CALL for Site Specific Visual Art via Our Friends at CCA

701 CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART 

MILL DISTRICT PUBLIC ART TRAIL OPPORTUNITIES 

We were excited to hear about this unique opportunity for visual artists to break into site specific/public art offered by the good folks at 701 CCA that we wanted to help them spread the word.

Here’s what we know —

701 Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) is seeking artists to develop and execute site-specific works for five gate houses located on the grounds of the historic Granby and Olympia Mills as part of CCA’s Mill District Public Art Trail. The mills are twin Romanesque Revival style, four-story structures designed by W.B. Smith Whaley & Company - the leading mill architects of their time. Once considered two of the most architecturally significant textile mills in South Carolina, today the two massive buildings have been repurposed for residential mill living.  

The application deadline is Wednesday, March 9, 2022.

Budget 

The budget for each gate house is $3,000

Public Art Opportunities

Five gate houses located in front of the two mill buildings offer unique opportunities for site-specific works. The structures were built during WWII.  Designed to compliment the architectural elements of the mill buildings, the Olympia Mill gate houses feature arch-shaped windows and a frieze consisting of terracotta arches. The less decorated Granby Mill gate houses feature dentil brick molding and sash windows.  

The gate houses will function as changing exhibition spaces for temporary public art projects. The projects will be installed for a minimum of one year.  Each gate house is 10’x10’ with a modest interior and lighting. Access to the interior is through doors on the rear or side of each structure. The gate houses are not air-conditioned or heated. Artwork must be able to withstand extreme weather conditions. 

The exteriors of the gate houses are protected under the City of Columbia historic preservation ordinance. Attachments to the exterior are not allowed. 

Eligibility 

Artists working in media appropriate for non-conditioned environments and styles are eligible for consideration. Artists may submit individually or as a team. Artist teams must designate one artist as the lead contact. This opportunity is open to professional artists 18 and over. 

Selection Process

A panel of arts professionals will review artists qualifications and make a selection of artists who will be invited to submit a full proposal. Selections will be based on artistic merit, experience with public art commissions and/or installation art and the ability to complete and install the project by June 20, 2022.

RFQ Requirements

1. Images of up to five completed commissions/installations that demonstrate your qualifications for the project. Please include the title, medium, dimensions, year completed, location, and a short description. 

2. Artist resume demonstrating a minimum of five years of professional visual art experience. If submitting as a team, a current resume should be submitted for each team member.  Please compile resumes into one document.

3. Statement of interest in this particular Mill District opportunity

4. References that include the names and current contact information for three individuals with whom you have worked, collaborated, or who have commissioned your work in the past. References may be contacted for artists invited to develop a proposal for the commissions

   Timeline

Call for RFQ - February 9, 2022

Zoom Q&A - February 14

Zoom Q&A - February 28

Deadline for RFQ - March 12 

Panel Review & Selection - March 13

Notification to Artists - March 15

Deadline for Proposals - April 4

Finalist(s) Notification - April 8 

Finalist(s)  Interviews/Presentation of Proposals on Zoom - April 11

Notification to Finalists - April 13

Site Availability - April 14

Deadline for Installed Works - June 20

Please submit questions to Michaela Pilar Brown at director@701cca.org. Questions and answers will be posted on our website at www.701cca.org. 

Ginny Merett Shares Multilayered Stories Through Collage-Based Tiny Gallery Show, WORDS

“I don’t like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life” —

Frank Stella

April showers bring May flowers, but for our May Tiny Gallery, we’re bringing you collages by artist Ginny Merett. Merett’s show, WORDS, which opened virtually on the Jasper website on the 1st of the month, was so wildly popular, we sold out nearly half the show in the first 8 hours. In response to the overwhelming love, Merett has decided to add 12 new pieces to the show – learn more about her and preview the pieces below! 

Merett grew up in a Denver, Colorado, household of musicians as the youngest of 3 children. Her mom was a pianist who taught lessons from the home, and her father was a trumpet player. “Music filled our house, but big band music was their favorite,” Merett recalls, “Mom was also artsy, always making something, and she inspired me to do the same.”  

