rech, and David Yaghjian in addition to the eight artists/activists of Open Eyes: Laura Spong, Pat Callahan, Susan Craig, Mary Gilkerson, Heidi Darr-Hope, Judy Hubbard, Jane Key, and Ellen Emerson Yaghjian.
In Shelter, the main Gallery 80808 space will house two structures built from found materials. One shelter will be a luminous structure, the second, a makeshift lean-to. A sacred space will juxtapose the brutal reality of metal scraps, cardboard, and cloth that is shelter for some. Another key installation, an audio installation by Ellen Emerson Yaghjian, will give voice to the "Marys" of the Women's Shelter. Yaghjian interviewed residents and graduates of the shelter and gathered their stories of hardship and hope.
The daughter of an immigrant, Susan Lenz was raised to believe in the American Dream, that hard work and determination yielded prosperity, security, and a home. Her altered book American Dream explores the coexistence of this dream and the nightmare of struggling despite one's best efforts. Known first as a fiber artist, Lenz recently had a solo exhibition of her Blues Chapel at the Sumter Gallery of Art.
A piece by Jean McWhorter in Shelter expresses the idea of "home" as a place of love and hope and as an anchor for life experience. McWhorter's artwork is counted in the collections of the Gibbes Museum of Art, the Greenville Museum of Art, and the Georgia Museum of Art, and includes the prestigious Verner Award sculpture.
Two assemblages by Pat Callahan incorporate protective shells of the natural world that humans sorely lack. The assemblages include Callahan's sensitive figurative drawings. Sculptor Pat Gilmartin also turns to nature in her installation of dozens of terra cotta turtles. Gilmartin notes that "even turtles, whose shells provide constant personal shelter, are not untouched by the many difficulties of life."
Leslie Rech's submission to Shelter stems from her continued exploration of the themes of gender, history, and memory. An associate professor of art at South Carolina State University, Orangeburg, Rech has an upcoming solo show at the Delaplaine Visual Arts Center, Fredericksburg, MD.
Laura Spong, the artistic and activist force
behind Open Eyes, presents the mixed media painting Together
We Can Do It. For Spong, 2006 brought a full calendar of exhibitions,
beginning with Laura Spong at 80.
Through Shelter, Open Eyes and its participants aim to
raise awareness of and to encourage donations to the Women's Shelter.
For further information check our SC Commercial
Gallery listings, call the gallery at 803/252-6134 or at (www.gallery80808vistastudios.com).
Call to confirm gallery hours during this exhibit.
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing
Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2006 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
Online, Copyright© 2006 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved
by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use
without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina
Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.