A new call for poems for our Columbia area bus system! South Carolina writers welcome, Midlands writers and young writers encouraged!
WHEN IT’S OVER
Again this spring we are putting poems on the Comet, our regional transit system buses. Past projects have included poems on the stories of our city, poems about our rivers, poems about time. This spring, let’s think about what to do when it’s over.
Poems should be 10 lines or fewer. Submit to poetlaureate@onecolumbiasc.com for consideration. Rolling deadline, but we are hoping to have 30 great poems by the end of April.
Film - Revisited, Reviewed, Reflected: Lauren Wiggins and Discovering "But I'm a Cheerleader" in Small Town SC
It’s strange, but logical, that film has become such a large part of our lives during these pandemic days even for folks who don’t identify as cinephiles.
Stranger still is the recognition that, as hungry as we are for film art, a lot of what we’re getting from the plethora of studios producing work now is leaving us dissatisfied. (Watch this space for more on this subject coming soon.)
Consequently, many of us are going back to the vaults and revisiting films from earlier days that we either missed when they came out or that came out before we were even born.
In the case of the former, it’s impossible to approach these movies with truly fresh eyes (is this ever really possible?) because we don’t just watch a movie, we experience it with all the temporal baggage (and the lack thereof) that accompanies being a human of a certain age.
Lauren Wiggins, a friend and former student of mine (USC class of ‘09 WGST) found this to be the case when she revisited the 1999 comedy, But I’m a Cheerleader, starring the intoxicating Natasha Lyonne (check her out in ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK and RUSSIAN DOLL) and directed by the equally brilliant Jamie Babbit. We happened upon Wiggins’ blog post detailing this experience and wanted to share it, with her permission, with our readers (below). - CB
***
You Can't Make This Up, #4: Discovering But I'm a Cheerleader in Small Town SC
A queer camp cult classic anniversary celebration extravaganza!
The year 2000 is a fine vintage for movies that I still love. Drowning Mona, Memento, American Psycho - all classics! With the exception of darker titles like, Requiem for a Dream, several of the best ones from that year were inspirational for young women. They were the kind of films that made teenage girls want to become something and trust their instincts. Center Stage left me to ponder if 14 was too old to start ballet lessons. Coyote Ugly taught me that I could be a badass bartender on the side and the compensation from that one job would surely bankroll my passions and cost of living. Miss Congeniality showed me that I didn’t have to be girly to make friends that were girls. Let me tell you, it was a real coming of age summer.
When I entered Freshman year of high school that fall, my cousin Tiffany took me under her wing. She was a cheerleader and she played soccer. She was a senior with a million friends, and she was about to get a car! Plus, she let me hang out when her friends were around and they said I was funny, which of course cinched a top spot in the hierarchy of cool Freshmen.
When we got bored in our three stoplight town, as all apathetic teenagers across the USA did; we flocked to the beautiful blue and yellow beacon known as Blockbuster. There, amongst the over-priced candy, we’d sometimes spend an hour selecting our film. One particular visit to our local Blockbuster, But I’m a Cheerleader caught Tiffany’s eye. She was chasing the Bring It On high from that summer, and the word ‘cheerleader’ was all she needed to read; certainly no reason to flip it over and read the synopsis.
Allow me to pause the story to tell you what But I’m a Cheerleader actually is. It’s a queer camp film directed by Jamie Babbit, which follows a protagonist who doesn’t know she’s a homo, as she’s forced by families and friends to go to ‘True Directions’, a conversion therapy camp run by Cathy Moriarty and RuPaul. And this past year, this movie turned 20 years old. Vintage queer camp.
Again, since I had proven my coolness, I was invited to come along to Tiffany’s ultra-cool friend’s house. Jessica did pageants, but she had the kind of sense of humor that made you think she was doing them ironically, like a joke that only she was in on. She was tall, her hair was always pretty, and she had an endless supply of Roxy t-shirts that I silently coveted. I studied them and all the hair products I had no idea existed strewn across her room, as we cozied up on a floor pallet with snacks.
Flags were quickly raised that this was not a movie about cheerleading, but there were pom-poms, so I kept my mouth shut. Just to see. I could be wrong. Nobody else had said anything yet, and in my angst, I quietly hoped they’d want to watch the whole thing.
We did end up watching the whole thing, mostly because up until the end of the movie, I think we were all still expecting that it would eventually work out to be the farce on cheerleading that we rented. After all, I might not have been the cinema hound I am today, but I knew about parody and the low-budget looks of the box were on par with a poster for a Leslie Nielsen movie.
The longer I waited for the movie to be more relatable for my cousin the cheerleader, the more it struck me that this movie was a kind I had never seen before. I had seen Rocky Horror Picture Show a million times with my mom, but that was blatant, flagrant queerness. This movie was speaking some new language, and even though I was missing a few words, it was a language made for me. The entire duration of the film evoked that weird feeling that was a bit like watching a sex scene with your parents, and we passed through the real moments that made us feel awkward by acknowledging the other movies we had seen these actors in.
“Holy shit, it’s Rufio! What’s that guy been up to?!”
“Is that Stokely from The Faculty?!”
“Oh, it’s the chick who dances with the vibrator in Slums of Beverly Hills!”
“Yeah, she’s the friend in American Pie too!”
I concealed my interest during the actual sex scene, but if there had been any doubt in my mind before I watched that very thoughtfully directed moment between two women, I knew I was gay then and there. I also wondered if my mom paid very close attention to our Blockbuster rental history.
I remember the first time I secretly studied it alone in my room. Not a euphemism. I wanted to understand the color coding but was so nauseated by all the blue and pink. I was equally repulsed at the pukey browns in the parents’ house, but I mainly took issue with the queer characters being stuck in these institutionalized style uniforms of what I felt were baby shower colors. It wasn’t until many years later that I got to talk to other queer people and unpack Dir. Babbit’s commentary on gender roles being artificially grown in a heteronormative laboratory.
Conversion therapy was back in the news a few months ago, for good reasons. If you haven’t heard, 370 religious officials signed a declaration to ban conversion therapy. In my mind, it’s unconscionable that anyone would still support such a crazy idea. I’m friends with deeply religious people, but I can’t imagine that they’d look at me and think there was any “going back” or some different life for me. Then again, I don’t know what they say when I’m not queerly taking up space in a room.
On the 20th anniversary of this excellent piece of film, I celebrate But I’m a Cheerleader, not only as my root and an instant classic in queer camp, but as something that made me begin to analyze everything I watched and listen out for the languages of the oppressed. After all, those are the tools I have now to truly own the space in the room.
Thanks for coming to my super gay Ted Talk.
READ MORE FROM
LAUREN WIGGINS AT
YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS UP.
Announcing the 2021 Tiny Gallery Artist Line-Up!
TENNYSON CORLEY K. WAYNE THORNLEY
SHELBY LEBLANC BETSY KAEMMERLEN
B.A. HOHMAN GINNY MERRETT
RON HAGELL ASHLEY BENNETT
BOHUMILA AUGUSTINOVA RENEE ROUILLIER
LORI ISOM
Jasper’s Tiny Gallery began in October 2018 as a fresh opportunity for artists and art lovers alike. With the goal of offering small pieces at small price points, the Tiny Gallery series provides artists the chance to create special worlds in compact dimensions and provides patrons, who may have smaller budgets, be burgeoning collectors, or longtime collectors with little remaining wall space, to enjoy new artwork.
In June of last year, Jasper decided to re-focus Tiny Gallery into a virtual show so that artists could tell their stories and continue to do the work they love in challenging, unprecedented times. We are so glad that, in 2021, we will be able to continue this journey with over 12 wonderful artists.
Get to know them and their work below, and be sure to mark your calendars for their shows!
January: Tennyson Corley
Our year has already kicked off with Tennyson’s Corley’s show, Microcosm. Her show of nature paintings sold so quicky, she had to add more pieces to her exhibit.. You can still view and purchase pieces from her show until January 31st: https://the-jasper-project.square.site/tiny-gallery
Corley is a contemporary painter living and working in Columbia, South Carolina. Showing professionally since 2010, she has been honing her painting style in acrylics and mixed media. She works out of her studio on her small farm minutes from city proper. Corley attended Columbia College for a degree in Fine Art.
Tennyson captivates her audience with depiction of native flora and fauna. Her pieces pay homage to her work as a horticulturalist and love of nature. Seeking out new inspirations through her travels, she strives to portray the beauty of the South East region to her viewers.
You can see more of her art on Instagram at @tennyson_corley_art and on Linktree at linktr.ee/TennysonCorleyArt
February: K. Wayne Thornley
K. Wayne Thornley’s show is coming up in just over a week, starting Monday, February 1st.
Figure Studies serves as an initial purview into larger works that will be shown at Stormwater Studios in May 2021 alongside the clay work of Lucy Bailey. They also continue a theme he has worked on for many years, “figures surrounded by or floating within minimal, barren landscapes—emerging from my father’s Alzheimer’s experience.”
Thornley is an artist working in mixed media painting and assemblage and is a graduate of the University of South Carolina where he studied art, design and marketing. His award-winning work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions throughout the Southeast and purchased for several private and corporate collections including The Greenwood Genetics Center and Wells Fargo.
Recent juried exhibitions include the South Carolina Watermedia Society Annual Exhibition (Signature Member) and the Greenville Artists Guild Annual Small Works Exhibition. Mixed media work by the artist has been selected for exhibition at Artfields (2018 & 2019), an annual art competition and survey of Southeastern art held annually in Lake City, SC.
Check out Wayne’s work on his Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kwaynethornley/?hl=en
March: Shelby LeBlanc
Shelby LeBlanc’s bright colors and beautiful imagery will decorate “little pieces” in the month of March.
LeBlanc is a contemporary painter from Columbia, SC, and has been active since 2015. She favors acrylic paint for most of her work, however some of her works delve into watercolor, inks, crayons, or mixed media incorporating book pages, maps, or glass.
Much of her works are inspired by the time spent away from home, from the Low Country of South Carolina to her trips to Africa, Costa Rica, Mexico, Europe, and Thailand. LeBlanc paints in a variety of styles and mediums over many different subject matters, however, her work is always recognizable- beautiful, dramatic, and demands attention.
You can see Shelby’s work on her Facebook and Instagram as well as her website: https://www.shelbyleblancart.com
April: Betsy Kaemmerlen
Betsy Kaemmerlen’s striking ceramic creations will take us through the month of April.
Kaemmerlen is a Landscape Architect with strengths in graphics and planting design. As an outgrowth of her profession, she has been working in clay since 1994. Originally taught on the wheel by John Macomber of Greenleaf Pottery, Betsy turned to hand built forms soon afterwards. She originated an active potters group called Clay Arts East in Connecticut and organized the Open Studio Tour of Northeast CT with up to 75 artists, for many years before moving south in 2006.
Concentrating on functional ware, surface texture and decoration are key to her clay forms, with transparent glazes pooling in the depths. Her inspiration for exploring textured surfaces comes from the origins of pottery when clay was used to protect cooking baskets from the fire. As food was cooked, the clay was fired and so the basket weave impression remained.
In 2013, Betsy won an Artist Residency in Little Switzerland, NC at Wildacres Retreat to work on both functional pots and sculptural pieces. She enjoys both taking and giving workshops and has learned many hand building and carving techniques. As a garden designer, leaves and natural designs play heavily in her work. And having studied the gardens in Kyoto Japan for five months in 1979, her fascination with Asian motifs is ongoing. She carves roller stamps with cloud, water, Chinese, and Celtic motifs to add richness to her pottery. Lately her focus has been on tiny teapots and vases, along with Ikebana vessels for Japanese flower arranging.
You can check out some of Betsy’s work on an interview Jasper did with her last year: http://jasperproject.org/what-jasper-said/tag/Betsy+Kaemmerlen
May: Ginny Merett
Known for her quirky collage pieces, Ginny Merett has been an artist in the Columbia community for over thirty years. She has used various media to create art but for the last decade chooses collage techniques and processes to represent what she calls “characters.” These characters will be ready to walk into your life throughout May.
Ginny’s work has won several awards and accolades. Recently, Ginny exhibited her work in the Alumni Exhibit at the University of South Carolina School of Visual Arts and Design McMaster Gallery. She is the cover and featured artist in The Jasper Magazine, Spring 2019 edition; and received First Place and Second Place Awards at the Rosewood Art and Music Festival, Best in Show at Time for Art sponsored by the Jasper Project; and participated in Women Speak Art Gallery at SC State Library 2017, ArtFields 2019, and numerous other exhibits.
Ginny was born and raised in Denver and has lived in South Carolina since 1987. Art sustained Ginny throughout her life and is the cause for her every success. She constantly sewed, created, and treasured drawing as a child, and sought out every art opportunity in school. Because art was such a passion of Ginny’s youth, she pursued a BS in Art Education from the University of Georgia. She later went on to earn an MA in Art Education and MEd in Educational Administration from The University of South Carolina, where she also served as adjunct for several years. Among some of her greatest accomplishments, Ginny taught art in public schools for 30 years.
