An Evening of Art – Opening Receptions for Exhibits by Janet Swigler and Christina Clark at the Koger Center

By Emily Moffitt, Visual Arts Editor, Jasper Magazine

Join us on Friday, November 22, from 5:30 – 7 p.m. for two art receptions at the Koger Center for the Arts. In the Nook on the second floor of the Koger Center, Jasper Galleries welcomes Janet Swigler. On the ground floor of the Koger Center, walls will be adorned with the work of Christina Clark. Both artists work with abstract forms and subject matter, yet in different ways that engage the viewer.

Janet Swigler moved around the United States often at a young age due to her Air Force family upbringing, but this had a beneficial impact on her adaptability, independence, and resourcefulness. She spent several of her pre-teen years living in Japan, which offered cultural aesthetics and philosophies that continue to influence her art and life. This, along with her musical training and experience in music education, created a synergy of artistic disciplines and ideas that transferred easily to the work she creates. Sewing has been a lifelong interest of hers, and her quilt-making studies under Nancy Crow helped her to reach where she is today.

Christina Clark, originally from Austria, descended from a family of artists and musicians. To this day, she surrounds herself with the joyous energy of visual arts and music through her own personal artistic endeavors and her philanthropic service to the University of South Carolina School of Music. Clark carefully considers the viewer’s experience when she starts to put pastel to paper. Recently, Clark created a series of pieces that served as companions to the Parker Quartet’s Beethoven Quartet cycle. Clark embraces the conversation that music can have with her work and is honored to be able to keep that conversation going through her donations.

Both receptions are free and open to the public. They precede the sold-out performance of Koger Center and ColaJazz present: Live in the Lobby Jazz: The Music of Miles Davis. There’s a lot going on in the Vista that night, including a concert at Colonial Life Arena, so be mindful of parking and get to the receptions early!

Bits & Pieces by Olga Yukhno and Friends at Stormwater Studios

April 26 - May 7, 2023

Stormwater Studios

Featuring the work of 6 South Carolina artists, Olga Yukhno has curated an exhibition that brings her unique vision to life. Bits & Pieces, which opens on April 26th at Stormwater Studios at 413 Pendleton Street in the Columbia, SC Vista and runs through May 7th, focuses on artists whose work involves multiple parts—think woodworking, quilts, mosaics—hence bits and pieces.

In addition to Yukhno, the artists exhibiting include Cameron Porter, Janet Kozachek, Mary Robinson, Janet Swigler, and Jeri Burdick.

The opening reception is Wednesday April 26th from 5-8 with a public workshop on May 2nd from 6-7 pm, an Artists Talk on Thursday May 4th from 6-8, and a closing celebration on Sunday May 7th from 1-3 pm.

Yukhno also is currently showing an extensive collection of her own work at the Jasper Gallery at Midland Technical College’s Harbison Theatre on College Street in Irmo.

This exhibit was made possible due to the generous sponsorship by Dr. Bill Schmidt.

More About the curator Olga Yukhno:

Olga Yukhno is an artist originally from Pyatigorsk, Russia. It was in Russia her passion for art began. Inspired by the culture of her home country, she started by working with batiques, stained glass and enameling. She studied under world renowned enamellist, Nikolai Vdovkin for several years to hone her skills, before moving to the United States in 2008. 

In the US, she no longer had access to the tools needed to continue with her enameling, and quickly started expanding into any and every new medium she could get access to. What she fell in love with was ceramic sculpting. It allowed her to experiment, and fuse together old-world artistry with her skills and abilities across a wide variety of art forms to create totally new and unique mixed media pieces. 

Over the years, Olga has traveled to over 40 countries across Eastern and Western Europe, Asia and the Americas, and visited museums ranging from the world famous Louvre in France, to the smallest unnamed art displays in towns and villages few outsiders have ever seen. It is in these travels she gets the most inspiration, drawing on the uniqueness and culture of every new place she visits, she finds ways to incorporate those cultural nuances into each new piece she makes. The colors, shapes, and ideas of everything from tribal masks to modern street art can be seen woven into her work. She loves juxtaposition in her art, old and new, lustrous and weathered, and it’s in these contrasts she finds beauty.

Currently her work is a mixture of three dimensional ceramic and mixed media wall pieces, figurative sculpture, and larger scale installation works. The process used to create many of her signature looks is achieved by hand pressing each individual impression into the clay using small custom made metal tools. She hand makes all of these tools herself out of repurposed architectural metal scraps. She also loves to incorporate found objects, as well as utilize techniques from other art forms she’s studied and practiced, such as weaving, encaustic and metal working. The result of this process, different incorporated elements and techniques are what create her unique and visually interesting personal style. Her degree in psychology shapes the ideas and concepts behind many of her pieces, with the intention that observing her work encourages the viewer to think more about what they’re seeing, and the emotions it evokes.

