JASPER'S TINY GALLERY: Amber Machado Explores Beauty and Pain in Nature and Her Own Body

“Painting is my outlet to unapologetically show my pain”

— Amber Machado

Amber Machado grew up in Lexington, South Carolina, surrounded by art and a love for it, with parents and siblings who made art and music. As the youngest, Machado grew up observing this love for creation regularly.  

“Truthfully, the thing that led me to art initially was wanting to be exactly like them,” Machado recalls. “My relationship with art has since evolved and become much more personal, but initially, art to me was like breathing air. I loved it, but it was so readily available that I took it for granted.”  

What finally made Machado appreciate what art meant to her was a 2018 Lupus diagnosis, which brought life to “a screeching halt.” Among days of confusion and pain, painting became a centering force and method of control. 

“This is when I fell in love with art. And I fell hard. Painting became my primary language, my center of gravity,” Machado intimates, “It’s ironic, because I associate the onset of my illness with so much loss, but at the same time it was a rebirth of sorts. I was born to be an artist. I know I wouldn’t have come to that realization without the onset of my disease.” 

The medium she gravitated to, and still utilizes today, is watercolor. Completely self-taught, she is a master of imitation, inspired once again by her dad and sister, and her creative journey now is indebted to “hours, and I mean HOURS of practice.”  

Machado also emphasizes that watercolor is a particularly convenient medium, especially for those easily discouraged and who desire something portable. The unique texture of watercolor and the way it bleeds and blends with the colors around it, makes it perfect for expressing the “dramatic mood” in her work. 

Ruth

“Moody, expressive landscapes and seascapes have always been my main focus. I’m greatly inspired by nature, and watercolor is the perfect medium to capture nature’s subtleties, drama, and unpredictability,” Machado explains, “I gravitate towards vibrant colors and add expressive markings to evoke an unpredictable, yet familiar atmosphere within each painting.” 

Machado has three main types of creating in which she produces these expressive scenes: she works from imagination, where she can transport herself anywhere; she works outdoors/on-site/en plein air where she can “paint what she sees and feels at that moment in time,” and she works around a particular theme, often inspired by travels upon finally returning home.  

Regardless, she does often move in one particular direction. 

“I tend to gravitate toward dark themes. Pain, loss, death, the things in life that you have absolutely no control over. I like to explore themes that make the average person a little uncomfortable. Landscapes serve as a great visual translation of this because nature is completely uncontrollable. It’s lethal,” Machado emphasizes, “On the other side of that, though, is a silent relentlessness. Nature takes beating after beating and constantly evolves. Trees are whipped by the wind and their physical forms change, but they don’t necessarily die. When I made this connection, I was able to make peace with my disease. Painting is my outlet to unapologetically show my pain.” 

When it came to Tiny Gallery, it seemed a natural fit as the 2.5 x 3.5-inch trading card paper her father gave her was Machado’s first canvas for her landscapes. These tiny new landscapes were all made for the show, and all have female names, which Machado asserts “just felt right.” All of the pieces encapsulate this balance of ethereal, untouchable beauty and the darkness and fear that vibrates around us, and Machado’s favorites in the show are Ruth, Seraphina, and Darling.

Darling

Before this gallery, Machado had shown her work at three Cottontown Art Crawls, which have been invaluable experiences for her. 

“In 2020, I participated in the Cottontown Art Crawl for the first time. Almost immediately after setting up, a total stranger came up and purchased a painting,” Machado reminisces, “She picked up a painting that I had actually considered not bringing, because I questioned if it was good enough. I felt like I was going to faint! Watching someone who doesn’t even know me willingly give me money for a painting was and still is one of the most wonderful moments of my entire life.” 

Machado will be bringing this energy into the new, unannounced series she has underway and the upcoming holiday markets at Curiosity Coffee Bar. To follow along, follow Machado’s Instagram @artistamachado, and check out her website. 

To view and purchase her Tiny Gallery pieces, go to Jasper’s virtual gallery space at any time:.

Steven White Premieres Original, Stark Pieces Ahead of Purple Xperience Show at Harbison Theatre

Are you looking to get your fill of great art and fantastic music back to back? Mark your calendars for September 2nd, 2022. Preceding the Purple Xperience performance at 7:30pm, The Jasper Project is proud to help present the opening night for Steven White’s new exhibition at Harbison Theatre. 

When planning out which artist to feature at Harbison, particularly alongside the new season, Jasper’s own Christina Xan knew that White would be a perfect choice. “I’ve been following Steven’s work since sometime during the pandemic when Cindi [Boiter] put him on my radar,” Xan said,. “His stark images that play and imprint in the viewer’s mind I thought would be perfect for this upcoming Harbison show. In fact, when Kristin [Cobb] reached out to me about selecting an artist, Steven was the first to come to mind.” 

White is often inclined to create images of cultural icons and immortalized figures. Considering how the Purple Xperience show is dedicated to celebrating the cultural impact of Prince’s legacy, the juxtaposition of the two shows makes perfect sense. 

White’s latest body of work explores the presence of negative space in a work of art, and how those spaces can be manipulated into something bigger. “What draws me to a piece painted with the use of negative and positive space is the strange possibility that you will be able to see things that aren’t there,” White said, “The space in question, which is the area of shared edges, engages the viewer in an unexpected and fun way. I like the fact that it’s interactive.” 

White emphasizes the mysteries and intrigue that present themselves throughout his artist statement and masterfully captures everything he aims to. White stated, “I hope that many viewers of my work will begin to see that the positive and negative can come together in many ways to bring balance to a composition.” This eye-bending technique of White’s works excellently to keep the viewer engaged with his work, looking from corner to corner for something they may have missed, causing them to want to come back for seconds.  

The amount of conversation between the Prince show and the opening of White’s exhibition is truly up to the viewer themself. This particular body of work did not come to fruition specifically for the Purple Xperience opening; it just so happened that there was plenty of natural conversation to garner between the two. 

“I will let other people decide if my body of work is in conversation. I consider my participation in the Purple Xperience Tribute Show to be a fortuitous event,” White said, “Sometimes a bit of luck comes your way when you put your work out there.” White emphasizes how important viewer reception and opinion are to him, and hopes that everyone who views his art leaves with new thoughts and perceptions of art to take with them. 

There will be an opening ceremony for White’s show prior to the Purple Xperience performance, at 7pm on September 2nd. White’s work will be up for viewing until the end of October. More info can be found on our event page.

Tonight! Meet the Artist - Michael Dwyer at Motor Supply - & read this essay by Catherine Walworth

Join Jasper and Michael Dwyer this evening in the bar at Motor Supply Co. Bistro to chat about and celebrate Dwyer’s new exhibit in the restaurant gallery. This is a casual affair with patrons gathering around the large communal table and at the bar, having dinner, drinks, and stimulating conversation with and about the work of one of Columbia’s most exciting contemporary artists.

Jasper and Dwyer will be arriving at 7.

To kick things off we present this lovely essay composed by a dear friend to Columbia, Catherine Walworth, Ph.D.

Painting is a visual language that speaks with its own rhythm, organizational syntax, and lyrical cadence. To look at Michael Dwyer’s paintings is to give yourself over to looking at colors and shapes and textures that exist playfully on the surface of a plane, yet in a seriously complicated way.

At first, one’s eye wants to track the upper layer of painted structures that bend and jerk like a conga line of conjoined dancers, and then you see how many layers and purposefully altered decisions went into the build-up of his paint below. Dwyer thinks of these strata as akin to the layering of instruments and the interweaving medley of sounds that happens over time in a piece of music.

