A Midlands Gives Message from Cindi & Wade -- The Jasper Project's State of the Heart

Thank you!

As we approach Midlands Gives next week and you make your decisions on where to invest your gifts, we’d like to report back to you on how the Jasper Project has used the tokens of your kindness since last year.

First and foremost, we have published two 64-page issues of Jasper Magazine and we have another issue in design now that will be in your hands in a matter of weeks.  These issues have reviewed, previewed, examined, explained, memorialized, and celebrated more than 100 of our Midlands-based artists. The issue coming your way will look at the art of Lindsay Radford, Quincy Pugh, Rebecca Horne, Lucy Bailey, Tyrone Geter, Diko Pekdemir-Lewis, Mike Miller, Jane Zenger, Josetra Baxter, Tamara Finkbeiner, Terri McCord, Juan Cruz, Saul Seibert, Rex Darling, Tam the Viibe, Desiree, Katera, Lang Owen, Hillmouse, Space Force, Candy Coffins, Admiral Radio, Carleen Maur, the mission of SCAC ED David Platts, and the international efforts of Columbian-founded dance organization, Artists for Africa.

We have published a dual volume of Fall Lines – a literary convergence, celebrating the prose and poetry of 60 SC writers, awarding the Broad River Prizes for Prose to Randy Spencer and Kasie Whitener and the Saluda River Prizes for Poetry to Angelo Geter and Lisa Hammond, while at the same time celebrating the photography of Crush Rush. And we have issued a call for Fall Lines 2022.

We have conceptualized and implemented a competition for the publication of a chapbook for a SC BIPOC writer in honor of Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer and the winner is being announced and celebrated as we speak. Board member Len Lawson brought us this beautiful idea and will edit the book which will be published this fall. 

We have implemented another issue of the Play Right Series, with new board member Jon Tuttle issuing a call for an original, unpublished one-act script, overseeing the adjudication, and selecting young playwright Colby Quick as the winner. Nine community producers have joined director Chad Henderson and his cast to learn more about the page to stage process for theatre arts, and we will invite you to join us for a staged reading of Moon Swallower in August. 

We have featured one artist per month in our virtual Tiny Gallery under the direction of board member Christina Xan, including artists whose work you know very well and artists whose work we think you’ll be happy to learn about including Gina Langston Brewer, Adam Corbett, Bohumila Augustinova, and more.

Because of the dedication of our amazing web maven and board member Bekah Rice, we have a website that is comprehensive, up-to-date, easy to maneuver, and quite lovely, if we do say so ourselves. Since last spring we have brought the good news of Columbia arts to you via more than 160 Online Jasper (previously blog) posts. And counting.

We threw a fabulous party to celebrate the 10th birthday of Jasper Magazine, and, with board member Laura Garner Hine’s incredible work, we welcomed more than 30 artists to demonstrate and celebrate their talents.

We have shown art for Columbia artists at Jasper Galleries that include Harbison Theatre, Motor Supply, also under the management of Laura Garner Hine, and our sidewalk gallery at the Meridian building conceptualized and realized by board member Bert Easter.

We have included the work of 25 (and counting) brilliant SC writers under the auspices of the Jasper Writes project, implemented in conjunction with Jasper poetry editor, Ed Madden. 

We have helped a new non-profit spread its wings by serving as the fiscal agent to Columbia (Summer) Repertory Dance Company, which is now its own entity. Bye bye little birdie! 

We have launched several new projects including:

• A new weekly music column by Kevin Oliver called THE BEAT;

• First Thursday featured artist exhibitions at Sound Bites Eatery – with artists including Marius Valdes, Ginny Merritt, and Quincy Pugh lined up for the next few months, and Alex Ruskell showing his work in May;

• The monthly Jasper Poetry Salon hosted by Al Black at the One Columbia Co-Op;

• Another monthly singer/songwriter happening called Front Porch Swing, also by Al Black, also at the One Columbia Co-Op.

