Supper Table Spotlight: Claudia Smith Brinson Honors Charleston's Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina

We’re featuring the artists from the Supper Table project throughout the summer. This is the 9th in our series on Supper Table Artists

The word “honor” comes up so often for me these days as the Supper Table enters its last month of preparation and, in light of the political climate we are living in, it is such a wave of relief, such a respite for the soul, to find myself surrounded by so many honorable women who want to honor others.

Claudia Smith Brinson is a perfect example of the breath-of-fresh-air kind of person I’m talking about. Claudia Smith Brinson was a senior lecturer and program coordinator of the Writing for Print and Digital Media major at Columbia College in Columbia, S.C. She worked as a journalist for 30 years, mostly for Knight Ridder, and was honored with more than three dozen state and regional awards. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist as a member of the team covering Hurricane Hugo. She also writes short stories and has won an O.Henry. Claudia is at work on a book on the untold stories of civil rights activists in South Carolina.

Claudia was charged with writing a third-person, creative non-fiction essay about the Grimke Sisters—Sarah and Angelina—from Charleston who became abolitionists and human rights activists for most of the 19th century. Claudia writes with painful candor about the world of slavery the sisters bore witness to and their early decision to leave their churches, join with the Quakers in Philadelphia, and eventually, be disappointed with Quakers and organized religion in general.

What must arise in the heart and head that allows you to see all about you are morally and ethically wrong? What does it take to act? And to continue despite condemnation and abuse? What is in you that allows you to think and act hundreds of years ahead of your time? The brilliance of sisters Sarah Moore Grimke and Angelina Emily Grimke force these questions on us, as well as the frustrating realization that we have yet to meet their standards of equality and goodness.

Brinson continues:

The prisons of gender and color were asphyxiating: Only white men could vote. The enslaved were owned but owned nothing, including their own bodies. Enslaved women were vulnerable to rape; any children born to them, no matter whom the father, were born enslaved and could be sold. Free white women lived under the control of their fathers, and, once married, had no legal identity. Free married women were considered one with the husband; any property, inheritance, income, or ensuing children fell the man under the law of coverture. Poor free women might work as cooks, domestics, seamstresses, and assistants to tradesmen and shopkeepers, but income they made belonged to their husbands. During the sisters’ adulthood, fewer than fifteen percent of women worked outside a household. Not only the law but Christianity confined them: Slaveholders used the Bible to justify white male control of sisters, daughters, wives, and the enslaved.

How does a person, then, gain a sense of her own humanity and her right to have rights? How does a woman find her own self and her life’s meaning when selfhood is denied? And how does she then apply that not only to herself but to others in extremis? The Grimke sisters developed young a repugnance and resistance to cruelty and abuse, to repression and denial while all around them people of their race acclimated. The sisters seem, perhaps through their quests for education and a nondiscriminatory religious community, to have fostered their awareness against odds and opposition into an individuality that knew right from wrong – despite the rules of their times, religion, and country – and also into an individuality that fought for what was right – despite the countering messages of gender, society, and law. To say they were geniuses is exclusionary; they eventually found a like-minded community in women such as Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. To call them prophets is depressing; much of what they called for has yet to come to pass.

Claudia Smith Brinson’s full essay on the Grimke Sisters will appear in our book, Setting the Supper Table, which launches on Friday, September 6th at Trustus Theatre as part of the premiere of the Supper Table installation, performance, and film premieres, then moves to Harbison theatre at MTC for on Sunday September 8th for a performance and installation. Setting the Supper Table will be available via a limited edition printing for $25, but you can secure your copy now by contributing to the Supper Table Kickstarter campaign — which closes in less than two days—at the $50 and above levels.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table?ref=user_menu

Supper Table Spotlight: Candace Wiley Honors Modjeska Simkins and Matilda Evans

We’re featuring the artists from the Supper Table project throughout the summer. This is the 8th in our series on Supper Table Artists

Candace G. Wiley is the co-founding director of The Watering Hole, a non-profit organization that brings a hint of Harlem-Renaissance to the modern South. She is a South Carolina native who graduated with her B.A from Bowie State University, her MA from Clemson University, and her MFA from the University of South Carolina where she graduated as a Dickey Fellow.

Wiley’s writings create striking imagery and invoke imagination, and she frequently writes in the style of Afrofuturism, introducing themes from mutants to mermaids. Whether fiction or non-fiction, she always brings her raw imagining of individuals’ lives to the table. She is a Vermont Studio Center Fellow, Lighthouse Works Center Fellow, Fine Arts Work Center Fellow and Callaloo Fellow.

Wiley joins our Supper Table team as one of our literary artists, where she has done incredible work honoring not just one, but two different women, each with their own essay: Modjeska Monteith Simkins and Matilda Evans.