Her influences include David Hockney’s joiners, Robert Rauschenberg’s combines, Hannah Hoch’s timeless collages, and the beautiful execution of John Singer Sargent’s portraits. Ginny is a member of FigurativeArtists.org, the SC Arts Alliance, and South Carolina Artists groups.
You can preview Ginny’s work at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and at www.ginnymerett.com
June: B.A. Hohman
B.A. Hohman’s unique and soulful perspective on life, often seen in grand murals, will make their way into smaller selections in the summer month of June.
Hohman grew up in Ohio and graduated cum laude from Ohio University with a BFA. Art has always been her ground. She met her husband, Bob, there, and after her graduation they married and embarked on a new life, moving to West Columbia, SC, in 1981. Their two girls, Haley and Taryn, were born here several years later. She moved back and forth across the country before settling back in SC where she taught. Teaching Art was both gratifying and frustrating due to the vast scope of student abilities and behaviors grouped together in often overcrowded classes. Several years later, B.A. made the decision to leave teaching and become a successful muralist and trompe l’oiel artist, painting for clients too numerous to mention, across the state. As the subject matter knew no bounds, B.A. discovered her hidden ability to adapt both subject and style to client desires. Her Art had never had a specific style so this vocation fit well.
Painting murals was lifesaving before, during, and after the sudden death of her husband Bob in 2005. Her amazing friends are more precious than gold. Attending art and music events kept her sane and provided well needed inspiration. Finally selling the family home in Irmo, finding her perfect little West Columbia home and studio in 2015 was tonic for the soul. She met more and more of the creative folks who encompass the Art community in and around Columbia and lasting friendships were formed. She continues to revel in their caring inspiration.
B.A. has struggled to create during this past year. Searching for a deeper connection has helped find a sense of peace and hope. Her current artistic goal is to focus on the little things that bring joy as well as the rambling depictions of a mind grasping for meaning. Her new pieces will be depictions of her inner wanderings and glimpses of the small things that keep her mind from spinning off into the gaping chasm.
Check out B.A.’s work on her Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bahohman/?ref=page_internal
July: Ron Hagell
Ron Hagell’s artwork, which is largely narrative based on social issues, portraiture and dance, will take us through July.
Hagell is a media artist. His primary work in the past was in film and photography. Ron became an artist so that he could work more individually and creatively across a variety of media. He taught media art practice at Royal Holloway - University of London and at the Rhode Island School of Design, Columbia University and on a Fulbright grant in Germany. He has exhibited work in Europe, Canada and the US. His most recent exhibitions were in the UK, Berlin and South Carolina at Artfields 2016, 2018 and 2019.
Recently Ron has been experimenting with bold color figurative and portrait works in acrylic on canvas as well as revisiting still images from his former dance productions as small individual statements on creative movement.
Ron has a Master of Fine Art degree from Columbia University and studied at UNC, Rhode Island School of Design and American University. He now lives in Columbia, SC, and has a studio at the Tapps’ Outpost where he invites visitors to see his work by appointment.
In another life, Ron was an Army Captain with service in Vietnam after which he created many hours of arts and documentary programs for PBS stations including the only ever nationally produced jazz music series, At the Top.
You can see Ron’s work on his Facebook and his website: http://www.ronhagell.com/
August: Ashley Bennett
Spirited dancer and jewelry artist, Ashley Bennett, will finish off the summer with her August show.
Bennett moved to Columbia, by herself, in 2007 and made it her home. She danced in the city's first fringe arts company, Columbia Alternacirque, and became a well-known performer at the Art Bar. For several years, Ashley was a staple shop girl for secondhand store, Sid & Nancy, where she consumed countless iced cappuccinos from Adriana's and smoked a small mountain of cigarettes on the busy sidewalk in front of Delaney's Irish pub.
Over a decade later, she opened her own artist studio at Tapp's Arts Center, started the Movement Arts Co-op there, and later served a short term as Director of Operations. In 2019, Ashley opened her own communal artist space in West Columbia, Sage Studios. Thanks to the pandemic, the company's vital signs are weak, but stable. She spent the majority of 2020 pacing her house, homeschooling her 5-year-old, eating cheese, and soldering jewelry from sterling silver.
Check out Ashley’s jewelry on her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/covenitesilver/
September: Bohumila Augustinová
Bohumila Augustinová’s fantastical wire work, often coupled with her clay creations, ranges from mugs and bowls to gallery pieces. This unique variety of work will be featured in her September show.
Augustinová was born and raised in communist Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic. She has a degree in fashion design, and she was always an artist. Bohumila came to the United States in 1998, and after winning Runaway Runway, she quickly became part of the Columbia Art scene. In 2015, she took over Anastasia & Friends Gallery, which closed in 2019. Bohumila is a leader of Yarnbombers of Columbia. She works at the Columbia Art Center where she not just makes art, but also teaches art to others.
See Bohumila’s art on her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/art_by_bohumila/
October: Renee Rouillier
Renee Rouillier’s sculptural explorations will unravel their stories in October.
Rouillier has been involved in the arts since her twenties. Raised in upstate New York, she received an MFA in Ceramic Sculpture and 3D Study from the University of South Carolina, BFA with a concentration in Ceramics and a BS in Interdisciplinary Arts for Children from SUNY College at Brockport, and a Certificate of Fine Arts from Rochester Institute of Technology.
She strongly feels art not only defines who she is, but also mirrors her personal life as well as worldly events and outcomes. In reflection on 2020, she is emphatic that the deeds of humanity will continue to have a profound effect on harmonious existence and the survival of all. The past year, 2020, has proven that nature and all forms of wildlife can flourish without human interaction and she questions this relationship within her artwork. Rouillier also believes a resurgence of mythology, folklore, magic, and wonder would add a positive dimension to today’s world.
You can explore Renee’s art on her website: https://www.reneerouillier.com
November: Lori Isom
Lori Isom’s distinctive reflections on life through portraiture will be up to view throughout November.
Isom has experienced a varied career as an artist, dedicating years to professional dancing, singing and acting. A figurative and portrait artist for over 20 years, she has been commissioned to do hundreds of individual & family portraits.
Lori's work has been featured in a plethora of places including American Art Collector. She recently completed a one-year artist residency for the City of North Charleston, during which she had the privilege to work on several community-focused projects. She is currently working to grow in greater artistic expression that moves beyond the influence of societal values.
Check out Lori’s work on her Instagram and her Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artinthenow/
December: Multiple Artist Ornament Show
For December, we are offering a holiday-oriented show sure to get you in the spirit for your favorite holiday, whichever it may be. Whether you want something to hang on your tree, set on your mantle, or show as a keepsake from 2021, support a local artist with an irreplaceable piece.
Look out for our upcoming announcement of our list of artists for our December show!
CORONA TIMES - Trustus Theatre Melds Formats to Bring Us The Thanksgiving Play: A Talk with Director Abigail McNeely
“It’s a satire about white wokeness and the assumptions that we have always been taught about the Native American experience that we have accepted as fact, and how complex and impossible it is to create something that represents an oppressed group when that group isn’t even in the room. … Now, it’s one of the top ten most-produced plays in America and it fits in at Trustus perfectly. It’s modern, it’s challenging, it makes you laugh and then it makes you cringe that you just laughed…”
Abigail McNeely, director - The Thanksgiving Play
Abigail McNeely, director, The Thanksgiving Play at Trustus Theatre
As quarantine precautions continue to impact the opportunities for performing arts institutions to gather artists and audiences safely together, problem-solving and creative solutions are more highly valued than ever.
With a theatre that has been physically dark since March, Columbia’s beloved Trustus Theatre has offered a number of alternative events including a virtual play festival last month that brought us new plays with small casts live streamed three weekends in a row.
This week, the organization, under the watchful eye of Producing Artistic Director Chad Henderson, is raising the bar even higher with a brand new play being offered as a pay-for-view event—The Thanksgiving Play, a comedy by Larissa Fasthorse.
Jasper talked with Abigail McNeely who, in addition to directing The Thanksgiving Play, is also on staff at Trustus Theatre. We’re sharing this interview with you.
JASPER: First, tell us about your position at Trustus Theatre, how long you’ve been there, and what you do.
MCNEELY: I am the Administrative Assistant of Production and I started in May 2020. I do a lot of different things! I work closely with Chad, the Producing Artistic Director, and our technical staff, as well as our wonderful donors. When we return to live production, I’ll be working with production teams as well. A big part of my job over the last few months has been working on our Trustus LIVE series, which included filming, editing, and streaming video for our audiences at home. I was so excited to take on the challenge of taking the Trustus experience online and I’ve learned a lot. I’m really proud of the streaming work that we’ve done and it has all been leading up to The Thanksgiving Play, a production that combines both our practical live theatre skills and our virtual skills.
JASPER: And I know you graduated from USC – when was that and what was your major?
MCNEELY: I graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre. While there, I received the Helen Hayes Undergraduate scholarship and worked with Green Room Productions, the entirely student-run theatre production group, and was a member of TOAST Improv.
JASPER: Talk for just a minute about some of the plays you’ve been in or directed and maybe choose one or two favorites.
MCNEELY: There are so many! I’ve been doing theatre since high school and each project feels like it teaches me something new. Some highlights:
· Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which marked my fifth musical here at Trustus (and unfortunately closed in after just two performances due to COVID – but we’ll be back!). I love working with Chad on musicals. It’s like you stepped into a music video. It’s a blast.
· A Bright New Boise by Samuel D. Hunter which I directed my senior year of college with some of my very close friends through Green Room. Hunter is one of my favorite playwrights. Funny and dark and full of heart.
· A Christmas Miracle at the Richland Fashion Mall, written by The Mothers, Trustus’ resident comedy group that I am proudly a member of. I was honored to get to direct our very first full-length play that was a love letter to some of our favorite Columbia things.
Patrick Dodds and Kayla Cahill Machado
JASPER: Now, let’s hear about the Thanksgiving Play – who wrote it and what should viewers expect from the content of the play?
MCNEELY: The Thanksgiving Play is written by Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota Nation). The show is about four people coming together to try and create a politically correct, culturally-sensitive play about Thanksgiving during Native American Heritage Month. Those four people all happen to be white, not a single Indigenous voice in the room. It’s a satire about white wokeness and the assumptions that we have always been taught about the Native American experience that we have accepted as fact, and how complex and impossible it is to create something that represents an oppressed group when that group isn’t even in the room. FastHorse wrote this play to explore these issues with only white people in the cast in response to being told that her other plays couldn’t be produced for lack of Indigenous actors. Now, it’s one of the top ten most-produced plays in America and it fits in at Trustus perfectly. It’s modern, it’s challenging, it makes you laugh and then it makes you cringe that you just laughed… it’s what I think of when I think about “a Trustus show.”
JASPER: Who will we get to see performing?
MCNEELY: Four really wonderful actors from the Trustus company – Kayla Cahill Machado (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson), Brittany Hammock (A Streetcar Named Desire and the Jasper Theatre Artist of the Year recipient for 2019), Patrick Dodds (Sweat), and Clint Poston (Marjorie Prime). We knew we wanted to stay within the Trustus family for this show and these four actors were my first choice. I’ve had the pleasure of watching and working with each of them multiple times and I appreciate their dedication and their willingness to try new things. Getting them all in to the same cast was a dream.
JASPER: And now, the obvious, how exactly will we get to see this play?
MCNEELY: The Thanksgiving Play is Trustus’ very first virtual on-demand show. After a month of quarantine and testing, we brought our cast and crew in to film the show to then stream online. It’s similar to renting a movie off of Amazon – you pay for an access code that is good any time between November 11-21, and once you begin watching it, you have 48 hours to finish it. Tickets can be purchased online at trustus.org and any questions can go to our Box Office Manager, Brandon Martin (boxoffice@trustus.org). He was instrumental in creating our online experience and ensuring it still felt like Trustus even from the comfort of your couch.
It’s similar to renting a movie off of Amazon – you pay for an access code that is good any time between November 11-21, and once you begin watching it, you have 48 hours to finish it. Tickets can be purchased online at trustus.org
JASPER: As the director, tell us about some of the challenges you encountered in putting this play together and how you problem-solved them.
MCNEELY: We started the process completely online, rehearsing over Zoom. The first few days of a rehearsal process are vital in building ensemble and getting the show up on its feet to block, so having to do so online was challenging, but thankfully, the cast took to it easily.
After two weeks of virtual rehearsal, we started in-person rehearsals. It was a breath of fresh air to have people back in the theatre again. We were masked when not on stage, lots of hand sanitizer, weekly testing… Above all, we had to do this safely. It means nothing to bring theatre back if it’s done haphazardly. While we were in the space, we ran the show and added costumes and props just like any normal rehearsal process. It felt good to be back in the rhythm of things. After another two weeks, we filmed the entire show over Halloween weekend. It was a whirlwind process. The staff worked so hard to make it happen. It was exciting to get to work with my team on a production together.