Also like jazz, there is a tension between the sense of control and improvisation in Dwyer’s paintings. One can follow the jig across the painted surface, where bars of color bend and intersect, approach the limits of the painting’s edge only to stop short, or carry on into imagined elsewheres. Each bar is a different color, and in that bar are layers of past color choices, sometimes fighting to rise to the surface like a ghost, and other times anonymously adding layers of thickness to the final opaque color choice. This density and subtle quality of relief give the paintings an objectness, and asks the viewer to walk back and forth to take in little shadows, amplifying the sense of rhythm and movement.

Dwyer uses a palette knife to scrape and smooth paint, but also whatever is at hand. While he used to paint in a more organic, rounded, and gestural way with a brush, now he is a happy workman, troweling his bricks of color into built worlds. The paint layers in the background offer up clouds of color on which the hard-edged bars float in a colorful ether. As with Kazimir Malevich’s or Ellsworth Kelly’s geometric forms that hover on the painted surface, seeming to take a living breath, there is a sense of “being in the world” in Dwyer’s forms in space. They, too, feel as if they are hovering and jostling, announcing their impossible sentience.

Dwyer and I have at various times marveled over painting and how so many seemingly disparate parts could come together in a composition that teeters on the edge of falling apart during the making, only to have the artist stop when it seems inexplicably “right.” There is a resolution that cannot always be explained, particularly when there is no figurative subject matter to gauge, but the result is astounding, and each time the conditions of a painting’s “rightness” are excitingly different.

But then, Dwyer has been trained from childhood to recognize the fitness of compositions. His parents, both painters, raised him in a home in which modernism was the thing, and took him to museums as a natural practice. His paintings speak directly to so many of the artists’ styles that he has absorbed by faithful looking— Paul Klee, Brice Marden, Piet Mondrian, Elizabeth Murray, and Frank Stella, to name a few. Stuart Davis is close to home at this stage in Dwyer’s career. Like Davis who pronounced his direct connection with jazz, Dwyer comes back again and again to his love of music when describing his process, as well as his evangelical adherence to abstraction.

The Jasper Gallery at Motor Supply Co. Bistro Welcomes the Art of Mike Dwyer

Meet the Artist

Friday, July 15th @ 7 pm

in the Bistro Bar

BAD WORDS

2022
acrylic on panel
12 in. x 16 in.

In the Jasper Project’s continued efforts to facilitate the exhibition of the art of Midlands-based artists on Columbia’s public walls we welcome the work of Michael David Dwyer to Motor Supply Co. Bistro at 920 Gervais Street in Columbia’s historic Congaree Vista.

In his decades-spanning practice, Michael Dwyer has focused on making abstract paintings that place color front and center. His recent work deploys crisp-edged chunks of translucent color that meander, zigzag, or float through the composition. The paintings are improvisational structures that often reveal evidence of their evolution.

LEXIKON

2022
acrylic on panel
14 in. x 18 in.

Dwyer holds a BFA from Syracuse University and an MFA from the University of South Carolina. His work has been exhibited in Syracuse, Providence, and various cities in South Carolina. Most recently, Dwyer's work was included in the exhibition The Shape of Things at 701 Center for Contemporary Art.  

GHOST NOTES

2021
acrylic on panel
14 in. x 11 in.

Dwyer says, “As a kid, I was surrounded by modern art at home - mostly my father’s paintings. I loved visiting my dad's studio. I liked the spattered dishevelment, the smell of paint, and the paintings that I couldn't fully understand, but instinctively grasped, as the works came to life. I knew at an early age that making art was something I wanted to pursue.

“A sense of movement has been an important element in my work for many years. Earlier pieces often conveyed a feeling of forms drifting in space. Then there was a shift toward using linear compositions to create direction. I wanted your eye to move along a variety of paths and have experiences along the way. My paintings relate to movement, physically, but also as it exists in music. I also found from my earlier collage work that I like shapes in my paintings to have crisp, assertive edges, like those that came from using scissors. Pieces are sometimes informed by elements of our environment like billboards, architecture, and graffiti. Ultimately, I’m always chasing that transcendent moment where color, shape, and movement come together in a way that‘s thrilling and right.”

The Artist - Michael Dwyer

The show opens on Tuesday July 12th with an invitation to Meet the Artist on Friday, July 15th in the bistro bar at 7 pm.

Jasper Chats with May's First Thursday (slightly off Main) artist - Alex Ruskell

Attorney Alex Ruskell is the Jasper Project’s Featured Artist this month at Sound Bites Eatery.

His Art Show opened on First Thursday, May 5th and will run through the end of May.

Alex, thanks for sharing your work with Jasper at Sound Bites Eatery throughout the month of May. Is visual art a new endeavor for you? We know you more as a musician and member of the eclectic musical group, The Merry Chevaliers. When and how did you get started creating visual art as well?

• I started painting during COVID lockdown – my friend, Lila McCullough, of Lila’s Happy Flowers, created Melrose Art in the Yard and asked me if I would like to do something for it.  Lila paints flowers on boards, so I thought I could do the same thing but with monsters and aliens.

How would you categorize your aesthetic and what other artists have inspired you?

• My favorite visual artists are Daniel Johnston, who is mainly known as an indie musician combatting severe mental illness, and Henry Darger, a custodian who wrote and illustrated a 15,145-page fantasy novel that was discovered after his death.  I do like the simplicity of their stuff, but I mainly love the spirit behind it.  There’s a kind of wonderful futility and love —these are guys that weren’t supported or encouraged and just did it anyway.  My buggy-eyed aliens are clearly based on Johnston’s frogs (famous from his “Hi, How are You?” mural in Austin, TX and a t-shirt that Kurt Cobain of Nirvana used to wear). I bought one of Johnston’s signed drawings right before he passed away, which I have up in my office.

Can you talk about your technique?

• I used to collect comic books, so when I was trying to figure out how to paint, I lifted whatever my technique might be from how comic books are made.  In comic books, there’s usually a penciller who draws the art, an inker who inks the pencil in, and then a colorist who adds the colors.  I pencil, then I paint it in, then I go over the pencil lines with a paint pen.  It’s shocking the difference the paint pen makes.

You used unconventional material as canvasses in your Sound Bites show, such as fence posts and ceiling tiles – is this something you do regularly? 

• Yes – I initially got the idea from Lila, because she uses fenceposts and wood collected from the side of the road for her paintings.  But there are a few other reasons I like using recycled stuff – one, it’s cheap so I don’t have to charge much for paintings; two, I started out in environmental law way back when, so it fits with my idea of sustainability and recycling; and three, my favorite scene in any documentary is from It Might Get Loud, a guitar documentary about Jack White, the Edge, and Jimmy Page.  At the beginning, Jack White builds a “guitar” out of a board, string, nails, and a bottle and says, “Who says you need to buy a guitar?”  I love that sentiment.  A few weeks ago, I gave a talk for art day at Oak Pointe Elementary in Irmo to about 500 elementary school students.  I have no clue what the students’ socio-economic status is, but I figured if there is some kid who wants to make art and can’t afford much, I could show that kid you don’t really need much except the desire to do it and a little creativity.  I showed them paintings I had done on posts, ceiling tiles, and record covers (although they thought the record covers were books).  Although I use acrylic paint, I told them about Henry Neubig, who is a Louisiana artist who actually paints with mud.  I wanted them to get the idea that there is no real barrier to entry to making art, and I like my own paintings to reflect that a little.

You have unusually affordable price points for your art, too. Is this by design and, if so, can you speak to that please?

• My wife, Kerry Egan, is a writer and hospice chaplain.  She spreads good in the world with her books, ministry, comforting words, empathy, etc.  I am not smart enough for any of that, but I am pretty good at being goofy.  The $10-$20 price point is for the exact same reason we dress up as French noblemen and play songs like “Hot Moms” in my band, Les Merry Chevaliers.  For the band, I always imagine someone wandering into the Art Bar or someplace after a horrible day and seeing us onstage doing our nonsense and feeling like their burden is lifted a little.  My art pricing is in the same spirit  – people are so delighted when I say something is less than $20.  You can actually see a cloud pass sometimes.  Less than $20 is small enough to make people happy and large enough that I can take my wife out to Henry’s after a show without feeling guilty about it. 

