Jasper Takes a Turn at Anastasia & Friends with Kathryn Van Aernum

Phoenix by Kathryn Van Aernum

Phoenix by Kathryn Van Aernum

One of Jasper’s most rewarding missions is supporting independent artists as they move through the various growths and stages of their careers. We have recently been afforded another opportunity to do so by guest curating one show a year at Anastasia & Friends gallery on Main Street.

Our first show opens this Thursday and features the photography of Kathryn Van Aernum.

We had a chance to visit with Kathryn recently and learned more about her history, process, and aesthetic. A graphic artist and photographer, Kathryn also serves as a creativity coach. Her joy, she says, is helping artists “find ways into their work.”

A graduate of Narope University in Boulder, a learning institution founded in the 1970s by Buddhist education Chogyam Trungpa that fosters not only personal and professional growth, but also intellectual development and contemplative practice, Kathryn carries much of what she learned there into her personal and professional lives today.

“I always take the scenic route,” Kathryn says, explaining that she originally went to school for theatre. Born in Ann Arbor, she grew up in the Detroit metropolitan area and spent 15 years living in Key West where she spent some time operating a B and B, then moved on to doing ad work for much of the gay hotel industry in the area. Throughout the time, however, Kathryn was also at work on her art giving solo and group shows and photography exhibitions. Kathryn has exhibited at Artfields twice and copies of one of her photos of the Congaree Fireflies will soon be offered at the Columbia Fireflies Baseball team gift shop thisyear.

Common Ground, the show Jasper is producing for Kathryn at Anastasia & Friends Art Gallery, opening August 2nd, is a photographic contemplation on the common pathways individuals and communities take. “Living in the city, I began to see patterns in the pavement itself and asking myself – how can I render this in a way that will make people take notice?”

Kathryn notes the double entendre of the show’s title as it focuses both on human mobility and common pavement and how we share it. “You can’t really separate humans from nature,” she says. “We erroneously feel like we aren’t really nature, but we can’t escape the natural elements that occur and connect us.”

The show will also feature a few images from a recent trip to Greece the artist enjoyed with her sister, Gail Van Aernum Barnes, who is director of the Strings Project at USC.

 

About the show:

 

Common Ground: Artist Statement

Common: belonging to or shared by two or more individuals or things or by all members of a group.

Common: widespread, general, ordinary

The photographs in Common Ground focus on man-made surfaces, such as pavement, asphalt, cobblestones, concrete etc., with attention paid specifically to the abstract “paintings” created on these ordinary surfaces by the interaction of time, weather and humans. All the artificial terrains portrayed have one thing in common: to facilitate human flow and interaction, with some reaching back as early as the 2nd millennium BC.

 

 

 

More about the artist:

Kathryn Van Aernum’s subjects range from the mundane to the sublime, and she continues to cultivate a sense of spaciousness in her photography. The elements of design: harmony, balance and rhythm present themselves to Kathryn almost subconsciously, allowing her to capture a moment that transports the viewer into their own minds, memories and dreams.        

Ms. Van Aernum holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction in Visual Arts from Naropa University, the premier educational institution combining contemplative practice with academic rigor.

While photography is her main medium, she is also an accomplished watercolorist, mixed media and book artist. As a creativity coach she works with professionals who have buried their creative soul in the daily grind, helping them reclaim creative confidence so they can thrive at work and beyond.     

Her work has appeared in juried competitions, group and solo exhibits, in Key West, FL; Boulder, CO;  Fort Collins, CO; Ann Arbor, MI; and Columbia, Spartanburg and Lake City, SC. and is in many private collections throughout the US.

You can find her on the web at

Kvanastudios.com

Kathrynvanaernum.com

@kvanastudios on instagram, twitter and facebook

The Artist - Kathryn Van Aernum

The Artist - Kathryn Van Aernum

volumes 2: women bound by art opens at the Curtis R. Harley Art Gallery

  volume 2 by Cynthia Colbert

Random Acts by Gina Moore

 

 

volumes 2: women bound by art, an altered book exhibition, will be on exhibit at the Curtis R. Harley Art Gallery, University of South Carolina Upstate (USC Upstate), at 800 University Way, Spartanburg, SC 29203 from January 17 - February 21, 2014. This show will be exhibited in conjunction with selected works from volumes: women by by art which was created in 2012 and was exhibited at the main branch of the Lexington County Public Library, Lexington, SC and at Portfolio Art Gallery in Columbia, SC.  The women featured in the exhibition will participate in a panel discussion at 4:30 p.m. on January 30, 2014, which will focus on their respective creative processes. A reception will follow the discussion.  All Gallery events are FREE and open to the public.

The art exhibition includes a collection of 17 altered books created by 18 women artists: Eileen Blyth (Columbia, SC), Cynthia Colbert (Columbia, SC), Jessica Cruser (Columbia, SC), Heidi Darr-Hope (Columbia, SC), Janette Grassi (Charlotte, NC), Tonya Gregg (Columbia, SC), Mary How and her young daughter Macy How (Columbia, SC), Doni Jordan (Columbia, SC), Susan Lenz (Columbia, SC), Susan Livingston (Orangeburg, SC), Gina Moore ((Columbia, SC), Yukiko Oka ((Columbia, SC), Kay Reardon (Columbia, SC), Liisa Salosaari Jasinski (Newberry, SC), Virginia Scotchie (Columbia, SC), Kathryn Van Aernum (Columbia, SC) and Katie Walker (Greenville, SC). The group includes art therapists, art professors, potters, fiber artists, graphic designers, illustrators, mixed media artists, painters and photographers.

 

Conceived and curated by artists Susan Livingston and Doni Jordan, each artist was given a volume of an encyclopedia and complete creative control.  volumes 2:women bound by art is the result of that creativity. The Standard International Encyclopedia,1954, was donated to the artists by Hal McIntosh, thanks to help of artist Cynthia Colbert. Encyclopedias, the forerunners of todays electronic search engines, where first written by an ancient Roman scholar and focused on grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, musical theory, medicine, and architecture.

 

ABOUT THE CURTIS R. HARLEY ART GALLERY

The Curtis R. Harley Art Gallery is located at 800 University Way, University of South Carolina Upstate, Spartanburg, SC 29203 and is located on the first floor lobby of the Humanities and Performing Arts Center (HPAC). The gallery showcases nationally and internationally established artists and exhibitions that support the academic mission of USC Upstate. Most recently the University was the recipient of 5 original screenprints by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to enhance the current collection of 150 Polaroid photographs by Andy Warhol. Hours: 9am-5pm /Monday - Friday.