Brittany Hammock
JASPER: Assuming we haven’t seen the play yet, key us in to one of your favorite or funniest parts to look forward to.
MCNEELY: One of the most fun things about the show is that it’s a play with music, so in between each of the scenes with the group creating the play, we get a glimpse at some of the outdated Thanksgiving songs and pageants that have been performed over and over again. FastHorse wrote these based on real songs she came across while writing the play, and they are perfectly campy in their performance and cringey in their content. There’s also a scene involving a head. That’s all I have to say about that.
JASPER: Is there anyone whose praises you’d like to take this opportunity to sing?
So many people! The time we spent rehearsing online gave us ample time to discuss characters and intentions and engage in conversations about some of the tougher topics. We had discussions with Eva Foussat, an Indigenous member for the Trustus board, and Terrance Henderson, Trustus company member and the chair of our Equity Task Force. I’m so thankful for their time. It was essential to have POC voices at the table when we discussed this play. Otherwise, we would’ve been doing exactly what the play tells us not to do: talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. Perform radical wokeness without working with or listening to BIPOC.
I’d also love to shout out the musicians we worked with on the show. We asked Greg Apple to create the transition music you’ll hear between scenes, and what he and Chad came up with is so fun: tribal beats that morph into jazzy tunes. It reminds me a lot of Vince Guaraldi’s score for the Peanuts specials, perfect for the holidays. Then, we reached out to two of my favorite musicians to fill in the music for the rest of the show. Chris Cockrell, Trustus company Emeritus member, scored scenes 1, 3, and 7 and Daniel Machado, whose wife Kayla plays Logan in the show, scored scene 5 and the credits. Daniel also stepped up to the plate as a camera operator and sound mixer for the entire show. He’s helped so much.
I’ve never felt this way about collaboration before. I am so lucky to have worked with so many different artists in such a short, loud time and created something we can all be proud of.
JASPER: And what’s next for you and Trustus?
Coming up on November 21st, we’re hosting three awesome bands in the alleyway outside of the theatre for Rock the Block – a fun(d)raiser for Trustus Theatre! Brandy and the Butcher, Les Merry Chevaliers, and E.Z. Shakes are playing, Scott Hall’s got the food, and we’ll be pouring drinks. It’s going to be so much fun. Info can be found online at https://trustus.org/event/rock-the-block/. After that, we’ll be installing new air filtration systems to hopefully return to live performance soon. Stay tuned!
Jasper Galleries Welcomes Thomas Washington to Motor Supply Co.'s Walls (Copy)
For more interviews with the many exciting Artists of Color in the Greater Columbia Arts Community,
please search for
BLACK ART MATTERS
in the search box on the Jasper Project Blog Page
Artist Thomas Washington aka Thomas the younger
Jasper Magazine visual arts editor and board member of the Jasper Project, Laura Garner Hine, has been busy installing a brand new show of art in the gallery spaces at Motor Supply Co in Columbia’s historic Congaree Vista. Our featured artist this quarter — Thomas Washington, aka Thomas the younger!
It was my sincerest pleasure to interview Mr. Washington just before his show was installed last week.
~~~
Hi Thomas, and thanks for spending some virtual time with the Jasper Project. We’re excited about the show of your artwork recently installed at Motor Supply in Columbia’s Vista. But first we want to catch up any readers who aren’t familiar with your work.
JASPER: Tell us, please, a little about your background. I know you’re from Springfield, Massachusetts, but what brought you to Columbia, SC and did you go anywhere else along the way?
WASHINGTON: We moved south when my father’s job laid him off, starting a classic cascade of loss. This included the house we’d always known (to foreclosure); friends; community. My mom’s from this area, so we were—in a real sense—following her “home”.
JASPER: How did you get into painting – are you self-taught or did you study under someone else?
WASHINGTON: I’m self-taught...but every piece I’ve ever seen informs me. One way or the other.
JASPER: Who has influenced you most as an artist?
WASHINGTON: Amy Windland’s trees; Travis Charest’s details; Keith Tolen’s focus; Joe Madureira’s structuring; the tenebrism of Humberto Ramos; Stephen King’s storytelling, as well as Ann Patchett’s; Moebius (Jean Giraud); Giger; Whelan; everything about Lucas Sams; the depth of Darrell K. Sweets; Michael Krajewski’s economy; the exquisite technicians, Margaret & The Brothers O’Shea; The Brothers Hildebrandt; The Brothers Lopez; Michael Anastasion’s intensity; every woman I’ve ever loved too deeply, and every woman who returned it; my children; my sorrows and madnesses, too; every soul who ever appreciated anything I generated, especially when I want to wash my hands of it all—I owe much to many, and could not finish their naming in a sitting.
JASPER: how would you describe your work in terms of genre and what mediums and format sizes do you prefer to work with and why?
WASHINGTON: I must leave that “description” to others. I will work in any medium I can afford to acquire, and in any dimension(s).
JASPER: There is a dreamy, magical quality to so much of your work – as if you are telling a story with your paintings. Is there magic in your art? Are you telling stories? If so, what are your stories about?
WASHINGTON: I have a universe. Every project is connected to The One Project...and I imagine this is actually true for most creators, though the degree to which each of us engages that truth...varies. The tale cannot be told, nor summed—it’s a web, and still being woven.
JASPER: You go by Thomas the younger – can you please elaborate on this name?
WASHINGTON: My father—Thomas the Elder—is an artist, as well. (I don’t use “Washington” when I use “the younger”, and I don’t capitalize the initial letters. On occasionally doffing the family name: I’m a black sheep, and I can acknowledge that. When we needed less names, we were more human—I use the archaic moniker because it isn’t dead. Just buried. Capitalization...feels wrong.)
JASPER: I know that your children also influence your work as an artist – can you tell us about your children and how they influence you?
WASHINGTON: My children were born into a dark world. I have no clue how to brighten it—I am, perhaps, too acquainted with its darkness. They, themselves, are lights. Their faces, their spirits, their tableaux—my work is infused with these. Sometimes, in direct homage.
JASPER: You have a Jasper Project sponsored show up at Motor Supply Co. Bistro now. Talk to us about the art being exhibited at the restaurant. Did you paint specifically for the show or did you select from items from your inventory to show?
WASHINGTON: As of this writing, only new work is in the show. If 2020 serves up some 2020esque catastrophe—a flood; a fierce gale; a destructive fury, wherein which I destroy pieces—I’ll adapt. I’ve got too many pieces stacked up in here. Always.
JASPER: If there is a theme to the show, what is it all about?
WASHINGTON: I’m still tightening most of them...which means I’m afraid to commit to a theme. There’s more than one, anyhow. I suppose that description, too, should be left to others.
JASPER: How has the current BLM movement affected you and your work? Are you optimistic – why or why not?
WASHINGTON: There’s no victory without perfect victory...so there’s no victory. Humanity cannot grow out of this inhuman stage, it seems. That’s reality...and we don’t like reality.
JASPER: Artists across the color, gender, and discipline spectrums are particularly challenged now by both the COVID pandemic and the lack of support from the state and federal government. There is no question that it is more difficult to practice your art and make a living at it if you are an artist of color, correct? Can you please address this reality and offer your opinions or ideas on how our culture can better support and promote artists of color?
WASHINGTON: As long as we function under a capitalist model, people of color will merit “a blank check”. This will likely never be issued. Thus—without the interventions/intercessions of wealthy patrons and benefactors willing to pour millions (maybe even billions) into finally lending ballast to we outliers ... we outliers will predictably continue to flounder on the cusp of chaos. This is actually true for the entire swath of poor, marginalized, and systematically destroyed humans—not just “artists of color”. For now, we’re (instead) inundated via “trickle-down wreckonomics”. An incessant deluge.
JASPER: How do you feel about the strength and efficacy of the Black artist in the Columbia arts community? Are Midlands area artists as unified across racial lines as we should be? What needs to happen to create and nurture a racially healthier community of artists?
WASHINGTON: Humans are formatted to prefer an “us” over a “them”. It seems nearly impossible to convince “us” that “us” is the only category. Educate humans to that effect, however, and one could subsequently watch these issues rectify themselves. Effortlessly. There is one race. Regardless of what the colonialist elites enacted. Regardless of how well it worked on the freshly-minted category (“white”), turning them against their allies. Regardless of how we’ve been enculturated. One.
JASPER: What’s up next for you and your work and where can readers find your work on the internet?
WASHINGTON: My website’s thomastheyounger.com, and the work there is never done. Releases, updates, et cetera—betwixt that site and following my Facebook Page (“The Works of Water”), it’s relatively easy to keep up with pending projects.
— cb
Don’t miss a single one of Jasper’s profiles, interviews, or stories.
Subscribe to WHAT JASPER SAID today!
Jasper Galleries Welcomes Thomas Washington to Motor Supply Co.'s Walls
For more interviews with the many exciting Artists of Color in the Greater Columbia Arts Community,
please search for
BLACK ART MATTERS
in the search box on the Jasper Project Blog Page
Artist Thomas Washington aka Thomas the younger
Jasper Magazine visual arts editor and board member of the Jasper Project, Laura Garner Hine, has been busy installing a brand new show of art in the gallery spaces at Motor Supply Co in Columbia’s historic Congaree Vista. Our featured artist this quarter — Thomas Washington, aka Thomas the younger!
It was my sincerest pleasure to interview Mr. Washington just before his show was installed last week.
~~~
Hi Thomas, and thanks for spending some virtual time with the Jasper Project. We’re excited about the show of your artwork recently installed at Motor Supply in Columbia’s Vista. But first we want to catch up any readers who aren’t familiar with your work.
JASPER: Tell us, please, a little about your background. I know you’re from Springfield, Massachusetts, but what brought you to Columbia, SC and did you go anywhere else along the way?
WASHINGTON: We moved south when my father’s job laid him off, starting a classic cascade of loss. This included the house we’d always known (to foreclosure); friends; community. My mom’s from this area, so we were—in a real sense—following her “home”.
JASPER: How did you get into painting – are you self-taught or did you study under someone else?
WASHINGTON: I’m self-taught...but every piece I’ve ever seen informs me. One way or the other.
JASPER: Who has influenced you most as an artist?
WASHINGTON: Amy Windland’s trees; Travis Charest’s details; Keith Tolen’s focus; Joe Madureira’s structuring; the tenebrism of Humberto Ramos; Stephen King’s storytelling, as well as Ann Patchett’s; Moebius (Jean Giraud); Giger; Whelan; everything about Lucas Sams; the depth of Darrell K. Sweets; Michael Krajewski’s economy; the exquisite technicians, Margaret & The Brothers O’Shea; The Brothers Hildebrandt; The Brothers Lopez; Michael Anastasion’s intensity; every woman I’ve ever loved too deeply, and every woman who returned it; my children; my sorrows and madnesses, too; every soul who ever appreciated anything I generated, especially when I want to wash my hands of it all—I owe much to many, and could not finish their naming in a sitting.
JASPER: how would you describe your work in terms of genre and what mediums and format sizes do you prefer to work with and why?
WASHINGTON: I must leave that “description” to others. I will work in any medium I can afford to acquire, and in any dimension(s).
JASPER: There is a dreamy, magical quality to so much of your work – as if you are telling a story with your paintings. Is there magic in your art? Are you telling stories? If so, what are your stories about?
WASHINGTON: I have a universe. Every project is connected to The One Project...and I imagine this is actually true for most creators, though the degree to which each of us engages that truth...varies. The tale cannot be told, nor summed—it’s a web, and still being woven.
JASPER: You go by Thomas the younger – can you please elaborate on this name?
WASHINGTON: My father—Thomas the Elder—is an artist, as well. (I don’t use “Washington” when I use “the younger”, and I don’t capitalize the initial letters. On occasionally doffing the family name: I’m a black sheep, and I can acknowledge that. When we needed less names, we were more human—I use the archaic moniker because it isn’t dead. Just buried. Capitalization...feels wrong.)
JASPER: I know that your children also influence your work as an artist – can you tell us about your children and how they influence you?
WASHINGTON: My children were born into a dark world. I have no clue how to brighten it—I am, perhaps, too acquainted with its darkness. They, themselves, are lights. Their faces, their spirits, their tableaux—my work is infused with these. Sometimes, in direct homage.
JASPER: You have a Jasper Project sponsored show up at Motor Supply Co. Bistro now. Talk to us about the art being exhibited at the restaurant. Did you paint specifically for the show or did you select from items from your inventory to show?
WASHINGTON: As of this writing, only new work is in the show. If 2020 serves up some 2020esque catastrophe—a flood; a fierce gale; a destructive fury, wherein which I destroy pieces—I’ll adapt. I’ve got too many pieces stacked up in here. Always.
JASPER: If there is a theme to the show, what is it all about?
WASHINGTON: I’m still tightening most of them...which means I’m afraid to commit to a theme. There’s more than one, anyhow. I suppose that description, too, should be left to others.