Modjeska Simkins was a matriarch of civil rights in South Carolina and a leader in African-American public health and social reform, specifically in Columbia. Simkins referred to herself as a human rights activist, and that she was.

The following is an excerpt from Wiley’s essay on Simkins:

Throughout her career, Modjeska helped launch the multi-racial Southern Negro Youth Congress (SYNC). The organization’s pact starts, “We, Negro and White young people, one thousand strong, do hereby declare our common purpose, to build a new and democratic South.” Modjeska ran for office; raised funding for renovations to the Good Samaritan-Waverly Hospital, Columbia’s Black hospital; hosted a weekly Civil Rights radio show called, “I woke up this morning with my mind set on freedom,” which she paid for out of pocket; equalized white collar jobs for Black WPA workers; and rectified the gross mistreatment of Black mental health patients. In Columbia’s segregated Black mental institution, female patients weren’t provided shoes, underwear, or gowns; were housed in leaky, dirty, unscreened buildings; had no psychiatrists; and Black female patients were forced to bathe and help dress the White patients at the White mental institution, while Black male patients worked the yard.

After Judge Waring was forced to retire and leave the state, he invited Modjeska to his New York home. Public sentiment had turned on him when he left his first wife of thirty years, who was Charleston aristocracy, and married his second wife, a Yankee matron who turned him against all forms of discrimination. 

“So you’re still in Carolina? You haven’t had any trouble?” He asked Modjeska.

“Well they shot up my hotel a few times, bombed my brother’s yard, called the house with threats. I belonged to all kind of organizations that were labeled communist fronts, so I've been Red-Smeared up and down South Carolina.” Modjeska tossed her hands.

“Not bad, huh?”

“Not bad.”

Like Simkins, Matilda Evans was a prominent human rights activist. The state’s second licensed black female doctor, she took care of not only black patients who could not receive care from white doctors, but also of white patients who came to her because of caring, open-minded spirit.

The following is Wiley’s imagining of Evans in her own essay:

Imagine Matilda reaching out to her powerful contacts. Taking tea in some fancy living room, the ice tinkles the glass when she tilts it forward for a kiss. Affable as always, she’d assert, "You, sir, have truly been an honest blessing from the Lord. It’s people like you who could even make heaven a better place." Just a little butter over bread. "Even the way you threw your resources into furnishing St. Luke’s, you are a man of action."

"What really concerns me is your beautiful family." His face would have frozen. His eyebrow perched. Was it a warning? A threat? "Jenny, Katie, and Davey, they are so happy and innocent, but I’ve seen illness firsthand." He would have tilted his head to the side, hesitant to ask for more information.

"I don’t know how the health of Negro children isn’t a concern to all of us. What infects the child infects the mother. Then the mother, in her infinite sense of responsibility, returns to her domestic employ, cooking for a wonderful White family like yours, dressing the children, grooming the mistress of the house, and the epidemic spreads through sheer love. Isn’t it awful?" It wasn’t a threat. There was kindness in her eyes. Her manners were impeccable. The way she might’ve tinked the spoon around her glass, in sweet tea that didn’t need stirring. There was no hint of anger or frustration.

"It’s a conundrum really. Germs know no color line." Matilda would’ve sat comfortably, occasionally lifting her eyes from her glass. She wouldn’t mention the specific cases of ringworm or scabies she’d seen. He would be well aware that Tuberculosis was ravaging Black Columbians.

He would’ve leaned back in his chair and smirked, amused at how she’d so easily played his emotions, yet interested in her solution.

You can find the completed versions of these essays, as well as the other 10 essays by our wonderful literary artists, in our upcoming book Setting the Supper Table. Early access to copies of this book are included in several of our premiums on our Kickstarter, along with other opportunities such as being listed as the executive producer on one of our films or sponsoring a place-setting honoring one of our 12 women at the table.

If you’re interested in one of our premiums, act fast. Half of the place-settings have already been sponsored, and the campaign only has four days left. You can secure your seat at the table here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table?ref=user_menu

Supper Table Spotlight: Heidi Darr-Hope

We’re featuring the artists from the Supper Table project throughout the summer. This is the 7th in our series on Supper Table Artists

Heidi Darr-Hope (photo: Alexis Schwallier for Jasper)

We were so delighted when Heidi Darr-Hope agreed to join the Supper Table Arts Team. Heidi brings such a sense of intention to everything she does that we knew her participation would result in not just a beautiful place-setting, but a grounding presence among all the artists.

Having worked as a professional artist for over 40 years, Darr-Hope has accumulated many accolades.  She’s proudest of the Elizabeth O'Neil Verner Award – South Carolina’s highest awards in the arts. Her work’s been exhibited and collected around the globe and are influenced by her enthusiastic passion for travel, her quest to understand her nighttime dreams, and her longing to find the quiet in the roar.  Her artworks are expressions of the universal search for meaning.  

