Exciting Stuff at City Art Gallery - Dan Smith takes on the Civil War

For Randy Hanna at City Art Gallery in the Vista, art is his life. A none-too-shabby visual artist himself,  Hanna has a proverbial eye for art that stands out above the rest due to anything from its color palette to it execution. Once in a while, Hanna will reach out to let us know that something special is going up on the walls of the spacious turn-of-the-century railroad warehouse where he and Wendyth Wells have been showing art and selling art supplies for years.

We've learned to listen.

When Hanna contacted us yesterday to make sure we knew about Dan Smith's exhibit opening tonight with a reception from 5 to 8 and running through January 1st, he not only said that he hoped I'd get to see this exhibit, he continued with,  "I don't think we've ever shown anything like it."

The title of the show is “US: A Civil War, Artwork by Dan Smith” and here's some more about Smith and his work that Hanna was good enough to share with us so that we could share it with you:

Smith’s new body of work includes mixed media paintings, as well as photographs and installations inspired by the American Civil War. On May 15, 2014 the artist began his Civil War Travels throughout the United States visiting specific Civil War sites. Many of the sites presented 150 year-old re-enactments. Along with extensive reading, the sites became inspiration for Smith’s artworks. Sites like Ft. Fisher in Wilmington, NC, the Shenandoah Valley of VA, Columbia, SC, Andersonville, GA, and Lookout Mountain, TN, inform much of the work.

In 1986, Smith received a graduate fellowship from the University of South Carolina and moved to Columbia to earn his MFA in Painting. The US: A Civil War show is a component of a larger collection of works organized chronologically under what Smith calls his Extended Sites collection, which incorporates the dichotomies of nature and man into an ‘art ecology’. Previous exhibitions under the Extended Sites moniker were based on the English colonist John Smith of Jamestown, VA, fame, and the frontiersman Daniel Boone. “My art is about death and life packed in with stories. Mathew Brady's story and work are woven into the US: A Civil War exhibition. Ultimately the show is about me and my associations with the Manland thesis I began at USC almost 30 years ago”.

The artist will continue his research for two additional Civil War exhibits in Newton and Sherrills Ford, NC, in 2016. Partial funding for these and his City Art Gallery exhibition were provided by a grant from the United Arts Council of Catawba County through the North Carolina Art Council with funding from the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts which believes a great nation deserves great art.

Smith’s art has been featured in numerous exhibitions during the past 35 years including NYC, San Francisco, CA, Seattle, WA, Washington, DC, TX, FL, NM, VA, NC and the recent Artfields competition in Lake City, South Carolina. His artwork is included in collections throughout the US.

City Art Gallery is located at 1224 Lincoln St. in the historic Congaree Vista area in Columbia, South Carolina.  Gallery hours are Monday – Thursday 10:00 a.m. until 6 p.m., Friday 10:00 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.  For more information contact Wendyth Wells, City Art Gallery, at 803-252-3613.

Jasper likes Tall Girls

If your Thursday night isn't booked yet, or even if it is, Jasper recommends you take a few moments to stop by City Art Gallery in the Vista between 6 and 8 for the opening of the Harriet Marshall Goode exhibit, Tall Girls.

In addition to being an arts supply shop, City Art Gallery is a beautiful venue that speaks both of old Columbia, in its rustic brick walls and elegant wooden floors, and of new Columbia, in the art -- classic, as well as innovative -- that adorns its walls. We like the spaciousness of the gallery -- how we have room to step back and study the works in the main gallery hall from many different vantages. And we like the vibe. Randy Hanna and Wendy Wells are always on hand to answer questions or chat for a bit. It's inviting -- not stuffy at all.

Jasper will be popping by City Art Gallery -- maybe sipping a little vino and chatting for a while on Thursday evening. We hope to see you there as well.

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For more information on the Tall Girls exhibit, here's a little something we bold faced stole for the City Art website itself:

Columbia, S.C. – An exhibit of oil paintings by Harriet Goode will open with a public reception for the artist between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. Thursday September 8 at City Art Gallery in the Congaree Vista. The exhibit runs through October 1, 2011.

City Art Gallery Director Wendyth Wells describes the event as an interactive installation combining the historic authenticity of the building and the drama of the nearly 7 foot tall paintings of females. “We are creating an atmosphere,” Wells said, “Those who experience it will feel the power of the paintings and the call of the historic architecture. It’s all about what one feels standing among these ‘tall girls’.”

All the paintings are oil on wood panels that Goode based on characters from short stories.

“If we allow words to flow freely in our minds, the experience of reading fiction is immeasurably enhanced,” Goode said. “My paintings are about the often overwhelming power written words have over us, and the rich imagery our minds can create when those words are set free.”

Goode has a life-long love of these stores. “Each month when my mother’s magazines arrived in the mail, I’d curl up in a big chair to read the short stories”, she said. “Even at an early age, I had vivid mental images of the fictional characters. And the dark stories were always my favorites. My own childish interpretation of the characters filled my sketchbooks, and now, many years later, I’m still finding subject matter for paintings in short story and poetry anthologies. I return to old favorites, Steinbeck, St. John, Cheever, and in the last few years have added new names to the list, like Raymond Carver and Alice Munro. Each painting is a short story or one-act play. The viewer has to figure out the plot.”

Goode says she paints because she cannot imagine her live without painting. “I invent women,” she said, “some with vulnerable personalities and some with the strength to transport them to another world; but they all tell a story.”

Goode has had a distinguished career as a gallery director, free-lance illustrator and advertising director. She currently lives in Rock Hill where she is a fulltime painter, commercial art consultant and art competition juror. She attended Converse College and later studied with William Halsey in Charleston, SC and at the Silvermine School of Art in New Canaan, CT. Her paintings are part of museum and private collections throughout North and South Carolina. In addition she has work in corporate and private collections in Mexico, Europe and China. She has been featured on SC-ETV and her paintings have been on the cover of “The Evening Reader Literary Journal”, “Artifacts”, “Best of Watercolor: Painting Color” among other publications.  (http://www.cityartonline.com/current-exhibition/)

City Art Gallery is located at 1224 Lincoln Street. The exhibit runs through October 1st.

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And while we're talking calendars, we hope you have yours marked for next Thursday, September 15th when, as promised, Jasper Magazine - The Word on Columbia Arts debuts in print!

Please come and celebrate with us at Columbia's own Speakeasy at 711 Saluda Avenue in Five Points, starting around 8 pm. We'll have a birthday cake for Jasper and music from Josh Roberts. Andy Shadday will also debut a new drink dedicated to yours truly -- The Jasper!

In the meantime,please visit us online at www.jaspercolumbia.com.