JASPER: How has the current BLM movement affected you and your work? Are you optimistic – why or why not?
WASHINGTON: There’s no victory without perfect victory...so there’s no victory. Humanity cannot grow out of this inhuman stage, it seems. That’s reality...and we don’t like reality.
JASPER: Artists across the color, gender, and discipline spectrums are particularly challenged now by both the COVID pandemic and the lack of support from the state and federal government. There is no question that it is more difficult to practice your art and make a living at it if you are an artist of color, correct? Can you please address this reality and offer your opinions or ideas on how our culture can better support and promote artists of color?
WASHINGTON: As long as we function under a capitalist model, people of color will merit “a blank check”. This will likely never be issued. Thus—without the interventions/intercessions of wealthy patrons and benefactors willing to pour millions (maybe even billions) into finally lending ballast to we outliers ... we outliers will predictably continue to flounder on the cusp of chaos. This is actually true for the entire swath of poor, marginalized, and systematically destroyed humans—not just “artists of color”. For now, we’re (instead) inundated via “trickle-down wreckonomics”. An incessant deluge.
JASPER: How do you feel about the strength and efficacy of the Black artist in the Columbia arts community? Are Midlands area artists as unified across racial lines as we should be? What needs to happen to create and nurture a racially healthier community of artists?
WASHINGTON: Humans are formatted to prefer an “us” over a “them”. It seems nearly impossible to convince “us” that “us” is the only category. Educate humans to that effect, however, and one could subsequently watch these issues rectify themselves. Effortlessly. There is one race. Regardless of what the colonialist elites enacted. Regardless of how well it worked on the freshly-minted category (“white”), turning them against their allies. Regardless of how we’ve been enculturated. One.
JASPER: What’s up next for you and your work and where can readers find your work on the internet?
WASHINGTON: My website’s thomastheyounger.com, and the work there is never done. Releases, updates, et cetera—betwixt that site and following my Facebook Page (“The Works of Water”), it’s relatively easy to keep up with pending projects.
— cb
Don’t miss a single one of Jasper’s profiles, interviews, or stories.
Subscribe to WHAT JASPER SAID today!
Corona Times -- Cassie Premo Steele talks about poetry, pandemic, and love
“One of the things I’ve learned from all this is that there’s very little under our control as humans. We must work with each other and with the earth in harmonious, healing, and honestly, hard ways if we are to survive.”
—Cassie Premo Steele
Cassie Premo Steele - all photos courtesy of the artist
During these Corona Times the Jasper Project strives to continue to support and promote communication among artists and arts lovers. In this interview, Columbia-based poet Cassie Premo Steele shares what both her personal and professional life have been like since the onset of quarantine and we come to realize that there is little separating the personal from the professional these days, and what a gift that might actually be.
Here’s Cassie.
Thanks for sharing with us, Cassie. Let’s start with some basic info for the few people who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you yet.
JASPER: Tell us about your background, please – where did you grow up, go to school, and how did you come to live in the SC Midlands today? You live in Forest Acres, right?
STEELE: Thanks so much for inviting me. I was born in Detroit, where my grandfather, an immigrant from Czechoslavakia, was Henry Ford’s secretary, and my grandmother, the oldest daughter of Irish immigrants, helped take care of me while my mom was in college when I was a baby. I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Winona, Minnesota, before moving to Reston, Virginia, a progressive, planned community outside Washington, D.C., when I was 12. I went to high school at Immaculata on Tenley Circle, which was an all-female Catholic school run by the Sisters of Providence, an experience that is still very important to me today. I settled in Columbia after finishing my Ph.D. at Emory in 1996. I was married to a professor at USC and we raised two girls together, and I have lived with my wife in Forest Acres for six years now.
JASPER: How long were you in academics and what made you leave the academy to write full time?
STEELE: I taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels from 1991 until 2008 – in English, Comparative Literature, and Women’s and Gender Studies Programs at several institutions. I love teaching and I still teach but in a different capacity now, working with women academics and educators from around the world through my coaching business.
As an adjunct for that many years, I had an insider’s view to the inequalities of power and the ways academe reinforces those, especially for women and people of color. I use this to help women academics navigate those treacherous waters and still do the writing and teaching that they care about.
JASPER: You have published quite a few books – can you tell us about them – a chronological listing of your publications would be fabulous.
STEELE: The ReSisters. A #1 bestselling LGBT YA novel about an indigenous teen who decides to try to kill the president after her mother is taken to a detention center, with art by Amy Alley. All Things That Matter Press, 2018.
Tongues in Trees: Poetry 1994-2017. Collected poems published since 1994, plus new poems with #resist and #metoo themes. Unbound Content, 2017.
Beautiful Waters. Poetry about lesbianism, love, and marriage. Finishing Line Press, 2017.
Earth Joy Writing: Finding Balance through Journaling and Nature. Experiential practices, ecofeminist reflections, and writing prompts. Ashland Creek Publishing, 2015.
Wednesday. Poems co-created on Facebook each Wednesday since 2010 with over 300 Facebook friends from around the world. Unbound Content, 2013.
The Pomegranate Papers. Twenty years of poetry about marriage, mothering, and creativity. Unbound Content, 2012.
This is how honey runs. Poetry based on work with clients using writing as a way of healing, finding balance, and empowering oneself creatively. Unbound Content, 2010.
Shamrock and Lotus. Novel set in Ireland, India, and the United States, about the way mothers and daughters can heal from histories of colonization and globalization through renewed connections to each other and the land. All Things That Matter Press, 2010.
Easyhard: Reflections on the Practice of Creativity. Thirteen lessons on overcoming doubt and fear and living a creative life. WordClay, 2009.
My Peace: A Year of Yoga at Amsa Studios. Lyrical essays on the connections between yoga practice and achieving healing and peace in life. WordClay, 2008.
Ruin. Poems about loss and recovery based on work using writing as a way of healing, which Marjory Wentworth, the Poet Laureate of South Carolina, called “A beautiful book: courageous, spiritual, and timeless.” New Women’s Voices Series by Finishing Line Press, 2004.
We Heal From Memory: Sexton, Lorde, Anzaldúa and the Poetry of Witness. A scholarly study of how the writing of Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, and Gloria Anzaldúa bears witness to and provides visions of healing from multicultural American traumatic histories, both individual and collective. Palgrave, 2000.
Moon Days: Creative Writings about Menstruation. An edited collection of creative writings and art about menstruation. Personal narratives, short stories, and poetry selections that move from reflections on first experiences to visions of spiritual celebration and reclamation. Summerhouse Press, 1999. Distributed by Ash Tree Publishing.
JASPER: This is the place where we make you crazy by asking you to name your top one or two favorites of your books and tell us why you are most proud of them.
STEELE: It would perhaps surprise you to know that I think We Heal from Memory is my most important book. I trace the legacies of our national collective traumas in that book – colonization, slavery, and sexual violence against women and girls – and walk readers through how poetry can be a way of witnessing to and healing from these legacies. I think, even though it was published 20 years ago, that many people are just now able to begin hearing what that book had to say.
JASPER: From social media it looks like you and your wife, Susanne Kappler, have really gone back to the land. Did this start before COVID-19 or as a reaction to the pandemic? Can you tell us about your little Eden and how you’ve spent your non-writing time since March?
STEELE: Oh, my goodness, this is one of the things that brings me the most joy in life! We had chickens and a garden before the pandemic but we’ve basically doubled down on providing for ourselves since March. We don’t have a lot of land and we live in a very modest neighborhood, but we make the most of what we have with a vegetable garden in the front yard (our long-term vision is that we can grow enough that this can be a place where neighbors can harvest what they need), and three chickens in the back yard who give us fresh eggs, and the cutest dog in the world who sleeps next to me while I meditate and write and work every day.
I won’t say that being in quarantine has been easy, but it has been filled with joy knowing that we are cooking food from scratch and brewing beer using ingredients we harvested in our own yard and being grateful for what is here, right now, because we are alive and working -- and working in a way that upholds our vision of sustainability and gratitude for the abundance of the earth.
JASPER: What have you missed about the World Out There during our sheltering-in period?
STEELE: I used to love to go out to dinner! It was my go-to treat when I’d had a hard day or something was stressful or I just needed a date night with my wife. You know what? I didn’t really need it after all. We have found that when we’re both working from home and I can spend time cooking in the morning and she can brew on the weekends, then our dinners on the back porch are as fun as anything served to us somewhere else.
JASPER: Is there anything you have come to love tremendously during this time?
STEELE: I have come to love South Carolina in a new way. Every Friday morning, I take a drive with my dog to a state park or heritage preserve and we walk, mostly without seeing any other humans, up and down hills and next to rivers and through swamps and over creeks and sometimes off trail. The land here remembers so much. It’s beautiful. It has stories to tell.
Premo Steele with wife Suzanne Kappler
JASPER: Now, professionally, can you talk about how the pandemic has affected your work life? Have you been more or less productive? Are there any new projects you can tell us about?
STEELE: Well, honestly, I don’t like the word productive. We are not products. Art is not a product. I would say my writing methods are the same, but the intensity and depth of them is deeper.
I know I just said, “the depth is deeper,” and that bothered me, so I looked up alternate words for “deeper” and found these: bottomless, unfathomable, mysterious, serious, pressing, graver. I think that about sums up the multifarious ways this pandemic has affected my writing—and I’ve been writing both poetry and memoir this year.
And of course, I keep a journal and write by hand every day. I was recently looking through one of my journals from a couple months ago and I found an entry where I was heartbroken that the US had suffered 7000 deaths from Covid.
“Three times as many as 9/11!” I wrote. “And it’s as if no one cares or can really deal with it.”
Now we’ve passed 160,000 deaths. That’s what I mean by graver.
JASPER: What’s next for you as an author?
STEELE: Who knows, you know? One of the things I’ve learned from all this is that there’s very little under our control as humans. We must work with each other and with the earth in harmonious, healing, and honestly, hard ways if we are to survive.
I don’t just mean survive Covid. I mean life on earth, life in this nation, especially for people who are not white, Cis, hetero, males, is very, very hard, and we must be strong enough to find new ways to survive together or not at all.
I hope my writing helps people do that in some small way.
JASPER: Where can our readers find more of your work and where can they purchase copies of your books?
STEELE: All of my books are available online, and people can visit www.cassiepremosteele.com if they want to read excerpts. I also have a series of audio coaching lessons called Joywork that I made available for free on Insight Timer when the pandemic started. [The link for that is http://insig.ht/cassiepremosteele ]
JASPER: Is there anything we didn’t ask you that you’d like to share with our readers? Any advice or wisdom to pass along?
STEELE: Life is very beautiful, and very, very short. Who do you want to love? How to you want to live? What work do you want to do? What legacy do you want to leave? What brings you joy? Go do it. Now.
JASPER: Could we possibly prevail upon you to share a piece or two of your recent work with us?
STEELE: Sure! Here are two recent poems.
Butterflies on the Floor
I saw butterflies once on the floor,
swampy Sunday morning forest, startled
them as they were eating down below
and something dead was sweet
to them, they piled on the wet
carcass like children playing
with a cadaver as children
do when they are starved for
life and their hunger goes deeper
than the body into a kind of
morbidity and pornography
and I felt ashamed for even
seeing this as if it were my
guilt I carried inside me most
moments that had spilled
outside me and I wanted to turn
away or even pretend I had
not seen it but I couldn’t because
the woman I love was with me and
I heard her gasp, “How beautiful.”
What I Love About Lesbian
is the island of love in it, the Sappho and
fragments on papyrus, the skin of words
and the she. Moonlight, goddesses, spring
flowers, women’s bodies. The be in the middle
syllable. I will be. You will be. She will be.
They will be. Morphing and transforming
like menses and moon cycles and tides into
I be, you be, she be, they be, we be.
The we of it. The smallness that can only
be seen when you get skin to skin, eyelashes
fluttering, and you notice her lips get bigger
and darker as you come in for a kiss. The les
of the we. The let’s. The less patriarchy, less
male gaze, less misogyny, less gynophobia,
less frat boy drunken haze. The lez, and les,
with a French pronunciation, les girls,
les femmes, les sorcières, les poètes
les philosophes, les mères, les soeurs.
The lay of it, like eggs, like rugs, like soft
round things that lay themselves down
close to the ground, like thighs. Hers
and mine. And the final syllable, an—
as in an opening, an affection, an emotion,
an ideal, an uncovering. The word âne
in French also means donkey, as in ass,
as in what we show to those who disrespect
us as we walk away, and what we watch as
she sidles up to the bar or home base or the
podium or the microphone or the courtroom
or the boardroom or the surgery floor,
taking charge, giving orders calling shots,
making plans, changing laws, changing
lives, saving bodies and so much more.
Lesbian is woman and full and curve and
wave and the too muchness of moon
and earth and ocean pulling on each other
with love and gravity, and no wonder
it came from an island because we are
indeed separate and green and lush and
fertile with our sweet scent of possibility.