Heidi was charged with creating a Supper Table place-setting to honor Sarah and Angelina Grimke, two antebellum sisters from Charleston who went on to become ardent abolitionists and human rights activists.

We knew Heidi would enjoy the process of gathering and assembling the items with which she would create her place-setting, but we were not prepared for the detail the artist put into her project.

In her own words, we’d like to share Heidi’s take on using her art to honor these important SC sisters.

Everyday Family “Heirlooms”

I come from a strong matriarchal lineage – determined, outspoken, liberal independent thinkers.  To represent the Grimke Sisters, I used heirlooms from that lineage - things passed down to me – the china, crystal and silver, the hand embroidered linens and lacework and even the wooden bowl which, growing up, my mother dished up our Saturday night spaghetti dinners in.

The Placemat

Collaged newspaper clippings featuring The Sisters bold abolitionist and equal rights protests comprise the "placemat.”   Their powerful words cradle the visual content of this piece.  “The ground upon which you stand is holy ground; never, never surrender it.  These are causes worth dying for.”

Women Unite, the Writing Quill, Nest and Eggs

Around the inside rim of the wooden bowl are the women who rallied behind The Sisters. Their weapons in this fight were their intellect and wordsmanship.   The writing quill is constructed from a dove feather I found walking in my neighborhood and the nib was given to me by my friend Eileen Blyth.  Her father collected them.  I wanted to give a nod to the men who support these causes as Angelina’s husband, Theodore Weld, did.  Books and knowledge are what fed Sarah and Angelina’s spirits.  They passionately shared these ideas for the advancement of social change, committed to ushering in a new life for the disenfranchised.  The Sisters worked tirelessly to build a secure nest to hold these ideals.

Book of Dreams and Binding Chains

Tucked underneath the bowl is a small book entitled Dreams.  The sisters dreamed of a new societal order, despite the monumental obstacles that stood in their way.  They were determined to break the chains binding the freedom to follow one's individual dreams.

Golden Hearts Within Us All and the Love Purse

Through their faithfulness in the Quaker principals, the Grimke Sisters believed God is found in the hearts of every single human.   In the center of the bowl, the image of The Sisters, clothed in simple evergreen smocks, depicts their hearts radiating a warm, golden, spiritual glow.  They deeply believed that as disciples of God it was their duty to respect and care for all.  To this end, Sarah kept a “love purse” with her at all times.  It contained the savings she made when she always opted for the less expensive purchase.  The difference between what she could afford and what she bought, went into her love purse. There was always someone who needed something, and she gladly made sure they got it.  The love purse can be found tucked just behind the book of dreams.  The coins inside the love purse are duplications of the coins Sarah devotedly saved in her efforts to make the world a better place.

Napkins, Fork, Spoon, Knife, Shattered China and a Wooden Bowl

Sarah and Angelina were not nourished and fed by the culture they were raised in.  The napkins are blood stained and silverware is bound, rendering them unusable.  The formal china is shattered symbolizing the conventions the sisters rebelled against.  They longed and fought for a culture that honored an equality where all genders and races could be fed respectfully.  The upside-down teacup symbolizes how they gave up the traditions they were born into, in favor of building a new life.  Balanced on top of this, is a crystal goblet nesting this potential life.  The simple wooden bowl holds all these hopes and dreams.

Please mark your calendars for the weekend of September 6th when we will celebrate Heidi and all the other talented women in the Supper Table Arts Team.

And please consider supporting us as we enter our last few days of fundraising via our Kickstarter campaign. You’re invited to be a part of something truly extraordinary. We have a place for you at the table.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table

Supper Table Spotlight: Emmy-Nominated Filmmaker Laura Kissel Honors Modjeska Monteith Simkins

We’re featuring the artists from the Supper Table project throughout the summer. This is the 6th in our series on Supper Table Artists.

Filmmaker Laura Kissel

Columbia native Laura Kissel is an Emmy nominated documentary filmmaker. Kissel’s work explores contemporary social, cultural and political landscapes through multiple film genres, specifically the use of orphan films.

Kissel has nearly 20 films to her name including short documentaries Tan Mian Hua and Window Cleaning in Shanghai which both premiered at the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar in 2011 and were included in The Flaherty’s touring festival City Symphonies in 2011-2012. Her most recent feature length documentary, Cotton Road, is about the global supply chain of cotton; the film follows cotton’s life cycle, alongside human labor, as it travels from farms to consumers. The film has won eight festival awards and been translated into four languages.

Named the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Media Arts Fellow for 2007-2008 Kissel has received numerous fellowships and grants for her work, including a Fulbright Award, a MacDowell Fellowship, funding from the South Carolina Humanities Council and the Fledgling Fund. Currently, she is a professor of Media Arts and Film at the University of South Carolina where she also serves as the Director of the School of Visual Art and Design.