Do you ever dabble in other mediums or are you interested in venturing into anything else?

• I have an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a Master’s in Creative Writing from Harvard that I have done absolutely nothing with – I’d like to fix that before I die.  I’ve got a finished novel about a lawyer with a unicorn horn stuck to his head, so we’ll see if anyone bites.

Where else can patrons find your work once your show at Sound Bites comes down at the end of May?

• I do Soda City every so often, and Melrose Heights Art in the Yard when we have it.  A Little Happy in Five Points sells stickers I have made of some of my stuff.  There is also a new store opening at the end of June called Lyons General Store on the corner of Rosewood and Assembly in Columbia.  They’re going to be selling t-shirts with some of my designs. Finally, I take requests – aruskell@gmail.com.

Thanks, Alex!

The Jasper Project Welcomes Lucy Bailey to the Tiny Gallery

Jasper is excited to welcome artist Lucy Bailey to the Jasper Project Tiny Gallery!

Lucy Bailey’s ceramic sculpture centers around the figure, with liberal use of layered textures and mixed media elements. Additional work explores combinations of ceramics and wood or wire, and earthenware altar boxes that create narratives through assemblages of found objects.

In 2021 one of her sculptures was exhibited at ArtFields in Lake City, SC. Her work was awarded the Best in Show distinction in exhibitions by the Annual Artist’s Guild of Spartanburg (SC) Juried Show and the Arts Council of York County (SC) Annual Juried Competition. Bailey’s work has twice been selected for the 701 Center for Contemporary Art’s South Carolina Biennial show. Her work was published in Lark Books’ 500 Figures in Clay-2.

With work ranging from $32 to $130 there is something for everyone to be found in this month’s Tiny Gallery. Check out a few items below and then venture of to Jasper’s Tiny Gallery to see the entire exhibition!

And while we have you, please consider supporting the Jasper Project tomorrow during Midlands Gives. Here’s a list of what Jasper has accomplished over the past twelve months!

You can find our Midlands Gives Donation Page right here! Thanks!

A Midlands Gives Message from Cindi & Wade -- The Jasper Project's State of the Heart

Thank you!

As we approach Midlands Gives next week and you make your decisions on where to invest your gifts, we’d like to report back to you on how the Jasper Project has used the tokens of your kindness since last year.

First and foremost, we have published two 64-page issues of Jasper Magazine and we have another issue in design now that will be in your hands in a matter of weeks.  These issues have reviewed, previewed, examined, explained, memorialized, and celebrated more than 100 of our Midlands-based artists. The issue coming your way will look at the art of Lindsay Radford, Quincy Pugh, Rebecca Horne, Lucy Bailey, Tyrone Geter, Diko Pekdemir-Lewis, Mike Miller, Jane Zenger, Josetra Baxter, Tamara Finkbeiner, Terri McCord, Juan Cruz, Saul Seibert, Rex Darling, Tam the Viibe, Desiree, Katera, Lang Owen, Hillmouse, Space Force, Candy Coffins, Admiral Radio, Carleen Maur, the mission of SCAC ED David Platts, and the international efforts of Columbian-founded dance organization, Artists for Africa.

We have published a dual volume of Fall Lines – a literary convergence, celebrating the prose and poetry of 60 SC writers, awarding the Broad River Prizes for Prose to Randy Spencer and Kasie Whitener and the Saluda River Prizes for Poetry to Angelo Geter and Lisa Hammond, while at the same time celebrating the photography of Crush Rush. And we have issued a call for Fall Lines 2022.

We have conceptualized and implemented a competition for the publication of a chapbook for a SC BIPOC writer in honor of Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer and the winner is being announced and celebrated as we speak. Board member Len Lawson brought us this beautiful idea and will edit the book which will be published this fall. 

We have implemented another issue of the Play Right Series, with new board member Jon Tuttle issuing a call for an original, unpublished one-act script, overseeing the adjudication, and selecting young playwright Colby Quick as the winner. Nine community producers have joined director Chad Henderson and his cast to learn more about the page to stage process for theatre arts, and we will invite you to join us for a staged reading of Moon Swallower in August. 

We have featured one artist per month in our virtual Tiny Gallery under the direction of board member Christina Xan, including artists whose work you know very well and artists whose work we think you’ll be happy to learn about including Gina Langston Brewer, Adam Corbett, Bohumila Augustinova, and more.

Because of the dedication of our amazing web maven and board member Bekah Rice, we have a website that is comprehensive, up-to-date, easy to maneuver, and quite lovely, if we do say so ourselves. Since last spring we have brought the good news of Columbia arts to you via more than 160 Online Jasper (previously blog) posts. And counting.

We threw a fabulous party to celebrate the 10th birthday of Jasper Magazine, and, with board member Laura Garner Hine’s incredible work, we welcomed more than 30 artists to demonstrate and celebrate their talents.

We have shown art for Columbia artists at Jasper Galleries that include Harbison Theatre, Motor Supply, also under the management of Laura Garner Hine, and our sidewalk gallery at the Meridian building conceptualized and realized by board member Bert Easter.

We have included the work of 25 (and counting) brilliant SC writers under the auspices of the Jasper Writes project, implemented in conjunction with Jasper poetry editor, Ed Madden. 

We have helped a new non-profit spread its wings by serving as the fiscal agent to Columbia (Summer) Repertory Dance Company, which is now its own entity. Bye bye little birdie! 

We have launched several new projects including:

• A new weekly music column by Kevin Oliver called THE BEAT;

• First Thursday featured artist exhibitions at Sound Bites Eatery – with artists including Marius Valdes, Ginny Merritt, and Quincy Pugh lined up for the next few months, and Alex Ruskell showing his work in May;

• The monthly Jasper Poetry Salon hosted by Al Black at the One Columbia Co-Op;

• Another monthly singer/songwriter happening called Front Porch Swing, also by Al Black, also at the One Columbia Co-Op.

• Last Thanksgiving, we launched a weekly newsletter called Sundays with Jasper that keeps the community up-to-date on Jasper news and arts happenings in general. You can sign up for Sundays with Jasper here.

Of course, none of this could have been done without the support of our community and your recognition of the vital role grassroots arts organizations play in the landscape of an arts community.

We continue to vow to you that every penny that comes the way of the Jasper Project will go directly back into the greater Midlands area arts community as we keep our overhead close to zero, save for insurance and rent (when we have a brick-and-mortar home.) None of your generous funding goes to payroll, taxes, or nice desks and chairs. We work from our homes and from our hearts.

It's worked this way for 10 ½ years. We’re keeping at it as long as you let us.

Thank you for your continued support.

Cindi Boiter, Wade Sellers, and the entire board of the Jasper Project and staff of Jasper Magazine

Jasper Talks with Valerie Lamott About Transforming Nature into Wearable Art

That is my intent—to tell a story of a place or an activity outdoors. Everyone has an emotional connection to some place and the memories are a big part of this for me – Lamott

As we move into the spring, we start to see changes in the natural world around us. Particularly attune to these changes is Valerie Lamott, a local artist and jeweler who travels across state and national parks, becoming intimately familiar with nature, and transforming standout images and experiences into jewelry. 

For her Tiny Gallery show, Lamott crafted 17 new pendants from recent trips to SC State Parks. Learn more about her process and inspiration below.

JASPER: Tell me a bit about yourself and where you grew up.  