• Last Thanksgiving, we launched a weekly newsletter called Sundays with Jasper that keeps the community up-to-date on Jasper news and arts happenings in general. You can sign up for Sundays with Jasper here.

Of course, none of this could have been done without the support of our community and your recognition of the vital role grassroots arts organizations play in the landscape of an arts community.

We continue to vow to you that every penny that comes the way of the Jasper Project will go directly back into the greater Midlands area arts community as we keep our overhead close to zero, save for insurance and rent (when we have a brick-and-mortar home.) None of your generous funding goes to payroll, taxes, or nice desks and chairs. We work from our homes and from our hearts.

It's worked this way for 10 ½ years. We’re keeping at it as long as you let us.

Thank you for your continued support.

Cindi Boiter, Wade Sellers, and the entire board of the Jasper Project and staff of Jasper Magazine

PRINT WORTHY: MALIK Green from the Pages of Jasper Magazine Fall 2021 + NEW WORK

Keep your eye on this outstanding young artist!

In fall 2021, the Jasper Project ran a brief article on emerging artist Malik Greene. Since then, we’ve been keeping an eye on Malik and his work and, as we suspected it would, the quality has continued to improve and the content has continued to venture into braver, more dynamic, and more unsettling territory.

Below, please find our original interview with the artist and, following that, a sampling of some of Greene’s powerful new art.

JASPER: First, tell us about yourself, please. The normal stuff -- how old are you, where are you from, where did you go to school? 

GREENE: Hey, what’s up, my name is Malik Greene, I was born on July 8th, 1997. I was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, but in 2019 I received my bachelor's degree in psychology with a late minor in studio art from Coastal Carolina University. 

JASPER: How did you get started painting? 

GREENE: I've always had a curious mind and just wanted to find my own way to be different turned me to an exploration of self; figuring out where I stand in this world and what it is I want to accomplish in my time here honestly led me to dabble my hand in anything that conveyed self-expression. As a kid, I gravitated towards art forms such as illustration and clothing design through learned experiences with family and friends, but I developed a strong passion for painting my second semester of college. I actually made my first painting on the floor of my best friend’s dorm freshman year, so I have a pretty vivid memory of my origin as an artist. I remember ripping up an old trash bag and splattering paint as my heart desired. After I made this first painting, I unintentionally started a fire that still burns today and one painting turned into two and two into four now my entire life is covered in paint… I love it! 

JASPER: What’s your favorite medium? 

GREENE: I think for me I love how tangible paint is, so I'm constantly amused by how it moves, dries, is applied -- it's almost like a science for me mixing the paints. specifically, I am intrigued by the naturalness of oil paint, and I love that from its origin until its completion finishing a painting is almost like solving a puzzle.

JASPER: What visual artists have influenced you and your work most and why? 

GREENE: I think for me I like to be my own biggest influence. I kind of love that I do not know of any artists who create work that looks like mine, especially in my geographic location! My work is uniquely mine and I love how it is strengthened based on the fact that it comes from my own conception. Of course, I have been inspired and have artists that I do admire. George Condo was the first artist whose work I researched greatly and early into my creation of art he was definitely my biggest influence.

Art goes deeper than just something that is pretty I think art can make one uncomfortable and curious respectively, so I seek artists who entertain my psychology and the unconscious pleasures. From older, more venerated artists like Kerry James Marshall (who has become my favorite artist) and Lucian Freud who plays around with texture to younger artists like Gerald Lovell and Reginald Sylvester II, I am truly inspired by artists who do things their own way, aren’t afraid to break the rules and are still extremely aware of these same rules they break.

JASPER: Tell us about why you paint – what’s your mission and what are you trying to communicate to your viewer? 

GREENE: For me, my mission is to be able to live a life not controlled by the stigmas that are placed on everyone in this human experience. I think a lot of the things that we as people have been taught are tailoring us to live a carbon copy cookie-cutter "American Dream" -- but who even created that standard? No one asked to be on this earth so it bugs me even further that those expectations are placed on people, why can't we just live life? Do the things that make us happy and inspire others to do the same with what little time we have.