We’re honored that Kissel has joined us in our project. For the Supper Table, she is creating a film to honor the pervasively influential Modjeska Monteith Simkins.

Modjeska Simkins was, as the National Park Service refers to her, “the matriarch of the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina.” She was a leader in African-American public health and social reform across the state, specifically in Columbia. Simkins referred to herself as a human rights activist, and that she was.

Simkins lived a life of power and turmoil. She was the Director of Negro Work for the South Carolina Tuberculosis Association before she was fired for her increased involvement in the NAACP. For this same involvement, unnamed individuals shot at her house in the mid 1900s, despite which Simkins remained unwavering. Any fear she may have had, she did not show, instead allowing it to propel her forward into defending the rights of those who did not have the opportunity to use their voices in the way she used hers. 

Kissel’s film will be unveiled, with 11 others, at the Supper Table’s premiere events at Trustus Theatre this September 6th and Harbison Theatre on the 8th.

On our Kickstarter campaign, at the $300 level, Laura Kissel’s film on Modjeska Simkins is available to sponsor. In sponsoring this, you will become the film’s exclusive producer, plus you will receive tickets to see the films at the Harbison event. 3 of the 12 films are already sponsored, and our Kickstarter only has a week left, so if you want this opportunity, click on the following link to claim it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table?ref=user_menu

 - Christina Xan

Supper Table spotlight: Olga Yukhno and Carla Damron Honor Sarah Leverette

We’re featuring the artists from the Supper Table project throughout the summer. This is the 5th in our series on Supper Table Artists.

An overhead view of Olga Yukhno’s place-setting honoring Sarah Leverette

Originally from Russia, visual artist Olga Yukhno lives in Columbia, South Carolina, where she is the Gallery Director for the School of Visual Art and Design at the UofSC. After learning and creating in multiple art forms, Yukhno found a home in ceramic sculpting, where she feels that she has no limits.

With ceramics, Yukhno can create anything that she can imagine and even those which she can’t. No two of her completely handmade pieces are identical. Yukhno has used the limitless possibilities of her craft to create a place setting in honor of Sarah Leverette for the Supper Table.

Sarah Leverette was, and is, a powerful inspiration to women in and outside of South Carolina, having spent her life breaking glass ceilings wherever she went, from the Civil Air Patrol to the School of Law at USC.

Yukhno’s place-setting honors all the different aspects of Leverette’s remarkable life. The artist says she wanted to use her piece to “show the parts of her life that were the most significant and impressed her the most personally.” Having been impressed by Leverette’s quotations, she incorporated them all around the border of her place-setting, using small wing symbols with the logo of the Civil Air Patrol.  From there, each layer from bottom to top represents a different period of the subject’s life.

As Yukhno says, the book represents her contribution to the library system of South Carolina, to which she dedicated 15 years of her life. Despite her contributions, school officials at USC would not make her faculty because she was a woman. The next tier of Yukhno’s place setting contains multiple nails, which represent the obstacles Leverette faced to become a full professor.

The very top culminates in a bowl showing a fist having just broken through a glass ceiling. As Yukhno says, “Leverette’s whole life was dedicated to fighting for women’s and civil rights, and the element of this broken glass is repeated throughout the piece to show the relevance of this pursuit throughout her lifetime.”

Finally, the goblet was created with multiple hands supporting it, to “show that in everything she did, she always built other people up.” Leverette was a mentor to many well-known lawyers who themselves brought about significant changes and continued the fight for people’s rights.

Carla Damron is a professional writer (The Stone Necklace, USC Press, 2016) who uses her experience as a social worker throughout her work, as witnessed in her novels Keeping Silent and Spider Blue. Damron has spent over 20 years focusing on her work in mental health, where she connects this to her novels in hopes to fight stigmas surrounding the topic of mental illness. Her very own clients have been her best teachers.

Damron used her background to tackle the task of writing a creative non-fiction essay about the life of Sarah Leverette, a task she was more than ready to tackle and conquer. As Damron says, “[Leverette’s] words, and her spirit, live and breathe in our state’s constitution, its code of laws, and in all the people she touched.”

The following is an excerpt from Damron’s essay on Leverette:

Sarah always wanted to emulate her heroes Lindbergh and Earhart. And now, as a member of the Civil Air Patrol, she was about to take her first flight.

She climbed a ladder to the biplane wing, grabbed hold of the edge of the cockpit, and hauled herself into the copilot’s seat. She grasped the seatbelt and clicked it into place. Snug goggles covered her eyes. Behind her, the pilot started the plane, which gave a little shimmy as it roared to life. Breath entered her lungs in short gasps. She was nervous. Excited. Ready. 

They moved. The plane bumped and rattled up the runway, getting louder and louder as the pilot lifted the throttle. Sarah held to her seat and swayed with the movement. 

Faster. She couldn’t see the speedometer but knew they were approaching eighty-five, full throttle, as the nose of the plane tilted up. As they lifted off, all smoothed.  