Merett’s family supported her art inclinations from a young age, providing her with lessons and supporting her freedom with various art materials. This led to her taking several art classes and electives throughout school, receiving an art education degree in college, and teaching art for 30 years. 

This life rife with loving and making art has made Merett proud to call herself an artist since far before she started officially exhibiting her work a decade ago. “I agree with artist Frank Stella,” Merett quotes, “‘I don’t like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life.’”

In the past ten years Merett has been showing work, she has worked exclusively in collage. However, she dabbled and worked in many forms and mediums before finding home in collage. She focused on drawing and painting in undergrad, fiber arts and photography in grad school, and murals, watercolor, and pencils while teaching. Collage, though, allowed Merett to achieve something no other medium could. 

“Collage allows me to use a simple material that looks polished when completed in a work of art, and my style in collage gives me a chance to create art that is playful and irrational because of the new characters I create,” she effuses, “I have a wide variety of materials to use and unlimited subjects, and besides that I just have a really good time doing it.” 

As she puts her hands on different pieces and stitches them into a story, Merett finds herself drawn towards portraying human beings and their unique personalities, spirits, and bodies. These portraits are sometimes commissioned but mostly inspired from places in and around Merett’s life.  

“I create portraits inspired by photographs in my grandma’s 1920’s photo album and by people I see around town and in popular culture,” she reveals, “The most fun for me is taking parts and pieces from pictures of popular culture’s “beautiful people” found in magazines and using them to create new personalities and characters.”  

For her Tiny Gallery show, Merett continued on with her love for collage and people, putting together 25 stand-alone pieces made specifically for the show. The images range from bright, bold colors to multilayered neutrals; from repeating images to one striking set of eyes; from large pieces with mouths wide open to demure figures that ask you to come closer. 

“I usually use text in my work but only for color and texture, not meaning, so for this show, I created works that used phrases taken from magazine text to describe each piece—I made each collage prior to finding the words,” Merett explains, “The theme of each collage is the human condition, and on an unintentional level deals with how I felt through 2020-2021. I hope people can relate to one of the pieces and generally understand my serious and often tongue-in-cheek message.” 

This year, as for all of us, has presented challenges for Merett, who says she oscillated between motivated and withdrawn throughout 2020. She created art as a solace while mourning the safety and joy of being outside, as well as a good friend lost to the virus. She says that it was art and art events that were a continued light during this darkness. 

“I have been so blessed to have my art during this time. I feel like it fed my soul, as always,” Merett intimates, “For those struggling to make art right now I suggest being gentle with yourself but keep showing up in your studio or work area. Reach out to other artists for fellowship and realize that you are not the only one feeling lackadaisical.” 

Some particular lights among the dark included winning Honorable Mention in the 1593 Project at the Koger Center for the Arts and exhibiting her work alongside Jim Arendt and Gina Moore in the Alumni Art Exhibit at the UofSC’s SVAD. Merett was also one of the featured artists in Jasper’s pandemic project Sheltered 2020: A Collection of Visual and Literary Arts. 

The largest support for Merett, a mother of two and grandmother of four, though, comes from her family, pandemic and beyond. “My greatest memory is working at my drawing table with my young kids playing around me,” Merett reminisces, “More times than not, these moments were tranquil and made me feel like I had the absolute best of both worlds.” 

If you want to see how Merett has explored herself and the world around her, her show, WORDS, is up until May 31st. When this blog is posted, her new 12 pieces will have just been added to the show. You can peruse and purchase work 24/7 via the Jasper’s virtual Tiny Gallery: https://the-jasper-project.square.site/tiny-gallery  

During and after the show, you can find her art at her website www.ginnymerett.com and on Instagram (@ginnymerett) and Facebook (Ginny Merett Artist). You can also see her work locally around Lexington and Columbia, specifically at places like Land Bank Lofts on Hampton Street. 