(https://www.olgayukhno.com/about)

"It's Been a While" - Group Art Exhibition at Outpost Arts Space by Ron Hagell (Guest Writer)

“It’s Been a While”

Group Art Exhibition at Outpost Arts Space

715 Saluda Ave., April 3 – 24, 2021

Care. Comfort, and Kindness by Olga Yukhno

The Free Times leads off it’s piece in this week’s paper by saying, “Artists get lonely, too”.  In fact, this was one spark for this exhibition that helped to start it. Flavia Lovatelli, Kristi Ryba (a Charleston artist) and I were discussing how long it had been since we went to an opening and the general lack of exhibitions over the pandemic year. We decided that it might be possible to ask if the Outpost’s new exhibition space might be available in April. It turned out that the space was free and Caitlin Bright was very interested in helping get us off the ground. I’m not sure we were all “lonely,” maybe just missing what had become a rather active arts scene in Columbia. But once the artists started showing up with work this week, I realized how much I missed seeing everyone – so did they!  Our exhibition, “It’s Been a While,” opens on April 3 at Outpost Arts Space in Five Points.

You may remember that this group [along with the Jasper Project] used to be in the Tapp’s building on Main Street and we always had a new exhibition each “First Thursday on Main.” Then we were called The Tapp’s Arts Center and some still refer to us as “Tapp’s Outpost.” There are similarities between the two, the people and mission continue, but many things have changed beyond the actual location.

You may recall that, in addition to our exhibitions, we also had open studios (where shopping was possible) and you could pick-up a beer to start your art crawl on Main. Now we all know that First Thursday is not the same now that most of the “art” on Main has left for many reasons. For us, this location has made a big difference. Obviously the amount and character of the space is a vast difference, but the foot-traffic is very different. Often at Tapp’s we had very few visitors except for exhibit nights, but in Five Points there is a constant flow and some of us have experienced much better sales.

… we are hopeful that “It’s Been a While” will continue the spark of creative activity and be the rebirth of more and better days for our whole Columbia arts scene

There are also plans afoot to improve our new home and build even more and better studio/workshops inside and behind the existing shop fronts, as well as collaborative activities with the vast space behind the White Mule that is scheduled for future renovations. 

But, we are hopeful that “It’s Been a While” will continue the spark of creative activity and be the rebirth of more and better days for our whole Columbia arts scene. We invited many artists to join us and have a real cross-section of folks taking part.  Charleston-based artist Kristi Ryba, whom we met in 2019 while participating in Lake City’s annual ArtFields competition, has agreed to show two new works and many more local friends also wanted to take part.  There are sculptures by Olga Yukhno and Sharon Licata and a couple of large hanging fabric pieces by Janet Swigler. Columbia Photographer Molly Harrell shows her recent work and I’m putting in an older video because it just speaks to this moment so well. But, I’m also showing a few smaller paintings that I’ve been working on during this downtime.

In fact many others are showing works that deal directly with the pandemic such as Gerard Erley’s “Pandemic Cardinals” and more – not to be missed.

Pandemic Cardinals by Gerard Erley

Also showing are works by Susan Lenz, Michael Krajewski, Keith Tolen, Bonnie Goldberg, Stephen Chesley, Heidi Darr Hope, Kirkland Smith, Tabitha Ott, Diko Pekdemir, and Flava Lovatelli. Some have direct connections to our past year and the pandemic or the political shift while others do not. It is a very eclectic event. 

ABC by Michael Krajewski

As always our group wants to engage the community in ongoing conversation and creative connections. But now we really need to catch-up after over a year. It’s 17 artists wanting you to see their work and, as Caitlin says, she anticipates “a lot of sharing, commiserating, sympathy and empathy.”

Because, it’s been a while…

Ron Hagell, Studio Artist, Outpost Arts Space

Ron Hagell is a Columbia, SC-based artist who makes films and art with installations featuring paintings, projections, prints and film centered on portraiture.

Teacups by Kirkland Smith

If you haven’t joined the Jasper Project Guild yet this year, now is a good time to do so, guaranteeing that YOUR NAME will appear in the next issue of Jasper Magazine, releasing May 2021 and, depending on your contribution level, securing you a space at some of the limited seating events Jasper has in the works for the coming year.

Plus, everyone gets to see your name here!