She looked above, the sky a vast blue bowl with a few feathers of white. She looked down: Trees became green pencil pricks. A wide, turbulent river was just one of many of Earth’s many arteries. Everything was different here. How wide the world is, she realized, when you are away from the clutter of land.

To read more of Damron’s essay and to see more of Yukhno’s place setting, be sure to reserve your copy of Setting the Supper Table at the $50 sponsorship level or above on the Supper Table’s Kickstarter campaign page at the link below, and join us this September as we unveil the Supper Table for the first time.

Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table.

Supper Table Spotlight: Kirkland Smith’s Portraits

Kirkland Thomas Smith is a self-employed artist who specializes in many mediums and creates stunning portraits. Born in Charleston, SC, and currently living in Columbia, Smith received her BA in Studio Art at the University of South Carolina. She is currently a resident artist at Stormwater Studios.

Smith’s artwork is influenced by everything that surrounds her: the books that she reads, the music that she listens to, the lectures and sermons that she hears and the conversations that she has in encounters with friends and strangers. She takes notice of the way in which light falls on an object, allowing us to see the beauty of the form. These passions of hers are a trend throughout her work.

Smith has used her passions to take on a specifically important role in the Supper Table – she has created hand-drawn charcoal portraits for each of the 12 featured women represented at the table. Each of these portraits, as Smith says, represents the women at an early point in their lives when they just started to “break the glass ceilings and really be inspirations for the women that followed them.”

For Smith, one of the most special parts of this project is how many amazing women are involved. Not only are each of the 12 featured women unique and “walking different paths” in their lives, but every artists’ hands involved in this project are those of female creators.

Smith is passionate about all art forms, believing that they play a vital role in not only educating but in humanizing and connecting with each other in our communities. She believes that art helps us make sense of this complex world that we live in, and it’s clear that these portraits resonate this belief.

Want a copy of these portraits? Right now, you have two opportunities to own copies of these remarkable art works. On our Kickstarter campaign, at two of our premium levels, your donations will not only help fund our project and go directly to artists like Kirkland, but you will receive copies of these portraits for yourself.

At the $5,000 level, you will receive a copy of all 12 portraits, of which only 5 copies are being made – ever. These portraits would look absolutely stunning and empowering on any home or office wall.

At the $1,000 level, you will receive one copy of the woman of your choice’s portrait, but that’s not all. You will also have a plaque bearing your name placed with the place-setting representing said woman at our installation, four tickets to opening night, our book Setting the Supper Table, and a t-shirt/tote bag bearing art about and a quote from Eartha Kitt.

The Kickstarter only has 12 days left, and once these portraits are gone, they’re gone, so if you’re interested, head over to the campaign page and make your donation. Smith herself just made a video about these portraits as our newest update, which you can check out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table/posts/2569961

Supper Table Spotlight: Eva Moore and Laurie Brownell McIntosh Honor Eliza Lucas Pinckney

We’re featuring the artists from the Supper Table project throughout the summer. This is the 4th in our series on Supper Table Artists.

Paper Mache Bowl with Indigo Ink, hand-dyed indigo napkin, and indigo branch flatware by Laurie Brownell McIntosh

Each of the 12 (actually 13 with the Grimke sisters) honored & historical women seated at the Supper Table is being celebrated by four different artists including a visual artist, a literary artist who writes an essay about the subject for the book Setting the Supper Table, a filmmaker who creates a 90 second film, and a theatrical artist who will perform a staged oration during our premiere in September.

Laurie Brownell McIntosh and Eva Moore are, respectively the visual and literary artists honoring Eliza Lucas Pinckney, the colonial entrepreneur who, with the vital assistance of the enslaved individuals who were attached to the Pinckney plantations, cultivated and developed indigo as a cash crop accounting for 1/3 of the total exports from the colony.

About her place-setting McIntosh writes, “I sought guidance on all things indigo from South Carolina, indigo dye artist, Caroline Harper. I attended two workshops with her to learn the growing and dying process used in dying fabrics with traditional indigo. She supplied me with some of her precious South Carolina grown indigo pigment that she and her husband harvest and produce yearly... as well as the seed and roots from the plant.”

McIntosh continues, “All of the blue you see in my piece is made from this dye mixed with different paint mediums. (the exception being the writing on the bowl... that is just dark blue ink... after many tries I realized I could not get the consistency to flow freely enough for handwriting). The yellows in my piece represent the middle phase of the dying process. Once the fabric is submerged into the dye vat of the indigo mixture the fabric surprisingly turns yellow and stays this way until it is pulled from the vat and the oxygen turns it the rich dark blue associated with indigo. The three apothecary bottles in the setting represent this graduated process.”