 LAMOTT: I grew up in Northwest Indiana. It’s a very unique place that’s hard to describe. I learned to drive a tractor at my after-school job picking pumpkins on a farm and then my friends and I would hop on the train to downtown Chicago (only 30 miles away) to spend the money we earned there.

JASPER: That’s so fun! Did you begin working with art back then? 

LAMOTT: Art has always been a part of my life in the sense that I grew up with access to craft materials and was encouraged to use them. My mom taught me to sew as soon as I was big enough to reach the foot pedal (standing!). I could make whatever I wanted with whatever materials were available. And I did.

JASPER: Did you take that ‘playing around with mom’s sewing materials’ with you into your studies? 

LAMOTT: I have a Master of Engineering degree, and while most would say that is not an applicable education, I disagree. Engineers design and build things. My jewelry is something I design and build. I may not be solving differential equations anymore (yay!), but the basic design concepts are the same. I’ve also taken many informal arts classes, any class I can, really. It doesn’t need to be metalsmithing and jewelry—I’m down for a painting class or stained glass or sewing or printmaking or…I love it all.

JASPER: Inside of loving it all, you found a home in jewelry. How did that come about? 

LAMOTT: I had no intention of becoming a jeweler. My sister and I were both 20-something and living in Chicago when she found a jewelry class she wanted to take. I wasn’t really interested, but she’s my sister, so I agreed to go. She thought it’d be beading or something, but it was torches and hammers and saws. She quit after the first class. 10 years later it’s my job.

JASPER: Ha, I love that! Now that you’ve been inundated in this for a while, how do you choose which materials you want to use? How do you source them? 

LAMOTT: You know those kids who have to pick up every pretty rock and are really annoying about learning about what kind it is and how it’s made and all that?  Some of us don’t grow out of it. Using gemstones was never a question in my work.  I love the metalwork, but once I learned to cut and polish gems there was no going back. I’ll source my rocks anywhere I legally can.  I buy a lot at gem shows, but I find a lot on the ground too.  I also find so many at National Parks and they all stay right where I found them because you don’t take things from National Parks.  If I can leave them there, you can too. Thematically, I think this idea of natural scenes really lends itself to metals and gemstones, as those metals and gems all come from Earth in the first place.

JASPER: Beyond using metals and gems, are there specific styles that you lean towards? 

LAMOTT: My style has changed dramatically over time, and I hope it continues to do so.  I’m always learning new techniques and bits of those will always find their way into my work. My work from 5 years ago absolutely makes me cringe now, and I hope today’s work makes me cringe in 5 years. I always want to be creating something new.

JASPER: Thinking about new and old, what kind of ideas or images usually find their way into your work? Has nature always been your primary inspiration? 

LAMOTT: I’ve always done “nature inspired” work, and I’ve always thought that’s so cliche. Who isn’t “inspired by nature”? So, I set out to see all of South Carolina’s state parks and find different inspiration within them. Instead of being inspired by nature in general, perhaps I could find inspiration in specific (natural) places. That snowballed into creating landscapes. For now, I’m sticking to state and national parks, partially because they give me a cohesive body of work, but mostly because I really like state and national parks and now I get to hang out in them and call it work!

JASPER: Tell me about how you create – what goes into the process of moving from idea to a piece of jewelry.

 LAMOTT: The majority of my design work is done on the trail. I’m starting to find myself taking photos with the intention of creating jewelry from them—if I step a little bit that way, that angle on the tree looks better. That kind of thing. For the inlay landscapes, I have a pretty concrete image in my mind, and that’s what I create. I do make some pieces from cabochons and their creation is far more fluid. I have a pile of rocks and some cut out hikers, mountains, trees, and whatnot on my bench and I move them around till something feels right. One thing that’s nice about metalsmithing is once it’s soldered, there’s not much changing it. It forces you to decide it’s done.

JASPER: What did you do for this show, particularly?  

LAMOTT: These pieces were made specifically for this show. I’ve had both the ideas of making some smaller pieces and doing a series based on Columbia in my mind, so when I was approached about this show it seemed like the perfect time to finally do both. These are my first smaller pieces and I’m absolutely thrilled with them. This size is here to stay for me.

JASPER:  You included images with the pendants in this show – is this typical for you? 

LAMOTT: I always show the images if I have them. I think the pendants stand alone as artwork just fine, but one of the comments I hear most is how my work “tells a story.”  And that is my intent—to tell a story of a place or an activity outdoors. Everyone has an emotional connection to some place and the memories are a big part of this for me.  That’s why I only work from my photographs. It’s about a connection with a place at that time.  I think showing my images along with the pendant helps to tell that story.

JASPER: Speaking of memories, do you have any standouts with your art career?  

LAMOTT: I have too many to list, but every single one involves my artist friends. It takes a special kind of person to decide they’re just going to throw up a tent and sell their work. It’s been a fun ride so far. Recently I won an award of distinction at the Fairhope Arts Festival and that absolutely made my day!!  That is a wonderful show filled with incredibly talented artists, and I’m honored to have won an award there.

JASPER: Well, what’s in the future for you? 

LAMOTT: Upcoming shows include Troyfest and Panoply in Alabama, Rockville Arts Festival in Maryland, Chastain Arts Festival in Atlanta, and Tephra Fine Arts Fair in Virginia.  I have a pretty full schedule this year and I’m traveling quite a bit, so perhaps it may be easier to catch me online. I try to update my Instagram (@valerielamottdesigns) daily, and I can email invoices for anything I post on there.

Lamott’s show will be up until April 30th, and you can peruse her stories and purchase one for yourself 24/7 via Jasper’s virtual gallery: https://the-jasper-project.square.site/tiny-gallery

CANDACE THIBEAULT Opens New Show at Jasper Gallery at MOTOR SUPPLY

The Jasper Galleries at Motor Supply Company’s newest show, featuring South Carolina native Candace Cotterman Thibeault, opens this week.

 Candace grew up in Gilbert, South Carolina. Her interest in art began at an early age and progressed through high school and into college. Candace graduated from Capital University (Columbus, OH) with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, and degrees in Public Relations and Art Therapy. Upon graduating college in 2003, she relocated to Boston, MA, to begin her professional career. She found herself working as a paralegal and a part time gallery assistant.

 In 2004, Candace purchased an art gallery and custom frame shop, while continuing her painting career. Candace found herself working on projects with pharmaceutical companies, architectural firms, local universities, and restaurants, where she was responsible for matching interior design with fine art pieces. In 2009, Candace began working on a series of contemporary mixed media paintings that would gain visual recognition. Her work began to show in art galleries and at Universities throughout New England and was featured in several online and hard copy publications. In 2015, Candace relocated to South Carolina with her husband and daughter and has been focusing more attention on her fine art. She spends most of her time teaching and painting from her home studio in Gilbert, SC.

In addition to her fine art endeavors, Candace has spent time working as an artist-in-residence, aiding in creating art curriculum for adolescents in alternative schools. She has worked on independent projects such as the Ohio Bicentennial, jewelry lines featured in Charlotte Magazines 'best gifts' holiday spread and has served as juror for several university art shows in New England. 

Candace's work has been featured in Art New England Magazine, Art Scope Magazine (Boston, Ma), and Charlotte Magazine (Charlotte, NC). Her work has been featured at Imago Gallery (Warren, RI), Bristol Art Museum, Bridgewater State University (Bridgewater, MA), Bromfield Gallery (Boston), 701 Whaley (Columbia, SC), Duxbury Art Association, Motor Supply (Columbia, SC), Koger Center for the Arts (Columbia, SC), Anastasia & Friends (Columbia, SC) and Moxie Frame (Hartsville, SC). 

The opening reception for Candace’s show will be held at Motor Supply Co. this Friday, March 11th at 6:30pm at the back table of the restaurant.