— Christina Xan

PREVIEW: Eileen Blyth Opens New Show - The Shadow Line - at Stormwater Studios

Cait Patel talks with Eileen Blyth about her show opening this week at

Stormwater Studios

Stormwater Studios is a community gallery and studio space housing 10 resident artists. Among those residents is Eileen Blyth, a staple in the Columbia art scene for close to 30 years. In her upcoming exhibition, she seeks to explore the relationship between line and shadow in her abstract paintings and sculpture. The Shadow Line, at Stormwater. Set to open Tuesday, January 21st, the show will display somewhere between 30 and 40 pieces of her latest work. The opening reception will be held at Stormwater on Wednesday, January 22, from 5-8 pm and the show closes on Sunday, February 2nd at 4:00 pm.

Who is Eileen Blyth?

Eileen graduated from the College of Charleston with a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art. Shortly after graduating, she moved to Columbia, where she pursued coursework at the University of South Carolina in graphic design and illustration. She worked for several years for a local typography company in Columbia. She has had many other exhibitions around South Carolina in galleries such as Gallery 808 in Columbia, Art and Light Gallery in Greenville, and Carolina Gallery in Spartanburg. You may also have seen her metal drum sculptures in Columbia as part of a public art initiative.

 What is the show about?

Her show, The Shadow Line, will display a variety of abstract sculptures and paintings that communicate with one another. Blyth’s sculptures are composed almost entirely of objects extracted from found pieces. She works primarily with wood, metal, and cement. The juxtaposition of the paintings and sculptures are quite visually interesting and leave the viewer wanting to know more. For her, the repeated reflection of shapes and lines throughout her work is almost a subconscious theme. Her paintings are colorful abstracts with fine, elegant lines that echo in her sculptures. The relationship between the two is clear and compelling. Blyth says she’s inspired by the way the light comes through the window of her studio and informs how she views her own work. She seeks to answer questions such as, “How does the lighting and shadow of a piece inform how it is understood?” and “How does the relationship between a painting and a sculpture affect the viewer?” Her goal is to intrigue the viewer to ask themselves what they are truly seeing, whether real or perceived. The simple lines, shapes, colors, and shadows of her work will do just that.

What is one of her favorite “found” objects in the show?

 A few of the sculptures in the exhibition were produced from molds she bought at a garage sale held by the SC State Museum. When asked how the molds were used originally, she says they were likely for small structural pieces of the old cotton mill such as nuts and bolts. She uses them to create castings in cement to fabricate simple and unique shapes that she can use as an individual piece, or in conjunction with metal or wood to create a finished work. The combination of the hearty cement shapes with a delicate metal line produces something that is truly visually fascinating.

How does this show differ from previous exhibitions?

 Blyth says this show could be considered in some ways less intentional than previous shows. She is largely influenced by the stimulus of her surroundings and says this affects how she starts to paint or sculpt from moment to moment. Often times, she may start with an idea that ends up changing and evolving as she goes through the creative process.

 What’s up next for Eileen?

Blyth says she isn’t quite sure what’s up next for her and that excites her. She wants to take a step back and look at the progression of her work over the past year and possibly go back to the basics of drawing and sculpting. She is also exploring the idea of taking time to travel and be open to where that may lead her next.

 by Cait Patel

For more about her show visit

https://www.stormwaterstudios.org/event/eileen-blyth

For more information about her work visit

http://www.eileenblyth.com/

Artist, Christopher Lane's Exhibition Resist Division Opens December 7 at Frame of Mind

“Collectively, what I’m trying to say is we throw away 2/3 of what we produce because we’re in such a hurry to produce it,” local artist Christopher Lane passionately speaks on his upcoming art exhibition, “I would like to take 1/3 and give it to the people … there shouldn’t be any reason why anybody is hungry in this country.  There should be no reason why some kids not getting an education.”

50-year-old, full-time artist, Christopher Lane, relinquishes a collection of work that reflects on the individual and delivers a message that contains the true form of who we are as a whole, as a community: we are one.  Lane’s exhibition, “Resist Division,” opening Friday December 7, 2018 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Frame of Mind and lasting through January 28, 2019, expresses the desire to accept one another as one in the same and to reach a point of complete equality rather than the cruel reality that we often face: division.