Eva Moore is a Columbia-based writer who cares about food, local government, and outdoor places. The former editor of Columbia’s Free Times newspaper, she now works in state government. In her eloquent look at the controversial Eliza Lucas Pinckney’s contributions, Moore writes, “At Wappoo plantation, where Eliza lived when she first came to South Carolina, her family enslaved 20 people. In later years there would be more. … Eliza Lucas Pinckney lived a remarkable and fortunate life, but did so at the expense of other lives.”

Moore continues, “Indigo is not like other natural dyes. It doesn’t come out of the indigo plant easily; in fact it doesn’t come directly out of the plant at all. After harvesting, the leaves must be pounded and fermented over hours or days to create a chemical reaction. Depending on who you ask, fermenting indigo smells like ammonia, urine, cow poop or wet dog, and the odor is so intense that the fermentation must be done well away from places where people live and eat. Done at a large scale, it can attract flies and other insects.”

“In colonial South Carolina, in the mid-1700s, indigo processing took place during the hot summer and fall,” she writes.

“It’s hard to comprehend the horrors of the process, because lately, indigo dyeing has made its way into the boutique textile category in South Carolina. … Eliza Pinckney almost certainly didn’t pound the indigo leaves or stir the stinking vats. She didn’t till the ground, or weed the fields, or harvest the leaves. That work was done by people enslaved by her family.“

To read more of this fascinating essay and 11 others, be sure to reserve your copy of Setting the Supper Table at the $50 sponsorship level or above on the Supper Table’s Kickstarter campaign page at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table.

Supper Table Spotlight: Filmmaker Betsy Newman honors Elizabeth Evelyn Wright

We’re kicking off our series of spotlights on our Supper Table artists by looking at one of our film artists: Emmy Award-winning Betsy Newman

There’s so much to celebrate about filmmaker and producer Betsy Newman and what she has brought and continues to bring to South Carolina’s cultural landscape. So much so that we’re doing a profile of Betsy in the fall issue of Jasper magazine, coming out later in August.

Here, Betsy talks about her work honoring Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, founder of Vorhees College in Denmark, SC.

My Supper Table subject is Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, the woman who founded Voorhees College. I’m thrilled to have learned about her – she was one of those people who blaze brightly for a short time and contribute an enormous amount. From the time she boarded a train by herself at the age of 16 to go to the Tuskegee Institute, to her death at the age of 34, she had built and rebuilt several schools for black students. Though two of her schools were destroyed by arsonists, she was undeterred by the racist violence of the Jim Crow era. She raised funds from wealthy white philanthropists and named her successful school for her most generous supporter, Ralph Voorhees. It’s fun to work on a short video about Wright, and inspiring to be part of the Supper Table cohort. I love hearing about the approaches that the other women are taking to their films, and the ways in which the visual and literary artists are treating the same subject matter.

To learn more about Jasper’s Supper Table project please visit our Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table and for a comprehensive look at what the SC Arts Commission calls a “Who’s Who of SC Female Artists” please visit http://www.scartshub.com/whos-who-of-female-scartists-headline-new-project/.

To be a part of this project and have your contribution celebrated in the accompanying book, Setting the Supper Table, please consider making a minimum $50 donation and dedication to the SC Women who rock your world at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table

Supper Table Spotlight: B. A. Hohman Honors Julia Peterkin

We’re kicking off our series of spotlights on our Supper Table artists by looking at one of our visual artists: local painter and muralist B.A. Hohman.

B.A. Hohman

A visual artist who views art as her grounding force, B.A. Hohman promotes the creativity found in each of us through her work. Hohman graduated cum laude from Ohio University with a Studio Art degree, focusing on painting, and she has received an Art Education certification from Roberts Wesleyan in Churchville, NY.

Though Hohman has worked in many fields, from retail to being a public art teacher, she has always been a working artist often focusing on murals and trompe l’oiel paintings.

For the Supper Table, Hohman was tasked with creating an art piece representative of prolific author, Julia Peterkin, who wrote about life in the Jim Crow South and worked to preserve the Gullah language. Peterkin, a white woman, lived from 1880-1961, and in that time, she wrote a plethora of novels, one of which would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize. As Hohman recalls The Paris Exposition that helped launch the Art Deco style had taken place just four years prior to Peterkin’s first dive into writing. This inspired Hohman as she created her place setting.    

Hohman’s place setting starts with a place-mat made of vintage black velvet bordered by hand tatted lace, which was handed down to her from her great aunts. She chose to add this lace trim completely by hand, which she feels reflects Peterkin’s social status. She made the copper flatware from pieces she’d saved and repurposed, and she then added the mug and copper colored charger. For Hohman, these pieces represent Julia’s flaming red hair and indefatigable spirit.

Since the focus and center of Peterkin’s writing and goals was her own depiction of the Gullah customs, language and beliefs, Hohman embellished the center of the plate with woodcut styled representations of images both from Peterkin’s books and from the artist’s own imagination. The plate is bordered with an aforementioned Art Deco design. Hohman states that her overall attempt was to “convey the conundrum that was Julia Peterkin.”