NEW WORK in the Windows at the Meridian Building's Jasper Galleries

Another of our Jasper Galleries that Never Sleep

the Sidewalk Jasper Gallery at the Meridian Building

Virginia Scotchie

Under the direction of Jasper Project board member Bert Easter, the Jasper Project is showing more art than ever before in the windows of our Jasper Gallery at the Meridian Building in downtown Columbia. Located a half block off Main Street on the corners of Washington and Sumter, our gallery that never sleeps is packed with art from Virginia Scotchie, a number of artists from the Scotchie Studio, including Robert DeLyon, Patrick Burke, and more.

Kat West

Virginia Scotchie

Virginia Scotchie

Landscape artist Emily Ward has also brought us seven new paintings.

Emily Ward

For more information on purchasing work from the Jasper Gallery at the Meridian or showing your own work, please contact us at info@jasperproject.org.

Psssst …! Are you interested in getting involved in the work of the Jasper Project? We’re looking for new friends, guild members, and board members and we’re betting you have something we’re looking for!

We’d love to welcome you to the Jasper family.

Learn about all the possibilities here!

Join Jasper Galleries Featured Artist Pam Bowers at Motor Supply During Vista Lights

Join Jasper Galleries Featured Artist

Pam Bowers

for an intimate Meet the Artist event

Thursday Night from 6 - 9

at Motor Supply Bistro

920 Gervais Street

Jasper Galleries presents Pam Bowers at Motor Supply

The Jasper Project is delighted to welcome the work of renown visual artist Pamela Bowers to the Jasper Galleries space at Motor Supply in Columbia’s historic Vista.

A Chicago native, for the past 20 years Pam Bowers has divided her time between in Columbia, South Carolina, the Umbrian hill town she calls her second home, and her world wide wide travels.

She has exhibited her work internationally at venues that include the Guilin Academy of Chinese Painting in China, the University of Fine Arts in Budapest, numerous venues in Italy, University of Newcastle in Australia, and the Ecole Nationale in Rabat, Morocco.

Nationally she has exhibited at the Bowery Gallery, New York, Blue Mountain Gallery New York, ARC and WMG galleries in Chicago, and many other university or museum venues including the the State Museum of South Carolina, City Gallery at Waterfront Park In Charleston, the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and St. Mary's College of Notre Dame among others.

This is one of the first solo exhibits of her work in Columbia for many years.

Pam has lectured on her work and conducted numerous workshops both here and abroad. Her work is represented in numerous public and private collections. Additional works can be seen at pamjbowers.com.

About this exhibition and her work, in general, the artist says:

The work in this exhibition spans decades of my career as a painter and my life as an artist. As a kind of lifelong travel journal, these works express my passion for color and materials while reflecting my personal stories and imaginative musings on nature. Mine is a playful but serious practice rooted in the experience of the senses. I often paint directly from life outdoors; celebrating its elemental beauty through observation––watching the play of light across a flower, the flow of water over rocks, a storm at sea or the subtle movements of animals. I then bring these perceptual works into my studio where they inspire more elaborate pieces that allow for layers of imagination, meaning, and metaphor. Through a process of free association I enter into an almost sacred feeling, intimate kind of mental space within my psyche.  In this, I create works that speak to the experiences, emotions and thoughts present in my life’s journey.. In pursuit of this inspiration I have travelled widely working and exhibiting in many enchanting places across the globe. However, the watery Southeastern coastal areas remain closest to my heart. My studio in the woodlands between Columbia and the coast serves as basecamp for many adventures and excursions to explore our beautiful landscapes’ flora and fauna both here and beyond. I hope you enjoy this show.

The Jasper Project

will host a

Meet the Artist Evening

in the Motor Supply Bar on

Thursday, November 18th from 6 - 9pm

during Vista Lights.

Please come by, say hello to Pam, pick up the newest copy of Jasper Magazine, and have a drink or dinner at Motor!

Closing Reception for Nikolai Oskolkov's Art Exhibit at Motor Supply

Thursday, October 28th at 5 pm

Motor Supply

Friends and Patrons! Come out to Motor Supply restaurant downtown Columbia upcoming Thursday for an informal drop-in closing and art sale...meet the artist, order a drink or two from the bar and check out a large selection of NikO Art currently on display...Blessings and Inspiration to all and see y'all soon!

As Niko has returned from a recent trip to his homeland he has this to say:

“The recent trip to Russia is as always nostalgic, which is an emotion that is very dear to me.. .it is where my roots are, memories of childhood, when life is naturally brighter, more colorful, happier, so its always very healthy to revisit...the nature and people there are very close to the heart, even though Carolina has always been a great home, with many loving caring people who love art and music and allow artists a practical opportunity to develop and express themselves in any way they see fit for themselves...”

About this exhibition of his work at Motor Supply:

“The show is passively thematic...meaning it has a fairly benign focus on landscapes and scenes of our South Carolina, and the place that enchants me quite a lot...Venice...I am absolutely in love with Venice and love to revisit it through painting so I can possess it with sight and touch...so I can extend my time there...The advantages of a restaurant setting is of course the traffic of new fans and potential patrons is more regular, and that it doesn't have to be anyone looking for fine art in particular, so they can be surprised and truly inspired, instead of looking for inspiration or art intentionally, and feeling unsophisticated or inadequate when visiting an often exclusive, lofty commercial fine art galleries...I believe art is for EVERYONE...”

Jasper Galleries Welcomes Nikolai Oskolkov to Motor Supply Company

Nikolai Oskolkov (NikO) is a painter and musician based in Columbia, SC. He graduated from University of South Carolina in 2006 and has been active in the local art scene for the past 15 years.

A seasoned traveler, NikO chooses subjects that are reflections of personal experiences ranging from Southern landscape and dreamy scenes of Venice to portrait figures and surrealism.

Rich, natural colors in oil invite the viewer to familiar and distant places.

Lately NikO has been exploring the concept of commission artwork and is most eager to engage in a wide range of projects

The show will run until mid-October.

Jasper Galleries Presents New Gallery Space at McDonnell & Associates with Exhibition By Lauren Chapman and Pam Bowers

The exhibition opens on Thursday, June 24th

reception from 6 - 8 pm

McDonnell and Associates

2442 Devine Street - Columbia

The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Lauren Chapman and Pam Bowers

The Jasper Project is excited to announce a new gallery space for local artists at McDonnell and Associates law firm, 2442 Devine Street, in Columbia. We’ll be opening the gallery with an exhibition of work by Lauren Chapman and Pam Bowers. Reception is Thursday night (TONIGHT!) from 6-8 pm.

This collaboration with McDonnell and Associates came about when the organization reached out to Jasper and asked if we could help them find artists who would exhibit their work in the law office lobby and conference rooms. Of course, Jasper jumped at the opportunity to help fine art make its way into the homes of art lovers and we immediately booked Lauren Chapman, who we had previously worked with in our gallery at Motor Supply, and Pam Bowers, who previously taught Chapman at the University of SC.

The women’s relationship began as that of mentor and protege but developed into a close collegial friendship.

A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Chapman received her BFA in Painting at the University of South Carolina and has been awarded the Scholastic Art & Writing Gold Key Award for excellence in Visual Arts, the Yaghjian Studio arts scholarship at USC, and the 2018 Artfields Solo Award Exhibition at Jones-Carter Gallery. She has been featured in Garnet and Black, Daily Gamecocks, The State, Free Times, Susie Magazine, and Jasper Magazine. She has lectured for classes at USC, SC State University, and spent a summer residency in Monte Castello, Italy. Exhibitions include group shows in Italy, New York, South Carolina and solo shows in Iowa and South Carolina. 