“I don’t know if it’s because my family is so diverse.  I don’t know if it’s because I’ve made every mistake and I need a break sometimes.  You know, you can throw Winston Churchill in there, ‘divided we fall,’” the artist describes his ideas behind this collection of work, “So, I think it’s just, we’re better together.  We’re all the same, basically.”

Lane is aware that we are separated by aspects such as beliefs, race, and geography; however, through his collection, “Resist Division,” he takes notice that we are separated by our unique individuality but we should not be divided.  We all have the same basic rights and we all have needs and desires.  The things that separate us should not also divide us.

“ … I went back through Arlington, you know, I went through all the monuments and if you look at all the tombstones it’s like, men and women in there.  And it’s every religion, people that don’t believe in religion, gay people, straight people, whatever,” the artist softly laughs as he describes the monuments he saw coming back from a DC trip, “It’s like, they’re all on there and to me, you know, you’re an American.”

Lane studied art at New Mexico University and minored in photography.  He began painting as a child, where he found the trade therapeutic.

“I have dyslexia … so, I guess I would paint to kind of escape,” Lane speaks on painting at a young age.

Though he began painting at a young age, this collection shows the passion and desire he has developed to create a world where we decide not to let our physical appearances or personal mentalities separate us.  Where we accept the truth, and come together as one.

 The artist often paints dreams that he has had, but he gets much of his inspiration from simply watching the news and seeing what’s going on globally.  Though he doesn’t always understand it, he studies it and learns from it, until he can create artwork to represent his discovery.  Here is what Lane passionately describes when asked about the process of creating this collection:

“… watching this,” Lane eagerly points to the news running on the TV screen, “… everything’s the same basically… I watch this and it’s like the run off and I’ll see something and I don’t understand it, and I’ll dig into it.  Normally, my first opinion on something when I first see it and I’m really passionate- I’m completely wrong, you know?  And then, if I look at it for a while, then start maybe taking it aside, I realize, ‘well, I understand where they’re coming from and, well, this is what I think,’ and then we talk and then that person goes, ‘well, I didn’t know that was that.’  And when I try to paint, it’s all of that.’  He continues to eagerly express his ideas, “And I don’t know if I’m smart enough to do it …  I don’t know if I can change anybody but I can at least speak and send a message, and maybe it will make the other person think.”

As the veteran and current artist describes one of his paintings found in his “Resist Division” exhibition, you can see the fire within him to really send a message and to bring the division that has become our society to one:

“That one was like a year ago and they were kind of questioning what a real American is,” Lane points at a painting hanging on his studio wall, “ ... but I was just like, well, what is that?  You know, it’s like, I’m Norwegian.  I’m all Norwegian except for Iroquois Indian, and that’s what that painting is.  You know, am I good enough for you?  Do I qualify?  And it just really made me mad.”

Lane’s work isn’t just a lovely painting for you to admire.  It is a striking collection of paintings that send a passionate message that not only needs to be heard, but understood.  That is Lanes desire with this exhibition: to share his thoughts through his craft, to share the one truth and to bring a divided world together.

“Resist Division,” is an exhibition that all should come together for.  It is a collection that will make you think, make you question and make you reflect.  Reflect not only on the division of our society, but on the constant rush that we seem to live in.  How did things end up this way?  How can we resist division? 

 As best said by Christopher Lane, ask yourself this: “What led us here?”

REVIEW: Kimi Maeda's Ephemera Trilogy at the Trustus Side Door Theatre

By: Kyle Petersen

Ephemera (noun):

1. things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time.
2. items of collectible memorabilia, typically written or printed ones, that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity.

"The year the law of gravity was abolished the moon wandered away. In the excitement we didn't notice that the Nakashimas disappeared. You had to hold on tight or things floated off. I suppose they never really put down solid roots."  –Kimi Maeda

It’s difficult to leave a performance of Kimi Maeda’s Ephemera Trilogy, which runs through May 7th in the Trustus Side Door Theatre, without your head buzzing with questions. What is the relationship between storytelling and art, art and memory, memory and identity, identity and truth?