Corona Times - Wade Sellers Talks with Fellow Filmmaker & 2nd Act Alum, Taiyen Stevenson
Taiyen Stevenson is an independent filmmaker and actor living in Columbia. He is a recent 2nd Act Film Project alum and is currently producing a new film project titled “Justice”. The Jasper Project caught up with Taiyen to find out about producing a new project in the midst of a pandemic
JASPER: Tell me about your filmmaking history?
STEVENSON: I have been involved both in front of and behind the camera for almost 11 years. Acting has and will always be my first passion but I really love filmmaking even more because you can tell your own stories in a way you want. During those years, I wrote and produced four short films (Images, Thanks for Everything, Follow the Leader, and The Street Lights Are On). I always want to create strong and significant movies that everyone should see.
JASPER: Tell us about your new film project. What is Justice about?
STEVENSON: J.U.S.T.I.C.E. is about a young African American man with a bright future who gets caught up with the world’s chaos of nationalism. It's in the present day. We are talking about things that are happening now in the 21st century.
JASPER: Why did you want to tackle these issues with a film?
STEVENSON: Racism in America has always been a disturbing topic since day one. Now with visual camera equipment, society is able to see the cycle that has not ended and to start standing together for the struggle. The challenge is society sees racism as a hoax meaning that it doesn't exist. However, through news visuals such as phones, cameras, and other recording devices, we are able to take these truths to establish corruption within our human society.
JASPER: Tell us about your production process. What stage of production are you in now?
STEVENSON: Our production process was based on a lot of media that we were seeing of the senseless killing of African Americans. We also sat in a lot of protest rallies in our hometown. The next day, Vinnis Parnell and I teamed up with Michael Mykkel and we wrote the script. As of right now, we are still in pre-production, making sure everything's in order before filming later this month.
JASPER: What has been your biggest challenge with this project so far?
STEVENSON: Creating real facts. Not just by accident but by proving these things are bad occurrences.
JASPER: Who are your actors in this film? Who is the crew?
STEVENSON: We have two outstanding actors, Nnaemeka Okeke and Jason Paul Edwards and we also have the beautiful and talented actress, Skylan Kimbrell. As for the crew, we have Michael Mykkel, the co-writer of “J.U.S.T.I.C.E,” our director Vinnis Parnell and myself along with Vincent Monaco, Tamara Abrosimova, Julia Petrucelli, Courtney Geiger, Ashley McNeil, Augustina Quick and many others that will get their names in the credit.
JASPER: Where do you hope to screen "Justice"?
STEVENSON: Anywhere we can get it screened. (The Nickelodeon Theatre, Sundance, Tribeca, etc.)
JASPER: Tell me about your writing process?
STEVENSON: The writing process was basically viewing things that were happening around our city by jotting down notes, comments made, decisions, outcomes, and I just wrote it into a screenplay.
JASPER: Do you have any additional comments on your project?
STEVENSON: Yes. We have a GoFundMe page that helps bring “J.U.S.T.I.C.E” to life. Our website is www.gofundme.com/justice-short-film. You could also follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/justice_the_movie and liked the page on www.facebook.com/justicethemovie. Stay tuned with eyes wide open.
REVIEW: Montgomery Packages the Familiar in a Delightfully Fresh Package - by Frank Thompson
“Once we’ve gotten snagged by the story, Montgomery reels in its audience as a fresh and captivating cat-and-mouse game in which it’s never quite clear who’s winning, nor is it possible to discern the tears of laughter from the sentimental sniffles…
It isn’t often that a troupe of character archetypes and well-worn caricatures can be successfully interwoven from two stories into one, especially when each has its grounding in a largely conflicting style and base of reality, but occasionally the unlikely does occur. Such is the case in the lovably lopsided world of Stephen Brown’s Montgomery, a world premiere comedy making its debut as the winner of the 2018 Trustus Playwrights’ Festival. One part southern-fried knee-slapper, complete with bumbling cops and one-liners reminiscent of the best of Jeff Foxworthy or the late Lewis Grizzard, paired with a slightly twisted Hallmark movie with a twang, this odd couple combination not only amuses and entertains, it works.
Before discussing the production, however, I must tip my hat and raise my frosty bottle of Lone Star to playwright Brown, who obviously did his research and took his time in creating a believable, cohesive, and surprisingly consistent reality while spinning a hilarious tale that isn’t afraid to get serious on occasion. With plotlines harkening back to The Dukes Of Hazzard and All My Children simultaneously, each liberally peppered with tastes of Greater Tuna, Mamma Mia!, The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and numerous other pop-culture touchstones, Brown clearly revels in gentle parody, yet creates an entirely original and believable story.
Make no mistake; there’s plenty of borrowing/inspiration from other stage and film works here, but absolutely nothing is stolen. Montgomery may feel familiar, but for every punchline you watch approaching from a mile away, there are at least two moments of surprise and a whispered “well, I didn’t see that coming!” Brown’s script lands the audience in the manner of an experienced angler. We may be initially hooked by the foul-mouthed, slovenly, down-home martinet in the Sheriff’s Office or the cute country girl clad in short shorts that would have put Dawn Wells’ Mary Ann to shame, but they’re just the bait. Once we’ve gotten snagged by the story, Montgomery reels in its audience as a fresh and captivating cat-and-mouse game in which it’s never quite clear who’s winning, nor is it possible to discern the tears of laughter from the sentimental sniffles involuntarily presenting themselves at unexpected moments. Overlaying all the action is a subtle lesson about wishes, dreams, and how getting “everything you ever wanted” sometimes yields unexpected losses as well as gains.
In a nutshell, the primary plot centers around Megan and Kimmy, two Texas teenagers who manage to kidnap country music star, Rick Montgomery. Though the grab succeeds, the detention is exactly as slapdash and immature as one would expect from a pair of kids whose biggest previous transgressions were most likely hiding in the woods smoking cigarettes or sneaking into an R-rated movie. Aspiring badasses though they may be, Megan and Kimmy aren’t even yet of legal driving age, which makes their attempts at swagger and menace all the more endearing and hilarious. In parallel time, (with occasionally intersecting moments) there’s trouble afoot at the police station, as the Governor himself is pressuring local law enforcement to find Montgomery in time to play at a re-election fundraiser. Along with Patty, the perpetually irascible and arguably hungover officer in charge, the law is represented by classic good-ole-boys Larry and Chet. Larry is good-hearted but meekly ineffectual, while Chet is largely ignorant of, yet obsessed with such technology as body cams and his YouTube channel.
The stories link when we learn that Larry is actually Megan’s adopted father, who makes excuses for her teenage antics (such as twice “accidentally” setting her school’s chemistry lab on fire) while desperately trying to connect with her and create a stable family life. In a scene that manages to be LOL-funny and heartbreaking, we see Megan manipulate Larry’s paternal instincts as a cover for having a kidnapped celebrity detained in her bedroom. Meanwhile, beta-female Kimmy (who always follows Megan’s orders) opens up to an increasingly befuddled Montgomery about her own musical aspirations. There is more to Kimmy than meets the eye, however, as she eventually winds up displaying sufficient backbone to bring the insanity to a fulfilling, weirdly happy conclusion.
Elena Martinez-Vidal, Kevin Bush, and Gabe Reitemeier
The casting is superb, with praise being due to Director Sharon Graci for her expert eye in filling each role with an ideal and perfectly-suited actor. Having been around Columbia’s stages for about a decade, I know or have at least seen performances by most of the area’s performers, and I truly could not come up with any alternative casting that would have improved on Graci’s. This is an assemblage of pros which fully embraces the material and works together seamlessly. As Megan, Cassidy Spencer proves true a hunch that I had several months ago, having seen her in Trustus’ Heathers: The Musical. Though she had a small ensemble role, I kept noticing her, to the point of having mentioned in the review that I hoped to see her take on larger parts in future productions. Having had that opportunity with Montgomery, I am happy to say that my instinct was correct, and that she can handle a leading role with aplomb and great skill.
As Megan’s foil and underling, Lilly Heidari provides an excellent counterpoint as Kimmy, who is slightly younger in years and significantly more childlike than her world-weary-at-fourteen mentor. Though the script doesn’t delve too deeply into the subject, we do learn that Kimmy lives with her grandmother, which likely served as a subliminal connecting point with the adopted Megan, who brusquely rejects the parents she sees as “not really hers.” While presented as rural, middle-class Texans, the girls are hardly sophisticates, but neither are they impoverished or victimized by the hazards facing slum-dwelling outcasts. Each has her own unlikely dreams, (ironically, each involving a guitar) and have most probably shared their aspirations over many weekend sleepovers and square-pizza-and-corn high school lunchroom repasts. I have no idea how close Spencer and Heidari are in real life, but they have done outstanding work in establishing two characters who interact with the verbal and physical ease of old friends.
Having been most recently seen on the Trustus stage as the ever-so-dapper and smooth-talking Jay Gatsby in last spring’s The Great Gatsby, Jason Stokes does a delightful 180 as the aging, haggard, somewhat over-it-all, music industry burnout who still retains a country-boy handsomeness and charm. There’s a hint of a fiftyish Harrison Ford to his characterization, which immediately reminded me of the line from Raiders Of The Lost Ark, when a battered, exhausted, and punchy Indiana Jones admits “it’s not the years, it’s the mileage.” Stokes’ Montgomery is a cynic suffering from a minor head wound and recreational drug deprivation, but even in his moments of anger, he never comes across as unsympathetic. It’s clear that this guy has seen it all and done most of it twice, but he obviously realizes he’s dealing with a pair of messed-up but harmless teens, even serving as the voice of reason on occasion. Solid throughout, Stokes rises to the peak of his performance near the end of act one, when an unlikely situation leads to a revelation that could have been overplayed in reaction by a less skilled actor. No spoilers, but watch for a cliché plot twist made new and interesting through a unique, believable response from a much more substantial Rick Montgomery than his concert audiences might imagine.
Cassidy Spencer and Jason Stokes
Meanwhile, back at the police station, Patty does her best to get the B-team of the four officers under her command to grow some sense and find Montgomery, all the while dealing with the Governor and his Chief of Staff who demand constant updates. Elena Martinez-Vidal introduces Patty as a female version of Jackie Gleason’s famous Buford T. Justice of Smokey And The Bandit fame, complete with almost-affectionate but scathing commentary on Larry and Chet’s incompetence, yet reveals a softer side when things get truly serious for a minute about halfway through the second act. Though the two characters have no connection, Martinez-Vidal uses Patty’s gruff-but-decent personality to provide another link between the somewhat disparate storylines, mirroring Montgomery’s hard-boiled exterior and significantly gentler soul. Both Patty and Montgomery are grownups who have been “rode hard and put up wet” more than a few times, and neither is thrilled with having to deal with a pair of goofballs who are unable to act their respective ages. While Montgomery is forced to deal with a pair of teenagers who think they’re adults, Patty must endure the travails of shepherding two grown men who act like not-so-bright high schoolers. As does Stokes, Martinez-Vidal rises to the challenge of both embracing a stereotype and playing against it.
Having praised Kevin Bush’s versatility in multiple reviews, I will now repeat myself in saying that his Larry is yet another example of Bush’s chameleon-like ability to literally transform himself into a role. His first appearance finds Larry shooting a commercial of sorts for Chet’s ambitious shot at creating a COPS-style reality show. Complete with cowboy hat, slouching posture, and a dialect somewhat reminiscent of Slim Pickens with a hint of Andy Griffith tossed in for good measure, Bush was literally unrecognizable to me for about the first five minutes of his stage time. At turns both pathetic and heroic, Bush once again somehow manages to leave his real-life embodiment offstage, creating Larry from a presumably blank slate. Though not as textured by dialogue, Gabe Reitemeier’s Chet is an eager, if not-too-bright, little brother figure to Larry, oftentimes calming the situation when Larry’s anxieties get the better of him. In keeping with the myriad of nods (intentional or otherwise) to other characters and realities, Reitemeier pulls his share of belly-laughs with a close approximation of the patois and speech patterns of the mumblingly philosophical Boomhauer from Mike Judge’s King Of The Hill. As with Spencer and Heidari, Bush and Reitemeier present a relationship that seems completely natural and long-established, which plays successfully off their mutual respect for/aggravation with Patty. The police station is an internal reality to the larger world of the show, but it follows its own rules to the letter. Again, no spoilers, but keep an eye out for the golden moment of hilarity while the three officers wait for the office printer to complete a job. No words are spoken, but it’s one of the most side-splitting moments in a very funny show.