Chapman says, “I create immersive environments via vibrant thick textured romantic paintings telling short stories, in the forms of fables, folklore, and fairy tales challenging our current cultural climate through the eyes of feminine figures and personified creatures. The narrative of the work promote lessons from my personal experiences and question dangerous themes within American society.”

Artist - Lauren Chapman

Bowers, who earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Indiana University-Bloomington, has a distinguished career as an artist and an educator that has taken her all over the world for lectures, residencies, unique academic opportunities, and pleasure, including China, Hungary, and throughout Italy. Her work is in many private collections both in the US and internationally from Morocco to Greece.

According to her artist’s statement, “Bowers work explores nature as a connecting force in the intersection of art, science and mythology and express her affection for the wilderness and biological forms. There is an emphasis in her work, teaching and research on the interrelationship between environment, culture and individual material usage in the formation of visual meaning and metaphor.”

Artist - Pam Bowers

The Jasper Galleries at Meridian Features Timely Portrait Exhibit on Race and Authenticity

Since 2019, the Jasper Project has been showing art in the external gallery spaces of the Meridian Building in downtown Columbia as well as in the building's lobby. In one of the first major exhibits since the start of COVID-19, the gallery is presenting a timely and poignant portrait show by Dalvin Spann and Lee Ann Kornegay.

The show features a collection of black and white portraits of everyday people in various poses and places. Aptly titled Black and White, the show “came out of a desire to gain and promote a better understanding of people of different color,” the Artist Statement says.  

Spann, a black 36-year-old photographer, and Kornegay, a white 57-year-old filmmaker and photographer, together “envisioned it as a project that would challenge themselves, then ultimately viewers of their work, to learn new things about their subjects and talk about what it feels like to be black or white in the current times.”  

Each photographer agreed to photograph people of a different color.  

“The goal was to step outside of our comfort zones and shoot outside of our race. We wanted to spark change and conversation in all walks of life,” Spann reflects, “This was important then and now more important than ever with what we are seeing socially around the world.”

These portraits show people as themselves, as human beings. Through dance, sport, or a simple smile, the subjects of these photos express themselves authentically. The portraits present not just a reflection of the subject but a reflection of the witness.

“I think if we take the time to talk to people without stereotyping or having a classism approach, we would be further along in changing the world we live in,” Spann asserts, “It is important that we first look in the mirror at ourselves and accept the things we were misinformed about or taught to ensure we do not repeat the cycle again.”

The photos are set up throughout the window that lines Washington Street.

In addition to the portrait exhibit, Bert Easter, Jasper board member and manager of the gallery, has refreshed the space by adding a couple new UofSC student pieces and an extraordinary pottery piece by Virginia Scotchie as well as moving a few current pieces around to give a fresh look.

The Jasper Galleries at Meridian is located at 1320 Main Street, and interested individuals can drop in or drive by Washington and Sumter Streets to see the art.

With a message ever so important in today’s world, the show aims to say that regardless of race, we can never move forward with successful and positive race relationships until we get to know each other, share fears and joys alike, and have authentic relationships. 

“We produced Black and White in 2017 to create a vehicle for meaningful conversations between blacks and whites in our community,” Kornegay shares, “A way to get to know each other in a deeper way and to prompt dialogues of understanding.

-by Christina Xan

An Interview with Board Member Bert Easter on the Jasper Project Galleries at Meridian

With the Street Gallery concept, the public can visit the Jasper Project Galleries windows and not have virus concerns.  Viewing artwork at these windows can be done safely from the sidewalk; someone could even drive by and take a peek at the artworks from their car. 

-Bert Easter

Board Member, The Jasper Project

Bert Easter - courtesy of Ed Madden

Last April, The Jasper Project opened a new gallery in a prominent downtown Columbia building. Though the Meridian Building opened its doors in 2004, it was built from the facade of the 19th century Consolidated Building. This coalescence of elements externally can also be found internally, through the art featured in the lobby and the display windows that line Sumter and Washington Streets.

courtesy Historic Columbia

I was able to chat with fellow board member Bert Easter, who started and organized the gallery, about what this first year has been like, what artists are currently being featured, and how the public can interact with this significant space and the art within it.

JASPER: It’s been just over a year now that you’ve been working on the Meridian. How has it been?

EASTER: I really have had great luck with the Meridian hosting and being very helpful with my little idea.  It’s actually been a lot of fun, and some work, pulling together artwork to offer in downtown Columbia. And we have been very lucky to develop a partnership with Virginia Scotchie of USC to show student work alongside her artwork.

JASPER: What made you first walk past this building and think, “This is the place for a gallery”?

EASTER: I saw the windows as a missed opportunity for both the city and the arts community.  When I approached the Meridian, I was pleased that they were excited with this idea and even offered the additional space of the grand lobby area to be opened up for local artists. 

JASPER: Did you have any specific goals for it then?

EASTER: I hoped then, and now, that at the Meridian we would have business folks who might see, connect with, and purchase local art.

JASPER: With such a great pool of artists in Columbia, how do you select artists to meet the gallery’s goals?

EASTER: Thus far I have contacted the artists and helped select artwork that I hope works well and complements the other artists’ work.  I try to also have a few pieces that challenge the traditional ideas of artwork – to offer abstract paintings or a brutalist sculpture or a pottery vase that you would never use for flowers.   

JASPER: Have you had any highlights in this journey of merging art styles and voices?

EASTER: Pulling together Assemblages by Susan Lenz, with plastic assembled work by Kirkland Smith, alongside found metal items sculptured by Andy White was one of my favorite window displays show in our first show.  I have also enjoyed showing pottery by Paul Moore with carved palmettos on the side of the vases placed by landscape paintings.  

JASPER: Well other than great art, what should people expect when going to the gallery?

EASTER: The windows are just like storefront windows for a department store.  They are lighted at night, and I actually tell folks that the windows look better at night from the street and sidewalk.  The lovely Main Street lobby is limited to weekday business hours (8-6) due to the security concerns of the Meridian. Currently, once you enter through the revolving doors on Main, you’ll find pottery on pedestals by Virginia Scotchie and USC students and paintings on canvas by Nikolai K Oskolkov.

 JASPER: Has COVID-19 impacted the way people visit the gallery?

EASTER: With the Street Gallery concept, the public can visit the Jasper Project Galleries windows and not have virus concerns.  Viewing artwork at these windows can be done safely from the sidewalk; someone could even drive by and take a peek at the artworks from their car. 

JASPER: You mentioned it briefly before, but if people want to stop in or drive by, what artists can they expect to find currently? And how long will the current artists be up?

EASTER: The current show has 10 different artists being offered with a large collection of paintings by Nikolai Oskolkov in each of the 3 galleries on this block. We have been switching out artwork every 3 months so that we would have 4 shows each year.  When the virus hit, we stopped, and the current show has been left up, but I plan to switch out the artwork after the virus is less of a concern. This show includes art by Nikolai K Oskolkov, Bohumila Augustinova, Michael Krajewski, Eileen Blyth, Virginia Scotchie, and USC students from the School of Visual Art and Design. 

JASPER: What should people do if they see one of these pieces of art and fall in love with it?

EASTER: The signage will provide the cost of the artwork and my cell number where folks are able to ask any questions, arrange for me to come to the Meridian and meet with them, or to arrange purchase of the artwork. As far as pricing, we have offered original artwork starting with prices at $200 and going up to $2,500.  

JASPER: Well, to round all this out, tell me: Columbia is a city full of artists & galleries — what makes the gallery at the Meridian special?

EASTER: We have established this partnership with the Meridian to offer artwork outside the gallery setting to bring local artworks to the people who might not visit galleries with the intention of purchasing artwork – in a hope that downtown folks might see, connect, and enjoy art by local working artists.  We think that the display window setting might allow someone just headed out to a meeting, dinner, or a local church service to view artwork in downtown Columbia.