Maeda is not offering up answers, of course, but is certainly providing provocative new ways of tackling these questions. Her work is deeply invested in interrogating the act of storytelling itself, of how we come to know ourselves through creative expression, with all of its messy contours and murky revelations. Using stories of her parents (and, perhaps more to the point, the stories they have told her) as logical guideposts to understanding herself, Maeda’s work is grounded in sorting through the thorny reality that the telling of a story is an ephemeral act and, yet, also the fundamental way we come to make sense of our memories and ourselves as people. Each section of Ephemera, which was developed over a period of six years, employs a different stunning and innovative method of telling a story, each of which foregrounds its storytelling artifice while at the same time reaching for something that feels true, that feels real, in the process.

In the first part of Ephemera, “Homecoming,” Maeda uses a flashlight to bring paper cutouts to life as she ponders questions about her parent’s homes as well as the kind of fables and myths we all tell about home, what it’s supposed to say about who we are. The idea is that how we think about home is a kind of storytelling in and of itself. Maeda is both fascinated and distrustful of these questions, and you can sense that lack of sureness in both the pre-recorded narrative and the ever-so-slight shake of the flashlight as she moves across and through the miniature tableaux and brings it to life. This story doesn’t, can’t, exist without Maeda there, providing that thin light and fragile movement necessary to make sense of this piece of visual art. This phenomenon is something that occurs in each of the sections, a kind of implicit recognition that how both viewer and artist are being swayed and prodded by a distinct viewpoint, one that only exists in precisely this way in this one particular moment in time. Each performance, then, is a reminder of both the power of storytelling and its ephemeral, magical nature.

The second section, “The Crane Wife,” has Maeda performing elegantly wrought shadow puppetry as she weaves together the story of her mom coming to America from Japan with an old Japanese folktale. Framed by (real?) historical letters that Maeda pens and reads aloud in real-time, the interpretation of the crane wife tale she tells becomes intertwined with how the artist understands her Japanese-American identity. Maeda renders it lovingly. She also ponders the story’s intrinsic message about sacrifice and feminism, testing what identifications she has with the story and the limits to which it can function as a genuine link to her Japanese heritage. That a folktale like “The Crane Wife” is endlessly told and retold, revised and reshaped, makes such tests of authenticity quite fraught. Yet this particular version will always have meaning for Maeda and her mother, will structure their identities and how they understand themselves. It’s an ancient practice of making new.

The final section, “Bend,” uses archival footage of Maeda’s father, suffering from dementia, and the famous Japanese sculptor, Isamu Noguchi, both of whom were assigned to the same Japanese internment camp in 1942 -1943. This footage and audio, which often features Maeda talking with her father about the past, is juxtaposed and blended with live sand drawings of figures and places, memories and fragments that are constantly erased, literally disappearing as Maeda draws over or sweeps them away with a broom the last image to make way for the next one. The idea of Maeda’s father, who is clearly a man of extraordinary intellect, warmth, and ambition having to grapple with his own shifting sands of memory makes this method of storytelling particularly significant and brings home the reality of the ephemeral nature of both memory and art.

These are by necessity brief and incomplete descriptions of what goes told through the incredibly innovative and evocative visual language that Maeda uses, but what’s even more difficult to translate is the sheer creativity at the heart of it all. The way she uses light and crumbled papers to conjure up a fire, the way layers of design and shadow move us through airports and palaces and soar us through the sky or into the interior of phone lines in “Homecoming.” The casual virtuosity of the shadow puppet illustrations of “The Crane Wife” that feel more keenly alive than any picture book. And perhaps most profoundly, the unusual framing and living transitions that exist over the course of one of her many sand drawings, each of which is remarkable in each distinct moment. It’s wholly distinct and different from simply watching a painter paint or an illustrator draw. I can’t help but think about a performance like this in spiritual and ritual terms, of finding some solace, some beauty, and some redemption in these symbolic and repetitive acts. Ritual is something that keeps tradition alive even as it changes, that gives us new spins on ancient questions, and that remind us all that all creative acts are storytelling ones, each with their fair share of an older narrative inextricably grafted to a new thread.  

