The Jasper Project is excited to welcome Toni Elkins to our Nook Gallery at the Koger Center of the Arts this week. The exhibition will run from this Thursday, February 20th until the week of the third Thursday in March when the work of our featured artist for March, Thomas Washington, will be installed.
Toni M. Elkins is a Columbia-based artist who was educated at Boston University and the University of Georgia. She is a member of the Trenholm Artist Guild and the 2023 recipient of the Missouri Watercolor International: J. Richeson Award and a “Top 50 Winner of the artsfortrumpcoalition.com,” the artist says. In 2014 she won the Clark Ellefson Merit Award and in 2013 the Susie and Caroll Heyward Purchase Award, both from the SC State Fair, among other accolades throughout her life.
Elkins says, “My work has taken on a whole new meaning since the death of my husband. I find I am more introspective and more interested in my environment. I actually LOOK instead of SEE. I examine our world in a different way, and I hope to make positive changes in this world through my art.”
Elkins is sponsoring her own personal opening reception for this exhibition at the Nook Gallery at the Koger Center for the Arts on Thursday, February 20th from 5:30 – 7 pm. She is planning to bring her own bartender and beverages for this event. The Jasper Project extends it’s gratitude to the staff of Koger Center for the Arts and Jasper board secretary and Jasper Magazine visual arts editor, Emily Moffitt, for working with the artist on this unique situation.