The Jasper Galleries at Meridian is located at 1320 Main Street. If you’re feeling cooped up at home and want to feel inspired, take a drive down Washington or Sumter Street and see the selection of artists that Property Manager Amy Reeves stated “brought life to our windows”, and maybe even take a piece home to keep you company.

 -Christina Xan

Christina Xan is a writer, a doctoral student at the University of SC, and a member of the board of directors of the Jasper Project where she manages the Tiny Art Gallery Project.

The Jasper Project operates public space galleries at Harbison Theatre, Motor Supply Company Bistro, and the Meridian Building in downtown Columbia. If you’re interested in developing a gallery area in your public space, or you’d like to exhibit your art, please contact Laura Garner Hine, Bert Easter, Christina Xan, Cindi Boiter, or Wade Sellers.

To support the work of Jasper, including articles like the one above,

please consider becoming a member of the Jasper Guild at www.JasperProject.org

Jasper Project Galleries Adds New Location at Motor Supply Company - Curated by Laura Garner Hine

The Jasper Project is pleased to add Motor Supply Company Bistro in Columbia’s historic Vista to our growing list of Jasper Project Galleries, including Harbison Theatre Gallery and the Meridien Building Sreetside Galleries (curated by Bert Easter) at Washington and Sumter Streets in downtown Columbia.

Jasper Project board member and Jasper Magazine visual arts editor Laura Garner Hine will be curating the series for the Jasper Project and is opening the series with a selection of her own work beginning this week.

Below, please find an excerpt from a story featuring Hine written in 2019 for Jasper Magazine by Christina Xan.

Laura Garner Hine

Though many people struggle to decide on a career path, Hine knew she was going to be an artist for as long as she can remember. “It's my strongest sense,” Hine says, “There was never a question, my whole life.” 

Hine started seriously studying art as soon as she became cognizant of her choice to commit to it. Upon graduating high school, when she got a scholarship for USC, she knew immediately she was going major in art studio. “I didn't know what I was going to focus on yet,” she recalls, “but eventually it became oil painting. You can make it so many different things.”

Hine is indebted in large part to her mentor, Pam Bowers. She remembers her and Bowers harvesting dirt from which they would make their own paints: “I felt like I was doing alchemy,” she said. This is when she ended up minoring in art history.

After Hine graduated, she studied abroad in the Netherlands. While there, she heard of a conservation course happening in Maastricht, and she decided to go – a decision that would change her life. Hine reflects on her first experience with conservation: “It was the marriage, to me, of all the things that I'd loved: art history, that alchemy, and the science behind art.”

Although this trip was the first time Hine had experienced conservation hands on, she believes she was always meant to conserve art. She remarks that, “I think I'm in the business of seeing. Everybody has the capacity to look, but there's merit and thought behind really seeing. It's kind of a fantastical thing.”

Hine believes her relationship to seeing beyond the surface of an image or object is really what led her to first her path as an artist and then her job as a restorator, a process she is incredibly lucky to be a part of: “It's quite meditative,” she ponders, “I think it transcends you into this moment of this dissolving of perception, and you become one with it.”

The process of conserving and restoring art is a multistep process, and it’s not formulaic. However, there is a system to work through. First, Hine has to do research, find out what the materials are and what they're sensitive to. After preliminary research, Hine begins testing to deduce what would be safest to use on the art piece. Grime or dirt can be removed with something as simple as distilled water to something as damaging as toluenes, but Hine avoids using anything toxic unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Sometimes, though, the painting is further compromised. If there is a tear or severe damage, Hine must remedy that first. These losses need to be fixed by covering cracks and shaping areas that have lost texture. Last, it’s time to color correct, which is where “the fun starts” for Hine and where her jobs as artist and restorator most closely overlap. When just a little color is missing, she looks at the surrounding area and mimics, but if something major like a face is missing, then she has to do more detailed research to create an impression as close to the original as possible. From start to finish, on average, it takes Hine around 8 hours to restore a painting.

Hine worked at the CMA as an Assistant Preparator for two years, but now she works full time for Carolina Conservation. For her, restoring art is just as intimate as creating it: “I want to hear the paintings talk to me. I want to know what they've seen. I'm a firm believer that energy never dies. People always come back through the ethers.” This conversing is one aspect that strongly connects Hine’s restoration and personal creation.

Hine laughs when trying to pin point herself as an artist, claiming people will go into a show of hers and think the art is from multiple different artists. One continual tether Hine has with her art, however, is her sensitivity and how once something has touched her, she has no choice but to create in inspiration of it. “My inspiration can be pretty; it can be grotesque,” she muses, “Any moment that arrests you, whether it's disgust or awe, I like those moments.”

While she might feel all over the place as an artist, she feels a strong importance in her work: “I think that what really inspires me is how people are inspired by me. I feel that anybody I meet likes to listen to my story, and I like to listen to their story.”

-Christina Xan

Motor Supply Company Bistro is located at 920 Gervais Street in Columbia, SC’s historic Vista

Find out more about Motor Supply at

www.motorsupplycobistro.com

To support the work of Jasper, including articles like the one above, please consider becoming a member of the Jasper Guild at www.JasperProject.org

Jasper Project and Harbison Theatre at MTC Bring Art Exhibitions to Lobby Gallery

Artist - MTC Graduate Anthony Lewis

In an exciting partnership with Harbison Theatre at Midlands Technical College, Jasper is pleased to announce a series of art exhibitions in the Harbison Theatre lobby’s gallery space.

Last year, the Jasper Project worked with Harbison Theatre to exhibit several shows, beginning with Camden native and retired educator Keith Tolen’s work. Having enjoyed the collaboration so much we have developed a full season of exhibitions for the 2019-2020 art season, which started with the installation of the Supper Table in early September and runs through summer 2020.

Beginning with the continued exhibition of Kirkland Smith’s Supper Table Portraits, which will remain on display until early November, we follow up with an exhibition by photographer Kathryn Van Aernum titled Common Ground.

A Young Sara Leverette by Kirkland Smith

Van Aernum’s photographic subjects range from the mundane to the sublime, and she continues to cultivate a sense of spaciousness, curiosity, humor and wonder in her work  through the exploration of themes such as Reclamation; Ubiquity (her CocaCola® series); and Common Ground. While photography is her main medium, she is also an accomplished watercolorist, mixed media and book artist. She teaches classes in photography, creative process, watercolor, and journal making. Her work has appeared in juried competitions, and 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. Most recently, she was one of 19 Columbia artists whose work was juried into ArtFields 2019. Find her on the web at KvanaStudios.com KathrynVanAernum.com.

About This show Van Aernum says, “Most of the images in Common Ground were gathered on my morning and evening walks with my dog Noah. I live in Midlands Terrace in Columbia, but he and I will frequently hop in the car and walk in other neighborhoods for a change of scenery. There are a few photos from other SC locations, and a 2018 trip to Greece. Living in a city, man-made surfaces are the predominant element I come in contact with. With no sandy beaches, mountains, or vast vistas for inspiration, I often look down to the ground. As I allowed pavement, asphalt, cobblestones and concrete to become my muses, abstract “paintings” created by the interaction of time, weather, earth and humans began to reveal themselves. All the artificial terrains portrayed have one thing in common: to facilitate human flow and interaction. What I hope to offer here is a surprising, whimsical, striking, and maybe even beautiful meditation on the surfaces we share in common.”

Jasper and Harbison Theatre will celebrate the opening of Van Aernum’s exhibit on Friday, November 15th at 6 pm in conjunction with a stellar performance by Motown Superstar Thelma Houston. (Reception – free; Concert tickets at harbisontheatre.org.)