To that end, art-as-ritual, or storytelling-as-ritual, or perhaps even storytelling-as-truth, feels at the heart of Maeda’s trilogy. Our stories are who we are. Even if there is something lost in translation, there is also something invented, something new, something you.   

And I can’t say that everything I pulled out of her Ephemera Trilogy is what Maeda necessarily intended. But I can without qualification say that such a rich, nuanced, and simply extraordinary piece of artwork is a treasure that contains multitudes and is very much worth spending your time with. 

https://vimeo.com/110097232

In Jasper Vol. 3, No. 4: Kathleen Robbins: Photographing the Most Southern Place on Earth

"Some part of photographer Kathleen Robbins permanently exists in the flat, rural, alluvial plains of the Mississippi Delta. Her family has farmed cotton there for six generations, so the soil has practically entwined itself into her DNA, creating the need to visit often and record the changing landscape of the place itself, but also a vanishing way of life. Cotton fields are being replaced by soy and corn, and communities that grew up around the cultivation of cotton are dispersing. ..." - Kara Gunter

In Jasper Vol. 3, No. 4: Columbia & the World by Chris Robinson

"There are two art worlds in Columbia, the local arts community and artists at the university--colloquially and sometimes disparagingly referred to as the Town and Gown divide. (Full disclosure, I try hard to participate in both worlds, but am on the faculty in the Department of Art at the University of South Carolina.) While some may say that this magazine concentrates on the former, there is rich content in the latter, and I am inclined to risk characterizing each. The names in the local arts community are probably more familiar and many seek a means of art making that allows sales and survival, thereby dictating and assuring a somewhat more conventional or conservative approach. Conversely, research university faculty artists are encouraged and obliged to create new content and establish national and international reputations, but are often unconnected and/or unknown in the local community. Their work is, by necessity, more exploratory, as a research institution's role is to create new information. However, they do live here in Columbia and have similar and common interests, and it seems unfortunate that there is not more healthy and productive interaction between the two. ..." - Chris Robinson For the full column, click through the photo below:

In Jasper Vol. 3, No. 4: Maria Fabrizio's Wordless News

"A newspaper article detailing the death of a Pentecostal snake handler may not normally bring art to mind, but for Maria Fabrizio, the headline is one of many she's been inspired to transform into visual art. For the past year, the local Columbia artist has taken popular news stories and put them into simple digitized illustrations and posted them on her blog, Wordless News, 'One headline per day, vowel and consonant free.' The blog and its creator has garnered significant attention over the past few months. Though Fabrizio wouldn't name much of her own work 'art' in the classic scene, her creativity and talent are making waves in Columbia's art community and beyond. ..." - Joanna Savold For the full article, check out page 42 of the magazine below:

In Jasper Vol. 3, No. 4: Motherboards + Matrixes: A Look at Runaway Runway designer Jesse Cody

"Artist, photographer, and veteran Runaway Runway designer Jesse Cody, 23, knows who her favorite artist is: it depends on when you ask her. 'Ask me when I wake up--it's Rene Magritte,' says Cody, comfortable in a faded Punisher movie t-shirt. 'Lunch time rolls around--it's Ryan Murphy. The sun starts to go down--it's Marilyn Manson.' 'But you know, I can't say that I can think of any one artist that has influenced my work,' says Cody, motioning towards the remnants of her Runaway Runway 2012 design. 'I believe it is, like most of my work, the love child of any and all artists in my mind, including myself.' ..." - Giesela Lubecke

For the full article and photos, click through the screenshot below:

In Jasper No. 3. Vol. 3: 2014 Masters of Art--Lee Sipe, Phillip Mullen, Tyrone Jeter, and Stephen Chesley

"There are artists in any community who set the standards. Artists whose work others admire, study, and learn from. Their bodies of work demonstrate not only the artist's professional evolution but her or his process of problem solving--the artist's journey from questioning and exploration to a place of accomplishment, control, confidence, and finesse. Studying these artists' work is like reading a book you can't put down or traveling to a place you'll never forget. There is so much there to take in. So much to take away. We call these artists Masters. ..." For more, including large-scale photos of these artists' work, start on page 46 of the magazine: