West Columbia Brought the Magic to Friday Night's Fall Back Festival 2017

Cindi Boiter November 4, 2017

Michael Krajewski & Lucas Sams collaboration

You couldn't have asked for a more beautiful night on State Street last Friday when West Columbia threw their first ever Fall Back Festival. With the help of the shop owners on State Street, and a very strong influence from Frame of Mind owner Mark Plessinger, the night was warm and welcoming, full of music, food, drinks, and good and new friends.

Among the artists creating street art -- literally art on the asphalt paving of State Street -- were ten of Columbia's top creators, and you could tell they were having a great time creating art for art's sake. As one artist said, "It was nice to be able to just come out and make some art without having to abide by too many rules or fill out too many forms and applications." The artists, whose works are pictured above, included Alicia Leeke, Herman Keith, Sammy Lopez, Karl Larsen, Michael Cassidy, Dre Lopez, Tony Brown, BA Hohman, and Michael Krajewski and Lucas Sams who collaborated on their piece.

After 10 provided some great cover tunes, Pawleys food truck fed hungry bellies, and all the restaurants and bars had their doors open welcoming folks to come in and buy a drink to take back out on the street.

Frame of Mind featured an innovative art show by IRL couple artists Bohumila Augustinova and Barry Wheeler. ( Full disclosure: Barry Wheeler is the president of the board of directors for The Jasper Project.)

Converge Above the Plane by Barry Wheeler

Art for art's sake. Answering the need to create and share that creation. Music in the air. A happy little buzz from a Friday night drink. Friends, old and new, clasping hands, slapping one another on humid backs, giving good deep hugs. Celebrating Friday, fall, art, and one another.

Keeping it simple. Preserving the joy.

Celebrating Jazz on Main Street - by Mike Miller

Cindi Boiter November 1, 2017

This First Thursday Jazz is the Main Event

Thirty years ago, a Columbia restaurant owner named Veron Melonas and his trumpet-playing pal Johnny Helms decided that Columbia needed a cool jazz party right on Main Street. Melonas owned the Elite Epicurean, a top-notch eatery right across the street from City Hall, and he said, “Why don’t we put the stage right outside?” Helms knew a lot of jazz players in New York, so he got on the phone and invited several of them down to the South Carolina capital city. Just like that, a jazz festival was born.

“Jazz on Main” as it was called was first staged in July of 1987, and it ran for 10 years. One of the festival’s first performers, pianist Marian McPartland, called it “a true happening,” and it was pretty special. Musicians who came to Columbia during those years included trumpeter Clark Terry, saxophonist Jimmy Heath, guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, and bassist Milt Hinton, just to name a few.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of that first “Jazz on Main” show, November’s First Thursday on Main will become a jazz festival of sorts. But this will not be a nostalgic event. It will showcase many of Columbia’s current crop of talented jazz musicians, players such as Mark Rapp, Tony Lee, Amos Hoffman, and Sam Edwards. Columbia jazz veterans such as Dick Goodwin, Danny Boozer, Robert Gardiner, and Jim Mings will also be performing.

Festivities begin at 6 p.m., and there will be live music at several locations on Main Street. Trumpeter Mark Rapp is the prime mover on Columbia’s contemporary jazz scene, and his quartet will be performing in the Main Street Public House. The guitar duo of Mings and Monte Craig will be in front of Mast General Store, and a revolving array of local jazz stars, including guitarist Hoffman, bassist Edwards, trombonist Mitch Butler, and drummer Boozer, will play on a stage in Boyd Plaza outside the Columbia Museum of Art. Add trumpeter Goodwin and the Tony Lee Group to the mix on Boyd Plaza, and you’ve got one of the most impressive collection of jazz players to come together in Columbia in quite some time.

Back in 1987, there was an impressive array of jazz artists playing around town as well. Goodwin’s big band played weekly shows in a club called Greenstreet’s. Guitarist Terry Rosen and bassist Frank Duvall could be heard often at happy hour in the Five Points restaurant Garibaldi’s. But the most adventurous jazz happening took place on Tuesday night in Pug’s, a Five Points bar named after owner Pug Wallace. Weekly jam sessions there featured players such as drummers Reggie Ritter and Ted Linder, guitarists Mings and Rosen, trumpeters Al McClain and Helms, keyboardists John Drake and John Emche, and saxophonists Hans Tueber, Roger Pemberton, and a teenager named Chris Potter. For Columbia jazz fans, those nights in Pug’s were not to be missed.

Today’s Columbia jazz scene is just as vibrant, and truth be told, it’s more diverse and active than its counterpart from three decades ago. Jazz can still be heard in Five Points at Speakeasy’s on Saluda Street. But the epicenter for jazz has moved uptown to places such as Public House on Main, Gervais and Vine, and Pearlz in the Vista.

Other Columbia nightspots are featuring jazz nights, and there are many other exceptional musicians playing around town than just the ones mentioned above. It’s a great time for jazz artists and fans in Columbia, and that’s why it seemed like a good idea to revive the spirit of “Jazz on Main” and celebrate this cool, complex, and free-flowing music in the capital city.

What's Your Idea for the New City of Columbia Flag?

Cindi Boiter March 30, 2017

Design is all around you in both loud and quiet ways. From the buildings we work in to the products we use, many times we experience design in ways that have been created for us. Sometimes, though, we are brought into the experience.

The re-imagination of the City of Columbia flag is one of those opportunities.

Last fall, the Columbia Design League hosted a lecture featuring noted vexillologist Ted Kaye, author of the flag design bible Good Flag, Bad Flag. As you might suspect, a quick Google search of the words “flag” and “Columbia, SC” delivers two distinct stories. First, comes the protracted battle to furl the Confederate flag from the state house grounds. On a more positive note (and included in Kaye’s fall presentation) is the other flag, the State of South Carolina’s official flag, which South Carolinians embroider, fly and stick on everything from silver jewelry to foam coozies to belts.

One flag decidedly absent from our conversations around the event was the City of Columbia flag. Before last fall’s event, most of us hadn’t a clue that the city even had a flag. When we evaluated the flag based on Kaye’s criteria, it was painfully clear. Our dynamic city deserved a flag upgrade.

With so many paths forward to a new flag, the question was our approach. One of the biggest issues with the current design is that the imagery — stalks of corn and cotton — is dated. When you add a seal to the mix, the flag says government and farming. What’s missing? People. People are what make up any city. That’s who the flag should represent.

That’s why both Columbia Design League and One Columbia for Arts and History overwhelmingly decided to partner on the project and bring it to life as a public initiative with a $2,000 award for the winning idea.

A city flag is not a logo or even a brand. It’s an object that represents all things in this city. The flag’s next iteration will represent the people, the various cultures, the physical features, and most of all represent the pride we share for our city.

The current design, created by Taylor School first grade teacher Kate Manning Magoffin in 1912, has served our community well. We encourage you to take the same pride as Mrs. Magoffin did and create your own vision of Columbia’s flag, too.

Visit Design a Better Flag to learn more about flag design and how you can submit your idea. Designs will be accepted through April 10, 2017.

- By Julie Turner

Art in Action: Noah Brock -- Art and Rummage Sale for Sister Care

Jasper June 14, 2012

Whether we’ve had to fulfill requirements for an honor society, pad a resume, or to try to convince the world that the Greek system is something other than a primal dating industry, most of today’s twenty-somethings have had some experience with volunteer work. The catch is, well, that there’s typically a catch. We pervert altruism into a self-serving mode of academic, professional, and/or social advancement. In short, we’re in it for the commemorative t-shirt.

Thankfully, this generalization doesn’t always hold water. Case and point: Noah Brock. This local musician admits that “there is little to no glamour in [his] life.” He lives modestly with his wife and puggle (a pug/beagle mix) in a rented house behind a fire extinguisher refilling plant. Though Noah disagrees, he’s done something rather noteworthy; he has organized an Art Show and Rummage Sale to raise money for and awareness of Sister Care, a local charity organization benefitting women and children who have fallen victim to domestic abuse. Sadly, the question that comes to mind is: why? What motivated Noah to organize such an event? When I asked him, he responded with a refreshingly candid, “I can’t really say.” To me, this inability or unwillingness to rationalize his charity reveals an unadulterated innocence of intention. He’s not in it for self-flattery or politics; he quite simply wants to use Columbia’s vibrant arts community as a vehicle to fundraise and promote “a great charity that is sometimes overlooked.”

Noah’s fundraiser is to take place this Saturday (6/16) from 10 am to 5 pm at Conundrum Music Hall (626 Meeting St., West Columbia). The event will include: live acoustic music from Alderman Douglas, Hope Clayton Cullum, Marv Ward, and The Dubber; a raffle ($2 per ticket) featuring prizes from local West Columbia businesses Bug Outfitters, Sun Spirit Yoga, and Scratch and Spin Records; beer and soda will be sold by Conundrum (no outside alcohol permitted), and KC Hot Dogs will be vending. Admission for this event is $3, and anyone interested in setting up a table or booth for the rummage sale can do so for $5. All proceeds from the door, table fees, and raffle tickets will go directly to Sister Care.

“There are certain things no one should ignore,” Noah told me. Battered women and children certainly fall into that category. So, too, do those folks like Noah who remind the rest of us to pay attention. So this Saturday, pay attention. Come to Conundrum, support a great local cause, and pay Noah a compliment he will likely dismiss.

-- Austin Blaze, intern, Jasper Magazine