On what makes Peterkin so inspiring, Hohman says, “the title of one of Julia’s biographies is, A Devil and a Good Woman. I found this fitting. She was a force to be reckoned with, yet she managed to expand the consciousness of her audience by humanizing and preserving for posterity, the Gullah way of life.”

All in all, Hohman views art as a necessity of life. In her work both on the Supper Table and in general, she asks the question: what would we know of our world were it not for the depictions, be they visual, spoken, written or musical?

Hohman contributes to gallery showings, restaurant displays and the occasional public mural, but you can currently view her work at her Facebook page: Art & Murals by B.A.

To see Hohman’s work on Julia Peterkin, join us at one of our Supper Table events this September. Information on tickets and other premiums is available on our Kickstarter page. Donating not only grants you access to early showings and sponsorship opportunities, but it also goes straight to supporting our artists, like B.A.

Check it out at the following link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table?ref=user_menu

Christina Xan

We're Setting the Supper Table & You'll Be Able to Feed Your Soul There Soon - A Message from Cindi

The Supper Table – Honored Subjects

Mary McLeod Bethune Alice Childress

Septima Clark Matilda Evans

Althea Gibson Angelina and Sarah Grimke

Eartha Kitt Sarah Leverette

Julia Peterkin Eliza Pinckney

Modjeska Monteith Simkins Elizabeth Evelyn Wright

Laurie Brownell McIntosh’s place-setting inspired by Eliza Lucas Pinckney whose development and cultivation of indigo accounted for 1/3 of colonial SC’s economy prior to the Revolutionary War.

It’s all coming together.

More than 10 year ago I started having this dream of using Judy Chicago’s iconic feminist arts installation, The Dinner Party, as a model for an arts project that would honor some of the amazing women from South Carolina history whose work in the arts, sciences, education, business, athletics, and human rights literally — and usually without a lot of fanfare — changed the course of human history. I realized that 2019 would be the 40th anniversary of Chicago’s project and, about 4 years ago, decided to try to make this fantasy a reality using the structure of the Jasper Project to do so. It was terrifying. I appreciate so dearly all the people I spoke to who, when I told them how terrified I was said, “yes, you’re supposed to be” because there are any number of times I might have chickened out had they not.

But with the support and advice of people who are smarter and more experienced than I am, especially my board of directors at the Jasper Project, I jumped in. Central Carolina Community Foundation was kind enough to invest in us with a Connected Communities Grant funding almost two thirds of the project. Friend and arts patron Bill Schmidt stepped up as soon as I told him about the plans and committed to sponsoring not just a place-setting (he chose the Grimke Sisters) but also a third of the table itself. But more importantly, he gave me his faith and he shared the project with others.

THANKS, BILL SCHMIDT!

So, I was off!

The first thing I needed to do was to gather together the first two groups of artists — the visual and literary artists — as well as to find a woman to build the actual table for the Supper Table. I can’t remember who recommended the amazing Jordan Morris to me but, whoever it was, thank you.

Jordan is the Maker Coordinator at Richland Library and has been a maker most of her life. Grade school consisted of macaroni ornaments and sugar cube igloos, but it wasn’t until she met an inspiring high school teacher that her creative mind was ignited and took flight. That journey continued on through college at the University of South Carolina where she earned a BFA in sculpture. She continued with ceramic work and expanded into woodworking and computer numerical control production. Jordan’s professional journey led her to an art museum, tech startup, and teaching, but nothing felt quite like home until landing at Richland Library as the Maker Coordinator in February 2016.

Jordan rose to the challenge of creating the table for the Supper Table magnificently, integrating a Southern aesthetic into her design all the way down to the wood she chose. I couldn’t be happier with her finished product.

On January 20th of this year we brought together the 25 literary and visual artists who would inaugurate the Supper Table project with their work on place-settings and essays honoring the 12 women at the Supper Table. Over the next few weeks we will be posting daily blogs featuring these artists and the gifts they have brought and are bringing to the project.

While the essays and place-settings are complete there is still much work to be done before we premiere the project on September 6th at Trustus Theatre and move the next day to Harbison Theatre at MTC for our first installation.

The film artists are all at work now under the direction of Mahkia Greene, and Vicky Saye Henderson is casting the actors who will portray out 12 honored women in the theatrical productions.

Kathryn Van Aernum has taken all the photos for the book and the poster and is working on those now.

We still need to frame the 12 portraits Kirkland Smith created which will accompany the installation and we are working on our walls to display the 120 tiles created for our Array of Remarkable SC Women by Brenda Oliver, Bohumila Augustinova, and Diane Hare and embellished by local women and girls.

Lee Ann Kornegay is working on a long-form film that won’t even be ready to view until spring 2020.