I do believe the role of an artist is to speak on the world that is around them. So, if the world of politics is full of issues, and this is what I see in my world, I think it does become my job to relay my message. I think oftentimes people and artists get pigeonholed into what they should be expected to be, but the only expectation I place on myself is to make the best art I can make while staying authentic to my own story.

JASPER: Can you talk more about your Baby Boy exhibition recently held at Stormwater Studios in Columbia?

GREENE: My debut solo exhibition titled ‘Baby Boy’ is literally like my baby, it opened up July 9th, 2021, and closed July 18th, 2021. The title came from just the feeling and sentiment of me always being “Baby Boy” to those closest to me. I’m the youngest of six siblings so to them, to my mother, to those who know me the best I am always a baby boy no matter how old I am. This exhibition was to convey the many sides of me more as a man. Like a coming home for me celebrating the many sides of me the world may never see.

I felt as if the exhibition went extremely well and brought a lot of attention to me and the works that I have put so much time, effort, and love into. It was such a relief to see my work on the walls and to have the feeling of completion. To know an idea of mine was nurtured, developed, and made into a reality empowers me and that alone makes me certain my exhibition was successful.

JASPER: As a young Black artist, what are your specific challenges? 

GREENE: I think the biggest challenge for me as an artist is just being labelled solely a “black artist.” I think I am an amazing artist in general! I want to break the barriers and walls that black artists face where they are seen as only “good for a black artist” or the feeling of making art based on the plight of my ancestors. I choose to make art that brings me progression and strength. I think for me and a lot of other artists who are black we get placed in a box of making contrived art as opposed to art that genuinely speaks and has a message.

I love making art that speaks for those who look like me, who feel like me and those who have felt as I have felt before. Within that umbrella those who identify with me may not be black, but within my art I represent what is tangible to me. I find strength in my identify, but the sentiments of my identity span deeper than me just being black. I think that what I create, and the content of my work is what makes me great, I just so happen to be black.

I think another challenge for me is just having a point of reference that looks like me. I’ve been lucky enough to come across some amazing individuals who have motivated me to continue pushing further but when I see my 8-year-old self I wish I had someone pushing me to be better.

As someone who is self-trained, I don’t have a million references or resources, but for me instead of seeing this as a challenge I see it as an opportunity to be what I didn’t have.

JASPER: What’s next for you? 

GREENE: I honestly see myself just diving deeper into my process and the narrative of Malik the artist. My work is directly related to where I am in life so to be inspired to work, I have to experience life. For the better or worse, see some things, do some things better, and feel some things. It’s exciting to know as long as I have my hands, I have a gift no one can take from me. . 

PRINTWORTHY! Michaela Pilar Brown is in the Right Place at the Right Time

Reprinted from Jasper Magazine Fall 2021

by Cindi Boiter

Over the past decade, Jasper Magazine has written about Columbia-based multi-media artist Michaela Pilar Brown many times. This passage of time has witnessed Brown become a leader in our community, not only as a result of her myriad accomplishments but also by the now-international stature she commands across the most-sophisticated fine arts circles.

Brown’s career has been punctuated by a steady continuum of shows, awards, residencies, and related experiences that have helped shape the 50-something artist into the fierce icon she is becoming. Taking home the 2018 Artfields Grand Prize for her mixed-media installation She’s Almost Ready is upmost among her accolades, as is being awarded the inaugural Volcanic Residency at the Whakatano Museum in New Zealand that same year.

Born in Bangor, Maine, and raised in Denver, Brown became an influential member of the Columbia arts scene soon after she moved here in 2013. Having spent many a childhood summer visiting the Fairfield County farm where her father lived, Brown had returned to SC a dozen or so years earlier to help care for her aging family patriarch. His land and its legacies were a part of who Brown was even when the she first left home to study at Howard University in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

“Howard felt like family. My professors let me continue my work even when I couldn’t afford tuition,” Brown says. “I spent a lot of time learning outside of academia.”

