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

Artist - Jarid Lyfe Brown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy First Thursday from all of us at Jasper!

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

We’re Back!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

cb

Jasper's First Thursday at Sound Bites Features Jarid Lyfe Brown

By Cindi Boiter

The Jasper Project is excited to welcome visual artist Jarid Lyfe Brown to our gallery space at Sound Bites Eatery as part of our First Thursday celebration this Thursday, November 7th.

A profoundly original artist, Brown’s technique has typically leaned toward surrealistic expression often by anthropomorphizing animals and visually annotating his subjects on the same canvas.

Born in Atlanta and raised in Columbia, Brown has lived in Gilbert for the -last 17 years. A construction worker by day for the past 30 years, Brown attended SCAD but is, for the most part, self-taught. His work has recently shown at both Soul Haus and Havens Gallery.

“About two years ago, life seemed to be unexpectedly and unusually busy and chaotic,” Brown says. “Between that and lazy excuses, painting and drawing started drifting because I was used to painting very large which can be time consuming. I grabbed a new sketchbook as a sort of documentation device for my current erratic thoughts and regular life experiences. Since a 10x7 book is a bit more portable, this would give me a chance to work anywhere. These small new works [in his Sound Bites exhibition] reflect about two years of sporadic expression, sometimes even forced so to not let go of something that means so much.”

Art from the Ashes Book Launch and Gallery Opening on February 1st at Tapp’s - A JASPER Project

 

Over the course of four evenings in the summer of 2014, more than two dozen literary, visual, and musical artists gathered in the Jasper Magazine office with experts on the February 17^th, 1865 burning of Columbia. The artists immersed themselves in the events that took place the night of the burning as well as the days and nights leading to and immediately following it. Six months later, their inspirations have come to fruition in a multi-disciplinary series of arts events – Art from the Ashes.

Art from the Ashes: Columbia Residents Respond to the Burning of Their City is a collection of poetry, prose, and even a screenplay by some of Columbia, SC’s most dynamic writers, including Ed Madden, Tara Powell, Ray McManus, Susan Levi Wallach, Tom Poland, Al Black, Jonathan Butler, Rachel Haynie, Debra Daniel, Will Garland, Betsy Breen, and Don McCallister. Edited by Jasper Magazine’s Cynthia Boiter, it is a publication of Muddy Ford Press and the first in the press’s new series, Muddy Ford Monographs.

In concert with the book launch, Art from the Ashes: The Gallery will open on the same evening, also at Tapp’s, and will run throughout the month of February. Participating visual artists include Susan Lenz, Kirkland Smith, Christian Thee, Michael Krajewski, Jarid Lyfe Brown, Whitney LeJeune, Mary Bentz Gilkerson, Cedric Umoja, Michaela Pilar Brown, Alejandro Garcia-Lemos, and Kara Gunter.

Join us as we celebrate the book launch and gallery opening from 5 – 7 pm. Visual artists will be on hand to answer questions about their work and literary artists will be signing and reading from their writings. Musician Jack McGregor, who created a three movement musical composition in response to the burning, will premiere his work as well.

Additional events include a Visual Artists Panel Presentation on Thursday, February 5^th at 7 pm and a Reading and Book Signing on February 17^th at 7 pm, followed by a concert by Columbia-based musical artist, the Dubber.

All events take place at Tapp’s Arts Center on Main Street and are free and open to the public

TONIGHT! - Small Art/Big Heart -- blog by Jasper Intern Kirby Knowlton

 

Like other aspects of our community, the ARC has been hit with huge budget cuts in the past several years. Anastasia Chernoff, owner of Anastasia & Friends, expressed that she could relate to these cuts, saying “Although some of us may not feel these cuts directly, indirectly they have a tremendous effect on all of us in our community, whether it’s the SC Arts Commission or the ARC, they are vital organizations in our state.” Local artists such as John Allen, Bohumila Augustinova, Savannah Bethea, Jarid Lyfe Brown,Toni Marcus Elkins, Nathan Fiveash have all contributed art work for the exhibit, and half of every sale will benefit the ARC. Friends of the ARC was started to help the ARC continue its vital and comprehensive work with our community’s sexually and physically abused children and continues to raise both funds and awareness in the community.

Small Art/Big Heart will feature paintings, sculpture and mixed media pieces that are 12" x 12" x 12" in dimension or smaller. The opening reception will take place as a part of the First Thursday art crawl on Main Street on August 7th from 6 to 9 p.m. and run through August 31st.

Anastasia & Friends is located at 1534 Main Street, Columbia, SC 29201. Gallery hours are weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

-- Kirby Knowlton

Muddy Ford Press Releases New Anthology - A Sense of the Midlands - on February 22nd

Furthering their efforts to both build a community of local literary artists and recognize the multiplicity of talented, professional poets and authors already at work in the South Carolina Midlands, local boutique publishing house Muddy Ford Press will release their tenth publication, A Sense of the Midlands, on February 22^nd, 2014.

Edited by Cynthia Boiter with poetry editor Ed Madden, A Sense of the Midlands anthologizes 33 Midlands area writers.

The feel of wet soil beneath the knees of the winter-weary gardener as she plants spring peas. The sound of the Carolina fight song echoing down Main Street. The smell of meat crackling in Crisco on the stove top. The taste of tea so sweet it curls your tongue. The sight of deer on the side of the road or the sun going down on the statehouse dome. All these things and more ground us in what it means to be from the South Carolina Midlands. Writer and editor Cynthia Boiter  and acclaimed poet Ed Madden asked more than thirty Midlands-area writers to share how the fidelity of place resonates from their own senses and into their writing in this collection of poetry, essays, and short fiction, A Sense of the Midlands.

Writers include James Barilla, Ray McManus, Tom Poland, Cassie Premo Steele, Kristine Hartvigsen, Darien Cavanaugh, Nan Ancrom, Nicola Waldron, Ruth Varner, Lauren Allen, Julie Bloemeke, Brandi L. Perry, Mahayla Bainter, Laurel Blossom, Matthew Boedy, Matthew Fogarty, Melanie Griffin, Linda Lee Harper, Terresa Haskew, Thomas Maluck, Rieppe Moore, Zach Mueller, Robbie Pruitt, Dianne Turgeon Richardson, Kevin Simmonds, Randy Spencer, Alexis Stratton, Frank Thompson, Ed Madden, and Ivan Young. Local artist Jarid Lyfe Brown created the cover of the book from an original painting.

The public is invited to celebrate the launch of A Sense of the Midlands on Saturday February 22^nd from 5 – 7 pm at the Columbia Music Festival Association Art Space at 914 Pulaski Street in Columbia’s historic Vista. Admission is $15 which includes a copy of A Sense of the Midlands, admission to the reception from 5 – 6 during which authors will be available for signing, and admission to a reading from the book from 6 – 7. (Two attendees sharing a book will be admitted for $20.)

Muddy Ford Press is the underwriter for Jasper Magazine – The Word on Columbia Arts. All Proceeds go toward the publication of Jasper. 

For more information contact: 

Robert Jolley at publisher@MuddyFordPress.com or

Cynthia Boiter at Cindi@JasperColumbia.com.

www.MuddyFordPress.com

S&S Art Supply Pays It Forward with 3rd Annual Silent Auction & Fundraiser

Continuing to pay it forward, S&S Art Supply on Main Street is hosting its 3rd annual fundraiser this coming Sat.urday, July 13th, benefiting Palmetto Place Children's Shelter.   Free and open to the public, there will be a silent auction of over 100 works of local art and other items from local businesses to bid on, all starting at just $25!

This is a family friendly event, so bring the kids.   Preach Jacobs will be DJ'ing, plus  The Plowboys will be playing live outside.    With an open bar and catered hors d'oeuvres  provided courtesy of The Whig and Rosso,  the motto for the day is Eat, Drink, Bid!

Since 1977, Palmetto Place has been a safe haven for children of all ages in need of a place to call home.  Whether the child was abandoned,  abused, or neglected, Palmetto Place has been there for them.  The mission of Palmetto Place Children’s Shelter is to provide a safe and nurturing environment for these abused and neglected children, offering them a broad range of services that encourage and promote healing through positive and healthy choices. The shelter is open 24 hours each day of the year and provides medical and mental health care, crisis adjustment/transitional counseling, after-school tutoring and recreational and social activities in addition to food, clothing and shelter. Visit http://palmettoplaceshelter.org/ for more information.

Sponsors for this event include: Ladybug Art Studios, Jasper - The Word on Columbia Arts, The Columbia Star, The Whig, Rosso, and Professional Printers.  Currently over 50 different artists are participating; also up for grabs are donated tickets from Nickelodeon Theatre, Trustus Theatre, Columbia City Ballet, and other goodies from local businesses. Best of all, the event is free and open to the public!

For more information, e-mail Amanda at lily581@hotmail.com.  The "event" page on Facebook is here.  S&S Art Supply is located at 1633 Main Street, just down from Mast General Store and the Nickelodeon. The event runs from 2-6 PM this Saturday, July 13th.