It's FIRST THURSDAY & JASPER is BACK ON MAIN STREET - As well as at our LAST FIRST THURSDAY at SOUND BITES!

Artist - Jarid Lyfe Brown

Hey Jasper Family! We’re excited today because TONIGHT we’re celebrating that the Jasper Project is BACK ON MAIN STREET!

Please join us tonight as Jasper features not one, but two great Columbia-area visual artists sharing their talents with the world!

Start out by popping into Sound Bites Eatery for (sadly) our last First Thursday gallery opening event. We have loved our time at Sound Bites and can’t express enough gratitude for Terri Mac and the gracious Sound Bites team that has always made us feel so welcome. But due to a change in their hours of operation under new ownership, we won’t be able to continue our stewardship there any longer. (But you better believe we’ll still be stopping in for delicious lunches and great service!)

So, Jasper is celebrating our Sound Bites swan song by featuring the unique art of Jessica Ream tonight!

Unbinding: A Tale of the Book That Never Was – Jessica Ream Opening Reception - SOUND BITES 5:30 - 8

Jessica Ream was born in Columbus, Ohio early in the year 1990, but was raised in Carolina suburbia. She attended Savannah College of Art and Design where she graduated with honors and a BFA in Painting. A jack-of-all trades artist, she incorporates her knowledge of painting, photography, print, sewing and sculpture into her mixed media, abstract pieces.

In recent years, she has rediscovered her love of hand binding books. While mainly self taught, she was first introduced to the world of book arts in a workshop she attended while studying abroad. Her hand bound journals are made from a mix of traditional materials and rebound, vintage books.

After spending the time in the High Rockies of Colorado, she and her husband have returned to their southeastern, coastal origins, where they reside with their son and newborn daughter.
(Full disclosure —Jessica is also a new member of the Jasper Project Board of Directors, but this show has been scheduled long before she joined our board.)

After you’ve checked out Jessica’s work come on over to the Shoppes at Tapp’s for the opening of the Jasper Alley at Tapp’s. As mentioned, our featured artist for April is Jarid Lyfe Brown.

The Jasper Alley at Tapp's with April's Featured Artist - Jarid Lyfe Brown

Born in Atlanta and raised in Columbia, Brown has lived in Gilbert for the last 17 years. A construction worker by day for the past 30 years, Brown attended SCAD but is, for the most part, self-taught. His work will occupy the Jasper Alley which is located on the far right side of the building.

Jarid’s work is incredibly evocative and can run the gamut from whimsical to terrifying, but it’s always interesting and it always commands that the viewer spend some time with at the painting and enjoy the process.

We’re delighted to feature both of these fine artists and hope you’ll visit us at both venues.

Happy First Thursday from all of us at Jasper!

Announcing The Jasper Alley at Tapp’s With Our Inaugural First Thursday Opening Reception - April 2nd Featuring Jarid Lyfe Brown!

We’re Back!

In service to our mission of finding and programming gallery spaces for Midlands-area artists wherever we can, The Jasper Project is delighted to announce that we are back on Main Street starting on Thursday April 2nd and we’re featuring Jarid Lyfe Brown as our first First Thursday Artist!

That’s right, we’re back! In partnership with our host, the Shoppes at Tapp’s, Jasper will be presenting group and solo shows right on Main Street once again and we couldn’t be happier! Our friends at the Shoppes at Tapp’s have graciously allocated a nice long corridor to the right of the showroom where, starting in April, you’ll find Jasper-curated art from our beloved local artists—and we’re naming it The Jasper Alley at Tapp’s.

We’re so happy to welcome the art of Jarid Lyfe Brown to these welcoming walls!

Jarid Lyfe Brown lives in Gilbert, SC. He was born in 1974 and, as a young artist, earned a perfect score of 5 for the portfolio he entered into an AP art contest at Harvard University. Brown was awarded a scholarship to attend Savannah College of Art and Design in 1992. From 1994 until the present, Brown has mounted multiple shows in locations that ranged from galleries to coffee shops around SC, NC, and Michigan. Brown says, “I paint every day, and complete around 7-10 new paintings per month.” Brown is married and has three children. When he is not painting, he is doing construction work and thinking about what he'll paint next.

For his artist’s statement Brown writes, “All of my hard work is about everyday life. It is hard to predict or explain because I submit myself to create in an unplanned method. I paint from what I hear, learn, experience, opinions, perspectives, joy, hurt, and reactions. It may make sense or not at all, and that is similar to life. I just want to be raw and honest, but not crude. I try to paint directly and literally. I enjoy literature and writing so I apply that to my painting. I also enjoy an attempt to bridge expressionism to realism and I don’t want to be classified as either. I want to be better, different, or more in all of these experiences. I use animals to express mindsets and characteristics of a person.”

We’ll be announcing our full line-up for 2026 soon, but for now, be sure to add The Jasper Alley at Tapp’s to your First Thursday agenda. Stop by to have a beer or a glass of vino, view Jarid’s exhibition, chat with the artist, and bump into all your old and new First Thursday Friends.

We’re back on Main, y’all and we’re so happy to be there!

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Jasper Presents Lucas Sams Art Pick-Up & Print Sale - Friday March 27th, 12 - 2 at Sound Bites Eatery

Did you purchase art from Lucas Sams, Jasper’s Featured First Thursday Artist at Sound Bites Eatery? Yes? The artist has set aside two hours to meet you to deliver your art on Friday March 27 from 12 - 2 at Sound Bites Eatery, 1425 Sumter Street.

Sams will also be bringing additional prints of his work to sale during this time period.

Don’t miss your chance to meet up with artist Lucas Sams and pick up your purchases this Friday at noon!

Jasper Welcomes First Thursday Artist LUCAS SAMS to the Gallery at Sound Bites Eatery

Jasper is so happy to still have a home for First Thursdays at Sound Bites Eatery, and we’re thrilled to welcome our March First Thursday Artist, Lucas Sams!

The title of Sams’ new exhibition is Drawn & Quartered. In explanation Sams writes, “This show marks my return to my first and favorite medium, drawing. As I learned from my favorite art teacher in college, everything can be drawing, and everything goes back to drawing. Before entering the world of ‘fine arts,’ I was a comic and manga artist. Learning that painting was just drawing with paint helped me become a ‘fine artist,’ but the core was still drawing. Everything is abstraction; all representation is cartooning. It has brought me infinite joy returning to simple tools at this scale, and a challenge to build the biggest worlds I can in the span of a sketchbook page.”

Lucas Sams is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and experimental musician with works exhibited locally and regionally in major art festivals, galleries, and alternative spaces; he has been featured in Jasper Magazine, The State Newspaper, Garnet and Black Magazine, and the Timber Journal of the University of Colorado, Boulder. Born and raised in Greenwood, SC Sams spent most of his life in SC until his freshman year in college, when he studied painting in Tokyo, Japan and became heavily influenced by contemporary Japanese Pop Art. A graduate of the SC Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities and the University of SC, his post-graduate work continues explorations of postmodern abstraction and figuration with far-ranging influences, encompassing everything from religious art, alchemy, and the unconscious- to science fiction and anime. He is currently pursuing a graduate degree as an MLIS candidate at the University of SC.

Please join us this Thursday March 5th from 5:30 - 8:30 pm at Sound Bites Eatery at 1425 Sumter Street, just one block off Main. And come hungry! Sound Bites has a delicious menu of sandos, soups, snacks, and salads as well as good beer and wine. Plus, all the cool kids hang out there, so you’ll be right at home!

Meet Columbia Artist Renea Eshleman During Jasper's First Thursday at Sound Bites Eatery!

Join the Jasper Project and Sound Bites Eatery in welcoming our artist for the month of October, Renea Eshleman, by making Sound Bites one of your first or last stops during First Thursday this week!  And while you’re visiting us, why not grab a loaded grilled cheese, a twerky turkey sammy, or some delish spin dip with a glass of vino from the Sound Bites kitchen? It’s always a fun night at Sound Bites when you gather with friends, new and old, to celebrate an evening of art and good times!

About Our Featured Artist

Renea Eshleman writes, “I especially enjoy creating nature compositions from photographs I take while traveling around the beautiful state of South Carolina. I strive to lure the viewer into wanting to ‘be there’ in the painting to look for what is not obvious.  

“My art includes representational, dream compositions, and some objective abstract. Having begun painting in traditional transparent watercolor, I mostly paint and create collage on non-traditional surfaces using liquid and tube watercolor, gouache, acrylics, and self-printed papers.

“The traditional approach to painting watercolor, acrylic, and mixed media is where I know what the composition will be before I begin the painting. It is predictable. However, many times the process begins with loosely pouring or rolling paint onto the paper or a polypropylene sheet (called Yupo), gently manipulating the paint to blend colors, and making interesting textures, allowing the paint to dry, and developing the composition based on what the first layer suggests.

“This process allows me to combine imagined or suggested flora, fauna, insects, animals, and figures. Sometimes pieces begin with the pouring method hang in my studio for weeks or months before they ‘speak’ for development of the composition.

“This approach to making art provides wonderful opportunities for happy accidents, flexibility to adjust the composition, and intrigue in the work.”

NEW OPPORTUNITY: First Thursday Art Walk with Jasper's Keith Tolen

The Jasper Project announces a new addition to our First Thursday offerings. Yes, we’re still bringing our monthly First Thursday exhibition to Sound Bites Eatery, but we’re also offering a new First Thursday Art Walk led by Jasper Project board vice president and distinguished artist and arts educator, Keith Tolen!

For August, meet Keith Tolen in front of Stoners Pizza in the Arcade mall at 5:30 for a brief stroll to our sidewalk gallery at the Meridian Building on the corner of Sumter and Washington Streets. The gallery features work by Sharon Licata, Perry McLeod, and Adam Corbett.

Keith Tolen is a lifelong native of South Carolina who grew up in Batesburg. He attended SC State University and received a Bachelors in art education. He then earned a masters in education from Francis Marion University. He taught art at Camden Middle School for 30 years, retiring in 2017. Tolen has worked creating designs in photography, drawing, and painting for the past forty years and continues to do so.

Adam Corbett is a multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and visual artist from Lexington, South Carolina. His work is often whimsical, comes with a punchline, or fun story, and his subjects include wildlife and made up characters. He likes to experiment with various mediums in a variety of formats focusing always on exploration, play, and following his muse.

Sharon Collings Licata is a Sculptor/Photographer & Instructor, Shamanic Practitioner, Sand a member of the faculty for SC Faculty for Foundation For Shamanic Studies.

Perry McLeod is a retired high school teacher, a dad, and a photographer. Perry says, “Sports, Concerts, events, and just about anything else I can point a camera at. I love photography! Every day is a new adventure and I just want to capture the moments that will make people stop and think. Make people want to make a change. Make people smile.”

The event is free and everyone is welcome!