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August Issue 2010
Sumter County
Gallery of Art Features Works by Sumter Artists' Guild
David Sanders
Marjorie Hooks
The Sumter County Gallery of Art in Sumter, SC, is presenting the exhibit, 2010 Sumter Artists' Guild Show, on view through Aug. 27, 2010.
Sumter has many talented artists in its midst, and a large, active artists' guild. The Sumter Artists Guild was founded in 1966. It is comprised of amateur and professional artists and art enthusiasts. The annual Sumter Artists' Guild show provides an opportunity for these artists to "strut their stuff". Guild members working in visual arts or craft use a variety of media including: oils, watermedia, sculpture, mixed media, natural material such as gourds, fiber arts and ceramics.
Sylvia Pickell -----------------------------------------------
Ashley Lareau
Under the guidance of 2009 Guild President, Laura Cardello and continuing with incoming 2010 president Susan Allen, the Sumter Artists' Guild made several innovative changes including an electronic newsletter, an updated website, a Sumter Artists' Guild Face Book page and an expanded schedule of fun events and interesting meetings that include a variety of speakers, demonstrations by artists and "show and tell" where guild members bring their pieces in for comments and critique. Guild meetings are the second Wednesday of each month, September through May at 7pm, upstairs at the Sumter County Gallery of Art. For more information visit the Guild's website (www.sumterartistsguild.org).
Karen Watson, Director of the Sumter County Gallery of Art says that the 2010 Sumter Artists Guild Show, like last year's, is on track to be a wonderful show because many "new" artists have joined the guild. This influx of work by new artists, coupled with the high quality work of long time guild artists results in a fresh and diverse Sumter Artists' Guild Show a treat for art lovers in Sumter and surrounding areas. Each artist can enter up to three pieces.
Watson states, the Guild show is a "judged" show, not a juried show (where only a portion of those works entered are accepted for display), so every artwork entered will be displayed. Prize money has also been increased in the hopes of attracting former, as well as new members to enter their art. Increasing prize money is a very effective way to increase the quality of the entries and reward these artists who work so hard. The Sumter Artists' Guild Show also offers patrons a great opportunity to purchase high-quality art at reasonable prices.
The judge for the 2010 show is Damond Howard. A graduate of South Carolina State University (BS Art Education) and University of Florida (MFA Studio Art), Howard is an artist who combines art and history in unique ways. His interest and experience in African-American culture is a recurrent theme in his figurative drawings. Howard's drawings have been exhibited at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art, Columbia, SC, (2009), University of Tennessee's Downtown Gallery, Knoxville, Hammonds House Galleries and Resource Center for African American Art, Atlanta, GA (2007), The College of Wooster Art Museum, OH, MOJA Arts Festival, Charleston, SC, Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, IL, and solo exhibitions at Berea College, KY and Lyon College, AR.
Howard contributed a biography on renowned South Carolina artist Leo Twiggs to the Harvard University African American National Biography, published by Oxford University Press (2008). Howard's writing and drawings about his own work have been featured in Envisioning, a journal produced by Binghamton University, NY.
Recently, Howard received a prestigious SC Arts Commission 2010 Visual Arts Fellowship. He is currently an assistant professor of art at Claflin University in Orangeburg, SC.
For further information
check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Gallery
at 803/775-0543 or visit (www.sumtergallery.org).
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