Curtis Smoak’s scenic design, much like the script, simultaneously manages to pull off sleek minimalism and a vaguely cluttered reality. Projections are utilized, but not overused, giving the show the look and feel of an extended sketch-comedy skit, which embraces a staged theatricality to great success. Such expansive locales as a packed concert arena and a crowded interstate are cheekily created with little more than lighting (courtesy of Lighting Designer Laura Anthony) and small furniture pieces, which suits the theme and style of Montgomery. Costume Designer Janine McCabe dresses her actors appropriately, with an eye toward costuming as an extention of each character. From Spencer’s rocker-chick look to Martinez-Vidal’s gradual transformation from half-dressed slob to crisply ironed and outfitted officer, the costumes reinforce and support the action without ever getting in its way. Director Graci serves double duty as Sound Designer, and has included a playlist of country music standards from the 70s and 80s, which give the action a satisfyingly old-school feel. If Montgomery were a film, you would expect to see a touch of graininess to the print, as well as the occasional jump of a few seconds resulting from a slightly botched reel edit. In addition to the radio classics of old, Montgomery features two original works composed by Eliza Simpson; the title theme and a dream-sequence concert number, “Star Quality,” sung by Kimmy as she imagines her future as a Nashville icon.
Elena Martinez-Vidal, Kevin Bush, Lilly Heidari, Gabe Reitemeier, and Cassidy Spencer
Montgomery continues its run this weekend, so there are only a few more chances to catch this little jewel of a comedy with heart. Now get on down to Trustus, pop open a cold beer, munch some popcorn, and enjoy a wild ride that will occasionally melt your heart.
-FLT3
Frank Thompson is proud to serve as Theatre Editor for JASPER.
(CORRECTION - Chad Henderson both designed the sound and cast the actors for Montgomery. Jasper regrets our error.)
Announcing the 2018 Jasper Artist of the Year Finalists -- TIME TO VOTE!
We asked. You answered. Which members of the greater Columbia area arts community are finishing up particularly good years? Who has had that shining good year of success or accomplishment or growth? Who is a different artist today than they were in July 2017?
And based on your nominations and the material you provided we asked a panel of experts to narrow down the contenders to just three in each discipline.
Now, the ball is back in your court.
Check out the following 12 JAY finalists in Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, & Literary Arts and cast your votes for who you think should take home the awardS.
Then join us at the Historic Seibels House on Friday, January 18th for the Jasper Artists of the Year Awards Ceremony and Celebration.
Let’s get started.
~ MUSIC ~
Marina Alexander - Over the last 15 months Marina Alexandra has been invited to perform concerts at: the Governor’s School for Arts and Humanities, Greenville, SC, Furman University, the Public Library (at Sandhills), the National Flute Convention (DC), Ohio International Guitar Festival, Tuesday Concert Series (Augusta, GA), University of South Carolina (Linguistic Department, Russian program), Midtown Theater, North Charleston, SC. Marina founded a unique group called the Maritone Duo consisting of herself on classical guitar and Tony Lee on drums, and she has released 3 videos with the Maritone Duo. She was accepted to a prestigious Ivy League program sponsored by University of Pennsylvania, the Executive Program in Arts and Culture, and was invited to conduct a multi-day artists residency at East Point Academy and Irmo High School. She was invited to judge the SC All State Guitar Competition; she continues to direct the Southern Guitar Festival (since 2012). Marina Alexandra was listed by the Aaron Shearer Foundation as one of the most influential female classical guitarists in America.
Marcum Core - Over the past 15 months Marcum Core has realized the following accomplishments and more. In May, Marcum was featured in Jasper Magazine. He has released or performed the following: July 12 - Prolific Vol 1 (Instrumental Album), July 27 - Vol 2 (Instrumental Album) hosted in August - First Annual Pigeon Party @ The War Mouth (Curated Playlist), September 1 - Featured Artist on WUSC “The Columbia Beet,” September 3 - Prolific Vol 3 (Instrumental Album) September 26, Oct 5 - FatRat Da Czar released his latest album ETHX completely produced by Marcum. October 15 - Bandcamp Exclusive release Dawgone Shame (Instrumental Album). In Oct 27, he played for the Seuss Slam and served as the host and background music production for the readers. In November he opened for EZ Shakes and King Vulture (Live Beat Set).
Zach Seibert - Among Zach Seibert’s accomplishments over the past 15 months we include that he formed E.Z. Shakes as a duo the summer of 2017 and released a self-titled EP in August 2017 then went on to expand to a full band and play their debut show with Boo Hag in December 2017. Zach recorded a full-length album in March 2018 at Fidelitorium Recordings in Kernersville, NC, He submitted a video to NPR Tiny Desk competition of the title track "The Wolf" in April 2018 and had the full-length album release of The Wolf album in July 2018. He performed in a number of local and regional shows and festivals, both solo and with the band, such as the Jam Room Music Festival September 2018 and he recorded a follow up 7” inch EP titled "Eyes on fire" in the fall of 2018. Zach was also featured on the Kendallprojects podcast in October 2018.
~THEATRE ~
Michael Hazin - Michael Hazin has been busy performing in Rock of Ages in July 2017, in the title role in Evil Dead The Musical in October 2017, the Love is Love Cabaret; The Restoration’s Constance; The Lexington Festival of the Arts, and as a member of The Mothers for their 2017-2018 season. He is currently rehearsing for Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.
Christine Hellman - Christine Hellman served as a Resident Acting Coach for Workshop Theatre from the Summer 2017 to present. She played Barbara in Barbecue at Trustus Theatre, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet at Columbia Children’s Theatre in the fall of 2017, Jan in Speech and Debate at the Lab Theatre at University of South Carolina in the fall of 2017, as well as multiple roles in String of Pearls at Workshop Theatre in the fall of 2017. In Misery Is Optional – Recollections of Recovery, Christine served as the co-playwright, actor, and winner of the Harbison incubator grant (Feb 2018), which was given a special run at Trustus (September 2018) and at TedX Columbia (October 2018). Christine put together Girls Out Loud (in collaboration with Ilene Fins), an acting workshop and all-female exploration of Shakespeare about finding our voice in this world through classic text. Christine also became the Intimacy Liaison, Compliance Coordinator in October 2018 at Trustus Theatre, working with the cast, crew, and director of every show at Trustus Theatre to help ensure and facilitate consent in moments of intimacy during rehearsals and performances, implementing (with Chad Henderson) the Chicago Theatre Standards as compliance coordinator.
Darion McCloud - Darion McCloud played MacDuff in SC Shakespeare Company’s production of MacBeth in Finlay Park in October 2018. And he co-wrote, directed, acted in, and designed a one man show, Fireflies: A Dave the Potter Story - with an education grant provided by the SC Arts Commission. In The Gift That Ran Away/Carnival of Animals, Darion wrote, directed, acted in and partnered with the SC Philharmonic and Richland School District One an original theatrical companion piece written by Darion to help introduce kids to orchestra instruments (think Peter and the Wolf meets Mr. Rogers). Darion co-wrote and directed an NiA production for families at Edventure called WHATCHAMACALLIT!!! and he directed a staged reading of The Drama of King Shotaway by playwright/USC professor Marvin MacCallister in February 2018. As a storyteller and performance artist, Darion performed in Augusta Baker’s Storytelling Festival as well as in Storyfest, participating as individual teller (over twenty years) and also directing and acting in NiA’s reader’s theatre performance based on children’s literature, as well as in Pigskin Poets, through a partnership with Richland Library, where he is also the creator and emcee of an annual event bringing together the USC Football team, families, storytelling , and children’s literature. He performed in NiA’s HOLLA!!!@The Eclipse, Newberry Opera House in August 2017, directed NiA’s production of A Song For Coretta by Pearl Cleage, Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County, as well as Storytelling in many locales throughout the state including Colleton, Columbia, Camden, and more. Darion was awarded the Andrew Billingsley Community Leadership Award by the University of South Carolina African American Studies Program and Institute for Families in Society in November 2018. He emceed the March for Our Lives event at the Statehouse, March 2018, became an Indie Grits Fellow in 2018, co-wrote and directed community theatre project for Indie Grits Festival addressing gentrification, called DISSONANCE in April 2018. Storyfest-directing and acting in NiA’s reader’s theatre based on children’s literature through a State Library partnership, participated in the Read to Succeed in partnership with SC Governor’s School, Williamsburg County School District, and SC Arts Commission. He was also one of five theatre educators using children’s literature and theatre practices to address (Summer Slide) literacy as part of a new arts education initiative. In the All American City competition City Project, he co-wrote with musician and USC professor David Cutler and directed 13 city employees in an original theatre piece in Denver, Colorado. Darion served in school residencies in the following institutions: Allendale Elementary-Allendale/Fairfax Forest Hills Elementary-Walterboro, Camden Elementary-Camden, Doby’s Mill-Kershaw, Forest Heights-Columbia, and Gadsden Elementary-Gadsden.
~ VISUAL ARTS ~
Trahern Cook - Trahern Cook is a plein air artist who has become a part of the Columbia area arts events landscape by setting up his easel, popping on his porkpie hat, and painting the life of the city. Trahern had this to say about his work over the past 15 months: “I have the privilege of getting up every day and painting. I paint in my hometown and all over the United States. Connecting with people where they are and sharing their stories through my paintings is what speaks to my soul right now. My paintings are experiential and relational. I endeavor to find and share sanctuary with as many of my fellow citizens as possible. In the last year the easel has been my old wooden vessel that's carried me to many different sanctuaries, but all tell a uniting story. That most of us are all looking for the same thing; love, friendship, family, and a place to chill for a bit to mend the soul. When I can share that through my work, there's no greater fulfillment.”
Flavia Lovatelli - In addition to being a member of the Operation Bedroll Steering Committee for Columbia’s Homeless project, which organizes and teaches the community to create plarn (plastic yarn) out of recycled shopping bags and crotchet bedrolls, Flavia is the founder of Art Ecologie Group which organizes the yearly ecoFAB Trash Couture. Since last July her work as been accepted into Time for Art Gala - COR Awards at the Columbia Museum of Art, Craft Hilton Head 2018 at the Art League Gallery in Hilton Head Island, SC, Inspirations - Webster Arts Center in Webster Groves, MO, The Winter Show Exhibition - GreenHill Center for North Carolina Art in Greensboro NC, the 30th Anniversary Juried Show - South Carolina State Museum, and was the main attraction at the Deja Vu Show for the 30th anniversary Gala fundraiser for Anderson Art Center. Her Re-Current show exhibited for the month of November in Anderson, SC, and showed at Guinan Gallery at The Art Institute of Charlotte, NC, at an Art Residency - Midlands Arts Conservatoy, at an exhibition at Tapp’s Art Center, at Recycle 2018 Art Exhibition - BWAC Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. At ArtFields 2018 she showed “The Great Barrier” in Lake City, SC and later at the Motor Supply Company Bistro. She also had the ReInvented Solo Show at the Bullpen Gallery at the Gaston City Museum of Art, Denver NC. She also showed “Free for All” at the Hart Witzen Gallery in Charlotte, NC. “The Great Barrier” was the culmination of a three-month Residency at Tapp’s Art Center. An installation made entirely of recycled plastic and paper depicting the Great Barrier Reef that is dying due to pollution and global warming, the piece offers a message to invoke the help of our community in becoming more conscientious in curbing our wasteful living. She also participated in Figure Out 2017, a Planned Parenthood Fundraiser at Tapp's Art Center and LookOut 2017 for AOA - National Outdoor Advertisers Convention, New Orleans LA. Flavia was commissioned 15 garments made with recycled billboard vinyl of their top clients.
Andy White - Andy White says the list of his accomplishments over the past year or so doesn’t “capture how I've grown as an artist over the past year (thanks in part to the support and encouragement I receive from our local arts community). His sculpture “Call It In” was awarded First Place in the 3D category at the Rosewood Art and Music Festival (September 2017) and he contributed a piece ("Old Ben") to the Columbia Zoo's ZooFari fundraiser (September 2017). His sculpture (“The First Owl”) won first place in the professional sculpture division at the South Carolina State Fair (October 2017) and he was featured in a story by Rachel Haynie ( “Andy White: Ex-scrap-olator” ) in Columbia Living Magazine (November 2017). Andy was also featured in a story by Nic Jones (“Making Something from Nothing”) broadcasted on WLTX (March 2018). He produced a large seahorse sculpture (“Rocket Queen” ) for the first Kinetic Derby Day in West Columbia (April 2018) and built "The Rabbit Hole" for the Tapp's Invitational Mini-Golf Tournament (April 2018). He competed in ArtFields 2018 with his piece “Beauty and Grace” (May 2018) and was one of the featured artists at the 2018 Theoretical Archaeology Group conference at the University of Florida (May 2018). He had three pieces at the 2018 ecoFAB/Re-Current shows at Tapp’s (June 2018) and his sculpture (“My Father’s Hammer”) won first place in the professional sculpture division at the South Carolina State Fair (October 2018).
~ LITERARY ARTS ~
Libby Bernadin - For several years Libby has worked with Susan L. Meyers and Linda Ketron on the Tea & Poetry series, which Susan turned over to Libby prior to her death. From January to April of 2018, she, along with her co-facilitator, Cliff Saunders, invited poets and organized the monthly readings. Libby will continue with this endeavor through 2020. She is a life member of the Board of Governors of the SC Academy of Authors and a member of the Poetry Society of SC and the NC Poetry Society. In the last year she judged grades 3-6 poem entries for the SC State Library. In March of 2018 she presented a workshop for students attending the Montessori School at Pawleys Island. While she now lives in Georgetown, she has an apartment in Columbia and spends time frequently here. Bernadin is retired from teaching at the University of South Carolina-Columbia but continues to present workshops at the Waccamaw Library. Poems accepted from July 2017 to July 2018 include 2018 Poetry Society of South Carolina Yearbook: “Habitat, Home, Harbor,” 2017 Poetry Society Yearbook: 2nd Place in The Gertrude Munzenmaier Prize, not published in Yearbook, “Black-eyed Susan” -- Free State; “Grief Works It’s Way” in the Summer Issue, 2018 of Anthology: Archive SC Poetry Since 2005 (Published in 2018); Transmigration” (First published in Pinesong, nominated for a Pushcart Prize); “After your funeral” (First published in Kakalak) - South Carolina Voices: Poetry and Prose (2018); and “Transmigration” - The Practicing Poet: Writing Beyond the Basics (ed. Diana Lockward, 2018, Poem accepted in Summer)- book: STONES RIPE FOR SOWING (Press 53, 2018).
Tim Conroy - Tim’s recent literary accomplishments include his first collection of poetry, Theologies of Terrain, being published by Muddy Ford Press and edited by Ed Madden as part of the Laureate Series late in the summer 2017. Tim wrote the introduction for Blue Mountain Review Issue 10 and, in that issue, his poem “Assurances” was republished. Tim’s poems “Last Call” and “Water Aerobics” were also published in Blue Mountain Review Issue 11, and his essay “The Great Yes” was included in Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, published by UGA Press. Tim’s narrative poem “Home Fires” was published in Fall Lines Volume V and his poem “Columbia: A Convergence” was published in the most recent iteration of Poetry on The Comet: Two Cities. Tim wrote and read 11 original poems responding to the permanent collection of the Columbia Museum of Art for their Write Around Series arranged by the Poet in Residence at the CMA, Ray McManus, this fall. He performed at The Local and gave a presentation on conviction to students at University of South Carolina-Beaufort for Professor Ellen Malphrus' class in October 2018. He participated in the Pat Conroy Literary Center Educational Outreach Series and Pat Conroy's Great Love of Poetry Presentation at the Irmo Library Branch in Columbia, SC, as well as the Kick-Start Poetry Month Annual Series at the Hilton Head Library. Other events include the Poetry of Andrew Clark, Tim Conroy, Kacy Jones, Susan Madison, Bill Newby, Meryl Newell, Elizabeth Robin, Guitar and original songs by Denny Baer; the March Forth on March Fourth Series; Pat Conroy Literary Center With Nikky Finney, Tim Conroy, Anthony Grooms, J. Drew Lanham, and Cassandra King Conroy; Deckle Edge Literary Festival on “Editor and Poet: A Presentation by Ed Madden and Tim Conroy”; The Moveable Feast Event at the Burry Book Store in Hartsville, S.C.; the Fall Lines Volume 5 release and reading; at the Pat Conroy Literary Festival in a Poetry Reading with Tim Conroy, Kate Daniels, Ray McManus, and Daniel Cross Turner, and Adam Vines in Beaufort; a Cool Beans Poetry Reading as the featured Poet with featured singer-songwriter Lang Owen; in Bones of the Spirit with poets Michael Murray and Nicola Waldron. Tim was interviewed by Clifford Brooks and the story was published in the Blue Mountain Review; by Emily Chavez in the Daily Gamecock; on Henry McCarthy’s radio show, Poets and Writers, at the 2017 Pat Conroy Literary Festival in Beaufort, South Carolina and again a year later. He enjoyed A Public Conversation with Cassandra King about Pat Conroy and by Margaret Evans, editor for the Low Country Weekly and on Walter Edgar’s Journal which originally aired on 1/12/17.
Monifa Lemons - Among Monifa’s many activities and contributions this past year we will find her work at Girltrek Storyteller, Poety vs Hip Hop Feature, a feature in Jasper Magazine, a feature on ETV classroom, and Typewriter Poetry at the Statehouse. Monifa opened for MC Lyte at the Love, Peace and Hip Hop festival and she served on a panel and did a reading at Deckle Edge Literary Festival. She was the Coordinator and Host of The Watering Hole Winter Retreat, the Curator of Poetry Performances and Reader at the Brian Stevenson event at Township Auditorium, the Facilitator at Writer's Well Poetry Retreat for Teen Girls, a Judge for State Library Poetry Contest for teens, an Art Therapist SC Department of Corrections, and she published in Sinister Wisdom.
NOW IT’S ALL UP TO YOU —
GO TO
http://jasperproject.org/2018-jasper-artists-of-the-year
AND VOTE YOUR GUT!
REVIEW: Jon Tuttle's Boy About Ten at Trustus Theatre
“A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships.”
-Gore Vidal
John Tuttle is, by any standard, a man with a talent for writing, but after seeing the world premiere of his play, Boy About Ten, I can affirm that he is also quite adept at articulating human relationships. Indeed, the oft-troubled intertwining of Boy About Ten’s dysfunctional, but (somewhat) connected nuclear family of four, drives the plot of Tuttle’s work, taking a well-written piece to the level of a performance bristling with all the sharp edges relationships can provide. This is not to suggest that the production currently running at Trustus is without laughter or light-hearted moments. It may be a tragicomedy, but Boy About Ten doesn’t hesitate to let the tragic cede the stage to the comedic in a legitimate, story-faithful way. In his program notes, Trustus Artistic Director, Chad Henderson, comments that “this play has undergone a more involved development process than our previous Playwrights Festival winners or commissions,” which no doubt contributed to the feeling of polish and streamlining found in the script. I managed to make notes on some of the truly standout lines, but by no means is my list comprehensive.
The play opens with D’Loris (Lonetta Thompson), a kindhearted but world-weary social worker, dealing with what is clearly a family in distress. She is trying to prepare Todd (Tommy Wiggins), the elder son, to go to his mothers’ house for a week. Todd is obviously troubled in multiple ways, but is largely nonverbal, using a set of oversized headphones to drown out the conflict which surrounds him, while hiding his face behind his chin-length bangs. As usual, Thompson creates a fully-realized, textured character, who has flaws as well as sincerely caring nature. I never tire of seeing Thompson onstage, as she is always completely immersed in and committed to her character and the moment. It would have been the easy way out to depict D’Loris as either a hyper-idealistic Wonder Woman, or as a “honey, I’ve seen it all,” world-weary cynic, but Thompson chose to create someone in-between, and in the process, gave the audience a layered, complex, and realistic performance. Kudos also to Wiggins, a former Trustus Apprentice Company member, making his mainstage debut. Though Todd doesn’t speak much, especially in the early scenes, his body language, movement style, and a sort of self-embrace clearly establish him as a damaged human being, doing his best to avoid his psychic pain. When it is revealed that he is a self-cutter/burner, it is a bit of a shock, but totally believable for the character he has, by that point, made three-dimensional. I suspect we’ll be seeing much more of Wiggins on the Trustus stage in seasons to come, and I look forward to watching his development as an actor.
The arrival of Tammy (Jennifer Hill), lightens the mood by, ironically, introducing the least likeable of the five characters. Hill’s Tammy is brash, flashy, loud, and obnoxious, fancying herself far above the rest of the family. She dresses herself in designer clothing, while a couple of mentions are made of the kids’ clothes coming from Goodwill, and she personifies the cliche of the “helicopter parent,” dispensing screechy advice and criticism thinly veiled as “encouragement.” Hill’s comedic timing is absolutely spot-on, and she brought Friday night’s house down with such well-penned verbal spewings as “I was once a Sweet Potato Queen, now I’m a Cyclops!” (It seems that Tammy has a glass eye, which is broken, requiring her to wear an eye patch.) Clearly proud of her somewhat meager accomplishments, she touts having played Yum-Yum in a community college production of The Mikado, along with a few other small successes, in an attempt to impress D’Loris, who is eventually prompted to ask “what the hell is wrong with you people?” The moments of conflict between Tammy and D’Loris establish a curious dynamic. Tammy, in her own twisted, control-freak way, wants the best for her children, while D’Loris tries to help establish exactly that, which eludes the self-centered Tammy.
One gathers fairly quickly that Tammy is at her ex-husband’s house to swap out the younger son, Timmy, (Daniel Rabinovich), who is a straight-A, rule-abiding, do-gooder, complete with Webelos Scout uniform, and practically a stranger to Todd, and the two react somewhat cautiously to each other. (I may have missed an important line or mention of the situation, but it is clear that the brothers have not spent much time together.) Rabinovich demonstrates an actor’s sensitivities quite impressively, especially for a young actor. His character arc may well be the most dramatic in terms of growth and change, and he handles it like a true pro. As with Wiggins, this is a young man to watch.
Once all is settled, Timmy is left alone with his father, Terry. Played by Trustus mainstay, Paul Kaufmann, Terry is an affable, childlike n’ere-do-well, whose love for his sons manifests in an “at my house, there are no rules” dynamic. (When asked by Timmy if they can attend an Imax film or visit the Planetarium, Terry immediately scoffs at the thought of an educational outing, at least in the traditional sense.) Kaufmann, without ever breaking the established reality of the play, or mugging to the audience, brought to life an enchanting man-child, reminiscent of Tom Hanks in Big, with a dash of Bertie Wooster and Falstaff tossed in. To Timmy’s growing amusement, the two of them chug Cheerwine (no sodas allowed at Tammy’s house), fight ludicrous pretend war games against “Vagicilla, Dark Queen of the Nether Regions” (inspired, no doubt, by Tammy), and Timmy frequently receives his father’s military decorations, which may or may not be legit. It was at this point that I began to wonder about the show’s eponymous title. Was Timmy the Boy About Ten, or was his father? Had the parent/child dynamic between them already shifted before the action of the play began? Kaufmann, incidentally, scores one of the biggest laughs in the show while telling Timmy about his days in an ersatz KISS cover band. “You can always tell when chicks dig you. They chew their gum at you…like meat!”
A brief in-one scene gives us our sole glimpse of life at Tammy’s house, when the focus is, both literally and figuratively, on Todd, who is passively receiving an unwanted haircut from his mother. A special tip of the hat to Lighting Designer Laura Anthony, for transforming a simple floor lamp into a “where were you on the night of the robbery?” beacon. This is an occasion upon which the lighting truly made the scene for me. We, the audience, are semi-blinded by the intensity of the same light shining into Todd’s eyes, and subject to the same jabber from Tammy. Like a police officer in a bad, made-for-TV crime drama, she prattles on and on about how Todd should want to be “normal” and make friends “like all the other boys,” painting a Leave It To Beaver lifestyle, which will supposedly emerge with a haircut and a suit from Goodwill. Interrogation/indoctrination and “tough love” establish an uneasy coexistence at Tammy’s house, and the two children she raised reflect that. Timmy’s unblinking obedience earns him praise, so he obeys. Todd, whom I assumed to be somewhere on the autism spectrum, is unable to deal with what his senses perceive as blinding light and a barrage of impossible commands. Though short, this scene impacted me. I began to wonder through whose eyes we were seeing any given situation, and then viewing each scene from each character’s angle. Thank you, Jon Tuttle, for this (I’m guessing) three-page scene, which widened the lens through which I saw the rest of the play. Though she was the antagonist of the scene, it allowed a glimpse into Tammy’s desperate desire for a “normal, happy, family,” and humanized her for me.
I won’t go into too much detail about the second act, as it is, essentially, a minefield of spoilers, and much of what happens requires the elements of shock and surprise to work. While not without laughs, the second act takes a somewhat darker turn, with a grim family story, involving animal abuse, being revealed. (*While no violence is depicted onstage, a gruesome monologue could be mildly to moderately triggering for some.*) Terry childishly endangers his and Timmy’s lives at the end of act one, the aftermath of which, we see in act two. Todd returns, neatly trimmed and besuited, but still distant, albeit with the occasional smile of hope. Toward the end of the play, we discover that Terry suffered physical wounds far worse than Timmy’s while saving the boy from the dangerous results of his (Terry’s) recklessness. Romantic impossibilities are pondered and argued, D’Loris loses another crumb of her idealism, but hangs on to hope, Timmy takes his first step toward adult cynicism, Tammy reveals some game-changing information, and the family is left as we found them; bruised and battered, but oddly okay. The playwright leaves us with the idea that life will simply go on, and with the insanity and bizarre love in this family, who can even speculate on the eventual outcome?
Director Patrick Michael Kelly has taken an artfully written play, refined by much workshopping, and brought to the stage a world of slightly-heightened reality, never losing sight of the connecting themes of family and what it truly means to care for someone.
So, who is the Boy About Ten? I have my suspicions that each character, with the exception of D’Loris (who serves as the impartial observer and voice of reason) is that boy. Perhaps that answers my earlier question, and tips us off that the show is seen from D’Loris’ perspective.
Boy About Ten is an engaging, thought-provoking, and most enjoyable play, and a worthy addition to the Tuttle ouvre. Only four performances remain, so get your tickets now!
-- Frank Thompson
~~0~~
Tickets can be purchased online at Trustus.org , or by calling the Trustus Theatre box office on 803.254.9732
Remaining performance dates are:
Wednesday, August 22 – 7:30pm
Thursday, August 23 – 7:30pm
Friday, August 24 – 8:00pm
Saturday, August 25 – 8:00pm
Frank Thompson is the theatre editor for Jasper Magazine - contact him at flt31230@yahoo.com
~~0~~
JOIN THE JASPER GUILD TODAY AND SEE YOUR NAME IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF JASPER MAGAZINE
RELEASING FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 21 AT THE NEW STORMWATER STUDIOS
The Jasper Project is a non-profit all-volunteer organization that provides collaborative arts engineering for all disciplines of arts and artists in the South Carolina Midlands and throughout the state. Please help us continue to meet our mission of validating the cultural contributions of all artists and growing community within the arts by becoming a member of the Jasper Guild . We'll print your name in the magazine, thank you on social media, and love you forever!
REVIEW - USC Presents the Stars of New York by Susan Lenz
Perfect Ending: The 13th Annual Ballet Stars of New York
Last autumn I was introduced as the Jasper Project's dance writer and I went about the assignment from the viewpoint of an expert audience member. Various articles covered positive highlights, personal anecdotes, an occasional critical word, and more than a few comments regarding theater etiquette. I talked about applause and standing ovations. Now that the local season is drawing to a close, I can honestly say that the 13th Annual Ballet Stars of New York presented at the Koger Center in concert with the University of South Carolina Dance Program was a perfect ending. To stand and clap for New York City Ballet principals Sara Mearns, Robert Fairchild, and Anthony Huxley after a stirring performance of George Balanchine's Stars and Stripes was wonderful. Students sitting near me were a-buzz with excitement. Compliments drifted in the air.
Some of the reactions were undoubtedly due to the fact that the entire evening included live music under conductor Nyamka Odsuren's baton or on the fingertips of pianist Claudio Olivera. It would have been difficult to miss NYCB principal Ashley Bouder's precise footwork or how she was expertly partnered by principal Jared Angle in Allegro Brillante, another piece performed with permission of the Balanchine Trust. Yet, most impressive was Columbia native Sara Mearns.
In The Bright Motion, a duet set on Mearns by NYCB soloist and resident choreographer Justin Peck, the audience witnessed exactly what Anna Rogovoy wrote after 2013 Fall for Dance Festival premier:
“I believe that the core of the earth can be found somewhere around Mearns’ spine. Endless length emanates from her center, through fire-dagger limbs and the kind of lines you could write a haiku about; elegant, yet impossibly direct and efficient. She is perhaps the most exciting American ballerina of her generation.”
What impressed me was not only the dance steps and lines but the sense of space between and around both Sara Mearns and her partner, Robert Fairchild. As an installation artist, I am acutely aware of a created environment, the physical shapes suggested by movement, and even the weight of air. The physical space was as electrifying as the two dancers controlling it.
While Columbia’s audience might have come for the NYCB stars, there were other good reasons to enjoy this one-night-only performance. It was a chance to see USC dance students sharing the stage. Both Creative Director Stacey Calvert (a former NYCB soloist) and Artistic Director Susan Anderson should be rightly proud of their talented students. Dance performance seniors Elaine Miller and Lydia Sanders were stand-outs. John L. Green, II from Orangeburg blended perfectly into the cast of ten professional dancers guesting from Columbia City Ballet. In my opinion, William Starrett, Columbia City Ballet’s Artistic Director who was in the audience, should try to grab this young man (now only a junior) as soon as he becomes available.
I couldn’t help but to notice Bo Busby’s excellent partnering skills and the exuberance in Philip Ingrassia’s steps. Both are principals with Columbia City Ballet. Colin Jacob, Camilo Herrara, and Brandon Funk were also excellent partnering USC students in Allegro Brillante.
Dancing a work from the Balanchine Trust is an excellent line on any dancer’s resume, student or already a professional. These unique works are only presented by arrangement and in accordance with the standards of the Balanchine Style® and Balanchine Technique® established by the Trust. Columbia’s audience is lucky to have the opportunity to see both the NYCB stars and our local talent in these roles. Writing about the performance is for me the perfect ending to the 2017-18 season.
Columbia's Favorite Poetry, Today Featuring Ed Madden
"It’s about who you are inside, but also about how the good and authentic version of who you are helps you to live ethically in the world."
In celebration of National Poetry Month the Jasper Project invited several artists, writers, and leaders in the Columbia arts community to share with us their favorite poems and most of them generously accepted.
We’ve put together this collection of our favorite poems and will be sharing them with you, poem by poem, day by day, over the month of April. Some of the poems are old and traditional, others are new and inventive. Some are whimsical, others are insightful. Some rhyme. Some don’t.
What they all have in common is that someone you know loves that poem – and this gives us such lovely insight into the soul of our community.
Thank you to everyone who shared their poetry with us.
And Happy National Poetry Month from Jasper.
Today, we feature Ed Madden.
~~~
When I think about a poet and a poem that has always spoken to me, always drawn me and haunted me, I think of Gerard Manley Hopkins and “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.” There’s something about Hopkins that feels uncannily personal to me and sometimes resistant to the ways I summarize and explicate and parse in the classroom. I don’t teach Hopkins often, and when I do I find myself getting effusive—about the quirky prayer of praise for the particular and the peculiar in “Pied Beauty,” orr about his desperately exuberant exploded sonnet of theology “That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection.“ Or the poem To what serves mortal beauty,” in which he insists that beauty draws us to the things of this world and thus to the divine, but beauty (he is especially troubled by the beauty of young men) can also become an end rather than a means, may distract rather than instruct. Or I get lost in all those haunting sonnets of melancholy, the writer desperate to be faithful but crushed by darkness and deep depression.
I love Hopkins. A quirky writer, driven by sound (sometimes at the expense of sense) and given to idiosyncratic rhythms and syntax. A closeted gay man, repressed and depressed in a religious culture to which he devoted his life. Later, stuck in Ireland as a college teacher and overwhelmed by all the exams he had to grade. Deeply religious, but also deeply in love with the natural world, which is, he thinks—which must be—a revelation of the divine. He wrote in a meditation, “All things therefore are charged with love, are charged with God, and, if we know how to touch them, give off sparks and take fire, yield drops and flow, ring and tell of him.” Several years ago, I participated in a spiritual development retreat at the Lutheran seminary, reading and discussing Hopkins with the seminarians. I felt both out of place and absolutely at home there. Like being in a Hopkins poem.
Of all of his poems, it is “As kingfishers catch fire” that I find myself returning to again and again. The syntax is quirky, and the poem is filled with the kind of sonic density I admire in his work (and try, sometimes, to emulate in my own). It is a poem about the beauty of the world, but even more about how the flame of the divine flares most when we embrace our particularity, our singularity, when we live what we were meant to be. Like a bell that sings out its self, its name, so each of us must live out our own authenticities. (The fact that the poem is hard to read aloud just further emphasizes for me the particularities of sound and self.) Hopkins even makes up a verb: selves. “What I do is me:” he writes, “for that I came.”
This “what I do is me” is not the tolerant you-do-you we hear in contemporary culture, not “do what you think is best for you.” It’s about who you are inside, but also about how the good and authentic version of who you are helps you to live ethically in the world. “The just man justices,” Hopkins writes, again making up a verb, suggesting not that we are what we do, but that we do who we are. If we are just, we live justice. And who we are is both us and more than us. What I do is me.
That’s the octave, the first part of the sonnet where the writer sets the scene, makes a proposition, states the terms. Then the volta, the turn, and the shorter and tighter sestet draws conclusions, moves toward some resolution. For Hopkins, after his little idiosyncratic sermon about selving, he takes an almost-orthodox turn. The just man acts Christlike—or in Hopkins’s quirky phrasing, “Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is – / Christ.” But he pushes on: Christ may be the model for who we can be or what we can do, but Christ is already present in all of us, in lovely limbs and lovely eyes and in faces that aren’t his. It’s not piety or strict adherence to some doctrine or other; it’s not work, it’s play. Christ—whether you read that as the Christian deity or as a figure for our better selves—plays in ten thousand places, and shines through the features of men’s faces. I know, of course, he means the play of a flame, but a good poet can be a punster, and Hopkins wants to say that this is play, not work.
Or it should be play. “All things are charged with love,” as he writes elsewhere, charged with God. If only we knew how to touch, how to see and apprehend, they would take fire—like the blue flash of a kingfisher’s wing—flow through, ring out. So he wants to teach us how to see, a lesson found in the last word of the poem: faces. The rhyme places-faces locates the divine in the faces around us. In the other. There is something deeply human (and humanist) and deeply ethical about this theology, and every rhyme in this quirky little meditation confirms the poet’s argument. The flame of the divine—the good, the true, the authentic—is your name, it’s why you’re here. Justice may be what he is, but grace shines in places and faces not his (not His).
Though I left the strict church of my youth and now find myself among the unaffiliated Nones, I remain deeply compelled by this poem. It could be my daily meditation, my daily prayer: What I do is me, for this I came. Like the flash of a kingfisher’s iridescence, the divine (the good, the just, the true, the authentic, the ethical) may shine in all of us. Like the bell that rings out its own name, each of us can sing the song we were meant to be. And if only we could recognize the holiness of one another, this could be a world of grace and, yes, justice.
Look around you, he says. The world is on fire with love. And God shines in the face of everyone you meet. If only we could learn how to see it.
That’s fucking beautiful.
As Kingfishers Catch Fire
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
Ed Madden is the author of several books of poetry. He is the poet laureate for the city of Columbia, the poetry editor for Jasper Magazine and Muddy Ford Press, and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at USC.
Ed Madden
Columbia's Favorite Poetry - Today featuring Susan Lenz
In celebration of National Poetry Month the Jasper Project invited several artists, writers, and leaders in the Columbia arts community to share with us their favorite poems and most of them generously accepted.
We’ve put together this collection of our favorite poems and will be sharing them with you, poem by poem, day by day, over the month of April. Some of the poems are old and traditional, others are new and inventive. Some are whimsical, others are insightful. Some rhyme. Some don’t.
What they all have in common is that someone you know loves that poem – and this gives us such lovely insight into the soul of our community.
Thank you to everyone who shared their poetry with us.
And Happy National Poetry Month from Jasper.
The reason I like Trees by Joyce Kilmer:
My second grade class presented a special, springtime play, The Wizard of Oz. I was not selected for a speaking part. I was to stand in the background in a green pillowcase with green crepe paper attached to my arms (and the ink ran). I was a tree, not even a tree that got to throw an apple at Dorothy, just a plain-old-boring-tree-standing-still. I hated everything about it until the day of the performance. My mother took me aside and recited Trees by Joyce Kilmer. She then put me back in line to enter the stage and snapped a photo of me, smiling. The poem saved the day. It was alright to be a tree.
PS Since then, trees are pretty special too!
Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Susan is an internationally renown fiber and installation artist based out of Columbia, SC.
Susan Lenz in tree costume - center
More About the Jasper Arts Fairway at the West Columbia Kinetic Derby Day
FEATURING THE JASPER ARTS FAIRWAY & POP--UP PERFORMANCES
(Columbia, SC) The Jasper Project is excited to announce the line-up for the Jasper Arts Fairway at West Columbia’s Kinetic Derby Day, Saturday April 21st including performing artists every 30 minutes featuring Columbia City Ballet, Cola City Jazz with Mark Rapp, alt folk music with Todd Mathis and Cully Salehi, and more, plus 13 tents packed with interactive visual, literary, and kinetic arts and demonstrations.
Beginning with a 10 am arts kick-off for the Kinetic Derby Day Parade, the Jasper Project has assembled visual artists Justin Vorhis, who is a blacksmith at Ammack Forge, Muddy Ford Press which will feature signings by their authors all day long, Abstract Alexandra, Cola Town Bike Collective, wood artisan Pat Harris, West Columbia Library and We Read SC, visual artist Thomas Washington, interactive tents with Indie Grits Lab and Columbia Arts Center, the Yarnbombers of Columbia, and visual artists Michael Krajewski and Lucas Sams.
Pop up performers include David West, Emma Kate McClain, Airport High School Choir, Monifa Lemons and The Watering Hole, Lucas Sams, Kristen Harris and Sean Thompson, Cully Salehi and Todd Mathis, Mark Rapp, and Columbia City Ballet.
Writer and editor Kristine Hartvigsen will host the Jasper Local Literature Salon featuring our local literati reading original works throughout the day in an intimate courtyard behind Ed's Editions.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information on the Jasper Arts Fairway at West Columbia’s Kinetic Derby Day go to www.JasperProject.org.