Critically influenced by such trailblazing American artists as Frank Smith and Jeff Donaldson, Brown identifies world-renowned sculptor Richard Hunt as impacting her work ethic the most.

Hunt, who may be the most highly accomplished contemporary Black American sculptor and creator of public art in the country, visited Howard to install a piece of his work during Brown’s time as a student. When a piece of his art was damaged, Brown was recruited to help with the repair. A burgeoning artist-protégé relationship led to an invitation to study with Hunt for a summer in Chicago.

“I was green and just so honored,” Brown says. “He worked fervently all the time and I worked all the time,” noting that she initially wanted to make public art herself. In fact, the young artist had interned at the International Sculpture Center, part of the Washington Project for the Arts, as well as the Smithsonian Institution.

The emphasis on family and the support systems it can naturally provide had followed Brown to Howard, where the faculty became supportive elders for the young artist. The intimacy and sacredness of her ancestral home not only informed Brown as an artist but also provided her with a profound understanding of the strengths and challenges of southern Black art writ large, as well as with the workings of the local arts community specifically.

After her father died in 2007, Brown’s mother soon also came to depend on her and her brothers for what ultimately would be end-of-life care. It was a crushing loss that further strengthened Brown’s resolve to take command of her platform like never before. The artist continued to bring the roots and wings she had embraced — on her home turf, in DC, and in Chicago — into an enduring relationship with Columbia-based theatre artist Darion McCloud and his daughter more than ten years ago.

“All these experiences changed the shape of the work I was doing and what I wanted to do,” Brown says. “My work became much more personal and honest. My focus came to include what it means to me to be Black in SC, but it also focuses a great deal on love and how we grieve.”

Among her major accomplishments over the last decade has been taking on the position of executive director of 701 CCA – Columbia’s Center for Contemporary Art. 701 CCA is located on the second floor of the historic 701 Whaley Street complex and featured on page XX of this magazine.

Arguably the perfect person for this position due to her local and international profile, Brown is the first Black woman to have this role, and she handles the responsibility with a resolute intensity. “701 [CCA] has historically been a place of inclusion,” Brown says. “I am engaged in protecting that and expanding it through exhibitions, programming, community dialogue, and programs outside our walls that engage the community directly in neighborhoods and through community partnerships. … We had a challenging moment recently, and I'm proud of who we are on the other side of it. I'm proud of the public statement we made and the manner in which we supported our artist.”

Brown is referencing the night of May 17, 2021. John Sims, an artist-in-residence at the gallery was living in an apartment assigned to him in the building at 701 Whaley Street when he was accosted, handcuffed, and held at gunpoint as a “suspicious person” by the Columbia Police Department. Brown released a statement in response to the attack, saying the incident was not the first time a resident at 701 had encountered the police. “It was the first time, however, such an encounter led to hostile confrontation, detention, cuffing, and a records check. On the contrary, such previous encounters have resulted in courteous apologies from officers. The difference? Race. Mr. Sims is a Black man; the other incidents involved a white man.”

“Like other community-based, nonprofit institutions,” Brown continues in her statement, “CCA has the responsibility to shine light on injustice it encounters and to be part of an active dialogue to make real and discernible change. We cannot ignore the relationship between white supremacy that permeates our culture and the racial profiling we believe infected John Sims’ treatment by CPD officers. … What we can and will do is support the efforts of John Sims as the CCA artist in residence to tell his story, to provide context for that story through his artistic expression, and to seize the opportunity to join with him and the greater Columbia community as we continue the struggle for racial justice.”

It is Brown’s intimate knowledge of the patrons of 701 CCA and the community it supports that informs this position so well. “I am optimistic about the Columbia art scene,” she says. “This is a community that wants change, that's ready to face the challenges of the moment with art leading the discussions. I am hopeful that our politicians recognize the value of art for the betterment of this community, for the comfort it brings, for the space it makes for challenging conversations, and for the expansive learning opportunities it offers young people. I also hope they support it with dollars, and not just the legacy institutions, but in an expansive, inclusive way.”