Artist Kathryn Van Aernum from the Common Ground collection

Following the Van Aernum exhibition, acclaimed artist Stephen Chesley’s art will be exhibited in January and February 2020, with an opening reception on January 24th, 2020 at 6 pm in conjunction with a performance by Akintunde and Joey I.L.O.

Stephen Chesley was born in Schenectady, New York in 1952. He exhibited a natural proclivity for drawing and art almost as soon as he could hold pastel and pencil which were often Christmas gifts from his family. Growing up in Virginia Beach in the late 1950s he was exposed to the Beat Generation of musicians, artists, and writers when Virginia Beach was still a seasonal seaside resort. Self motivated, he continued with his drawing and small paintings along with exposure to local artists throughout elementary and high school and into college. His collegiate exposure led to a meld of art and science with degrees in Urban Studies and a Masters Degree in Urban Planning in 1980 from the school of Architecture at Clemson University. Graduating in a deep national economic recession Chesley turned back to his art. Spending 5 years on rivers and sea islands to explore his asthetic, subject matter, influential painters, and styles, Chesley’s paintings and art work began to move to the foreground. Recognized in 1981 by the Columbia Museum of Art as an emerging talent, he went on to win top 100 in the first National Parks competition of 1987, exhibiting at the Smithsonian, and in 1996 a National Endowment for the Arts, Southeast Regional Fellowship, Southeast Center for Contemporary Art. Chesley has continued his work, characterized as poetic realism, along with welded and carved sculptural pieces in addition to joint works illustrating Archibald Rutledge short stories and WS Merwin’s poem, ”Palm” for the Thomas Cooper Society’s Thomas Cooper Medal for WS Merwin in 2012.

Stephen Chesley

Arts photographer Kevin Kyzer will exhibit in March and April, 2020 with an opening reception on March 21st, 2020 in conjunction with the wildly popular MTC Show-Off.

Artist Kevin Kyzer’s photo of dancers Claire Richards Rapp and Bonnie Boiter-Jolley

Anthony Lewis is an emerging self-taught visual artist and a resident of Columbia, South Carolina. Anthony was born in raised in Camden, NJ.  The owner of Alewisproject,LLC, Lewis will exhibit in May and June 2020.

Anthony Lewis

And closing out the season we will be featuring Ginny Merett. Ginny currently uses collage techniques to create portraits and figurative works of art that are best described as a mix of surrealism and whimsy. Ginny’s work has won several awards and accolades. She is the cover and featured artist in The Jasper Magazine Spring 2019 edition; and received First Place and Second Place Awards at the Rosewood Art and Music Festival, Best in Show at Time for Art sponsored by the Jasper Project; and participated in Women Speak Art Gallery at SC State Library 2017, Artfields 2019, and numerous other exhibits.

Women in Hats by Ginny Merett

Information on artists talks and additional opening receptions are TBD. Stay tuned to www.JasperProject.org and https://www.harbisontheatre.org/ for updates and information.

J. Michael McGuirt Exhibit at Harbison Theatre

J Michael McGuirt’s new show hanging in the halls of Harbison Theatre says his show was inspired by none other than his hometown, Camden, SC.

“I was born in Camden, raised in Camden.  Love Camden and I kind of alluded to being in the area.  You’re exposed to a lot of art; got the Fine Art Center there and a lot of musical programs, so I was raised around that and inspired by that, and then Camden in itself is a really beautiful town,” says McGuirt.

McGuirt is a self-taught artist who initially set out for a degree outside of the art field, yet art was continuously a part of his life, and so he took hold of that.  He started with sculptures but it wasn’t until a few years ago that he would discover the medium that would be found in a majority of his work.

“I went to Furman University and have a business degree, but I’ve always been creative. … I’ve actually made sculpted dolls before, a long, long time ago; but probably about four years ago I was introduced to acrylic painting and I was like, ‘I love acrylics.’  And they dry fast and you’ve got to really work with it, unlike oils.  You know oils take a long, long time to dry and, I had tried an oil painting when I was in college.  I just went and bought supplies and was like, ‘I’m gonna do an oil painting,’ which of course didn’t work out.  I was like, that’s just really juvenile looking you know, no classes or whatever,” McGuirt explains.

Since the decision to work with acrylic paint, McGuirt has developed a very unique technique with his work.  Rather than thinning his paint with a paint thinner, he simply uses water and works with his painting while it is completely wet, rather than waiting for layer after layer to dry as typically done with acrylic paintings.

“… I really want to work with color and not [be] so constrained.  So, I started watching it and messing around with it.  And there’s a lot of people who do the flow work now and they make products that are thinned acrylic paints, and so they’re layering them like- well, I want to do that but I want to do it a little differently.  So, it took about a year and a half to develop the technique …  You’ve really got to get all of the motion and the life and the depth, all at one time and that was the trick – [that] and controlling. You’re thinning the paint and letting it flow …,” says McGuirt.

On September 7, 2018, Harbison Theater opened a gallery exhibition for McGuirt’s collection known as “Form and Flow,” in which McGuirt’s new technique is amply exhibited.  Harbison began the process of hanging art on their lobby walls nearly three years ago, however, it wasn’t until Executive Director, Kristen Cobb joined the team nearly a year ago that the art has really began to take off, starting with McGuirt.

“I’ve known Mike McGuirt for pretty much, most of our lives, 20 plus years.  And I’ve really watched him evolve as such a talented artist and the type of work he does is so fascinating … He approached me about doing the show and I really loved the idea of having his handmade robots,” Cobb says.

While most of the work found in this show is Abstract paintings, McGuirt has also brought in three dimensional figures that most people call “Robots,” along with a couple of modern, geometric black and white paintings.  McGuirt is a fan of modernism, and through the inspiration of the Bauhaus movement and his love for modern work, he was able to develop these pieces, which also play into his show at Harbison Theater.

“There was a school in Germany, Bauhaus, and I’ve always liked modern stuff and appreciated, you know, the modernism and it was the fore runner of that … Their students were also known for their parties and the wild, wacky costumes that they designed.  They were geometric but they were asymmetrical and they used circles and squares and curves.  But it was like, one side of the head would be one color and then the leg would be that color.  So, it was balanced yet it was still skewed.  And I’m like, okay, that’s what I want … So, the inspiration for the three-dimensional figures came from that,” Michael explains.

With this show at Harbison Theater, McGuirt wants people to have their own experience through his work. “People really want to be engaged by a painting,” he says. “They want to relate to it.  So, I’m like, let me give them something really complex and I like being complex in a painting.  People, no matter what their background and what their mood is, they might relate to that painting. They may see something in there that I didn’t see and I’ve noticed that really depends on the person.”

J. Michael McGuirt

You can also find work of McGuirt in other locations, such as in his own gallery in Camden, SC.  Outside of art, McGuirt does real-estate and owns The Heritage Antique Mall, which holds his very own art gallery. McGuirt is also a member of Sumter Country Artist Guilds which is associated with the Sumter Country Gallery of Art, where his painting of a young bird recently won a People’s Choice Award. “I made it bigger in its chest like it’s taking a deep breath and it’s got its eyes closed, and I’m like, it’s about to fly.  I called it ‘Gathering Courage,’” McGuirt says.

McGuirt’s work will show at Harbison Theatre through October and more shows by a variety of local artists are on the way.  Cobb wants to continue supporting local art and developing more extensive relationships with local artists.  After working for The Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County for over ten years, Cobb appreciates the value of local relationships. “I know how important it is to have those relationships with the local artist and to be able to give back to the local community … Columbia is very fortunate.  We have some amazing artists,” says Cobb.

To see McGuirt’s work at Harbison Theater, tour the venue during any of their operating hours. Support local artist, local art and local venues - these are the things that give Columbia, SC, so much character.

Hallie Hayes

Intern, the Jasper Project

Learn more about Bauhaus at

https://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus.htm