Lucas Sams is the Featured First Thursday Artist at Sound Bites for February 2023

Jasper welcomes Columbia-based artist Lucas Sams to our First Thursday Home Away from Home, Sound Bites Eatery, this Thursday, February 2nd starting at 6 pm.

Sams is a multi-media artist living and working in Columbia, SC; an alumnus of the SC Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, the University of South Carolina and Temple University, Tokyo, working in painting, sculpture, film, digital/multimedia, sound, and installation art, with works exhibited in major art festivals, galleries and alternative spaces. Sams has been featured in Jasper Magazine, the SC State Newspaper, Garnet and Black Magazine, and the Timber Journal of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Sams says of the upcoming show, “Nothing has been more fun in recent memory than painting like I did before Art School. This organized mess is a collection of drips and splashes, recorded action, crystallized snapshots of steps in undefined processes. Imagery ranges from the completely non-objective to portraits from the Artist’s Unconscious, both the intimate and the unfamiliar. 

Gina Langston Brewer is the First Thursday Artist in Residence at Sound Bites in November

First Thursday

November 3rd @ 6 pm

Sound Bites Eatery

Gina Langston Brewer

The Jasper Project is excited to announce that Gina Langston Brewer will be the November artist-i-residence at the Sound Bites First Thursday Gallery, with an opening reception on Thursday, November 3rd, beginning at 6 pm.

According to Langston Brewer, “Much of my art is inspired by the community of strong women all around me, women who lift one another up every day, who are constantly present, like the air, providing currents of nurturing support and love. My images celebrate our curves, our colors, our joys, and our sorrows — all that gives us dimension and hope and fire in this world.”

Gina Langston Brewer

Langston Brewer’s show will be up throughout the month of November, but the artist will be in house on the night of the 3rd to meet patrons and answer questions.

Sound Bites Eatery has a full menu of sandwiches, salads, and more plus beer, wine, and other beverages.

Jasper Welcomes Marius Valdes to October's First Thursday at Sound Bites

We’re delighted to welcome one of Columbia’s most soul-lifting artists, Marius Valdes, to the walls of Sound Bites Eatery for First Thursday, October 6th, starting at 6 pm—no matter what Facebook says!

Happy-hearted Valdes has a reputation for finding and appealing to the child in everyone, and we’ve been excitedly awaiting the day when we could finally hang his art on the walls of one of the happiest places in town to feed your body and spirit, Sound Bites Eatery.

Marius Valdes is an artist currently based in Columbia, South Carolina. He is an Associate Professor in studio art concentrating on design and illustration at The University of South Carolina. He lives in Forest Acres, South Carolina with his wife Beth, daughter Emma, and very lazy but adorable dog, Mary.

Valdes received his BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Georgia and his MFA in Visual Communication from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2005.

Valdes has been recognized by design publications such as HOW, Print, Communication Arts, Creative Quarterly, STEP, and industry competitions including American Illustration, AIGA InShow, AIGA SEED Awards, and The South Carolina Advertising Federation Addy Awards.

Valdes' work has been featured in several books about contemporary graphic design and illustration. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions internationally. Valdes has presented at academic conferences about design and illustration related topics.

In 2017, Valdes completed a one-year residency as the first visual Artist in Residence at the award-winning and innovative Richland Library. Currently, Valdes putting the final touches on a mural installation at the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital. 

Sound Bites Eatery is the perfect place to begin or end your First Thursday Festivities with food and drink and happily-ever -after art by Marius Valdes!

Jasper Welcomes Ginny Merett to Sound Bites Eatery as July's First Thursday Artist in Residence

RECEPTION THURSDAY JULY 7TH AT 6 PM

SOUND BITES EATERY

1425 SUMTER STREET

Ginny Merett

Jasper welcomes Ginny Merett to Sound Bites Eatery as the First Thursday Artist in Residence for the month of July! Merett’s signature collage work has become her trading card over the past few years creating a one-of-a-kind aesthetic that has yet to be duplicated. Bright and whimsical, the work often offers a first impression that is lighthearted but, upon further inspection, proves to contain powerful messages and social commentary.

Ginny Merett has been an artist and art educator in the Columbia community for over three decades. Through those years she used various media to create art but for the last ten devoted her time to creating multimedia collage pieces. Inspired by stylish women and ordinary faces and images, she portrays unique characters using parts and pieces from current day and vintage media.

Ginny’s collage pieces have been shown at Stormwater Studio, ArtFields, Koger Center for the Arts, the Jasper Project, USC School of Visual Art and Design’s McMaster Gallery, SC State Library, and other local venues like Trustus Theater, She Festival, Cottontown Art Crawl and Melrose Art in the Yard. Her work is published in the Jasper Project’s Jasper Magazine, Spring 2019 edition and in Sheltered: SC Artists Respond During the 2020 Pandemic; and in Bullets and Band-Aids Volume 3. 

She gives back to the community by visiting and sharing her work with various area schools and donating art to local charities.

Ginny was born and raised in Denver and has lived in South Carolina since 1987. Art has 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 studied art education where she explored a wide range of disciplines and mediums; and taught art in the 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 and is an Artist Peer with the Jasper Guild. Look for her at ginnymerett.com and on all social platforms.

Merett’s exhibition will run from Sunday July 3 through the end of the month. The public is invited to a an opening celebration on First Thursday, July 7th at 6 pm at Sound Bites Eatery at 1425 Sumter Street.