I’m editing constantly with the help of assistant project director Christina Xan, who will also be sharing some blogs with you.

So, please stay tuned as we roll out as much information and celebration as we can through summer’s end and into the fall.

The Supper Table will be touring in 2020 and we’d love to talk to you about bringing the installation, along with the book, films, portraits, and tiles your way.

But most importantly, we really need your help raising funds to put some change in the pockets of these artists who are honoring these amazing 12 women from SC. You can sponsor a place-setting, a tile, a film, or the portrait collection or you can share this info and link with someone with the resources to do so.

Here’s the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table

Thanks for helping us along.

The plate from Mana Hewitt’s place-setting honoring the legendary Eartha Kitt.

Anastasia & Friends Gallery to Celebrate “Last First” Thursday

After spending a decade bringing life, love, and art to Columbia’s Main Street, local gallery Anastasia & Friends will close its doors this month.

Nearly 10 years ago, Anastasia Chernoff, local sculptor and art collector, had the idea to start an art gallery in the lobby of the Free Times building, and with that, Anastasia & Friends was born. Chernoff started the gallery as a way to bring the art community together on Main Street, and this goal continued through her six years running the gallery until well after her death.

Bohumila Augustinova, who has run and managed the gallery since Chernoff first became ill almost four years ago, recalls her as being the kind of person who welcomed anyone into her life as a close friend within moments of meeting them. “She never met a stranger,” Augustinova said, “You met her and felt like you had known her your whole life.”

For Chernoff then and for Augustinova now, the gallery has been an opportunity for both established and new artists to show their work. “One of my prides,” Augustinova stated, “has been to show off artists who have never had a solo show before.” Overall, the goal of the studio has never been to be pretentious with their art but to show that all art is important.

Largely in part to its inclusive approach to art celebration, when Anastasia & Friends initially opened it was one of the main stops that made First Thursday such a prominent event. Now, close to a decade later, Anastasia & Friends closes its run with that same tentpole status for the monthly arts crawl.

Augustinova remembers that one of the first art exhibits Chernoff ran was called “Funny Art,” which echoed the fun and laughter Chernoff brought to everything she did.

Chernoff (right) with a friend at one of their First Thursday art openings.

Chernoff ran the gallery with this positive attitude until her health declined, and she had to step down. Chernoff asked Augustinova, both her friend and an artist who had an exhibition at the gallery just before she became ill, to take over. Augustinova fondly remembers the press letter Chernoff released when announcing she would take over the gallery: “I cried when I read it, and every time I see it in my memories, I cry again.”

In that letter, Chernoff calls the art openings at Anastasia & Friends “reunions, filled with old and new friends gathered to see and talk about the latest exhibition and their lives.” For Chernoff, the most important aspect of the gallery was that it promoted a family, and, in that, she succeeded.

Chernoff (center) during an event Augustinova fondly remembers: a Halloween-themed black light party

Many people have been supporting Augustinova with this family in the past years. Diane Hare has been fondly named “Wine Goddess” for supplying the beverages at First Thursday events; other friends of the studio include John Allen, Grayson Goodman, and Lee Ann Kornegay, to name just a few.

Now, Augustinova and those at the gallery want to celebrate this last first Thursday, aptly titled “Last First,” by bringing together as many artists as possible who have participated in shows at Anastasia & Friends in the past. This event, sponsored by Free Times, Michael Anastasion, and Terri Mac, will be the last big hurrah for the gallery.

Featured artists include, but are not limited to, Kathryn Van Aernum, Laura Garner Hine, Michael Krajewski, Eileen Blyth, Wayne Thornley, Susan Lenz, and Matthew Kramer. In addition to the artists, there will be live performances by Caroline Lewis Jones, Joseph Daniels, music by Preach Jacobs, and an auction of a portrait of Anastasia. Drink & food will be provided.

A complete list of both people who support the gallery and of participating artists would be hard to name, and this is mainly because of all the people Anastasia touched over her years supporting the arts in Columbia. Augustinova remembers Chernoff as, “a light; a ray of sunshine on rainy days.” Her tendrils reach out to all, and they still remain, almost three years after her death.

All good things must come to an end, however, and change is an inevitable part of life. As Free Times moves to their new building, the gallery has chosen to close this chapter of its life. Augustinova does not plan to let the name Anastasia & Friends die, though. The legacy of the gallery will live on through different shows and events she will do in name of the studio.

Anastasia Chernoff (center left), with Jennifer Hill (left) Jasper Executive Director Cindi Boiter (center right) and Kaitin Ohlinger (right).

However, the biggest legacy that will live on is in all of the people the gallery touched, and made family, over its run. In these 10 years, even after Chernoff’s death, the message that art binds us to one another will live on in all the people who were part of Anastasia & Friends. Whether you helped work with the gallery, presented work in an exhibition, or just stopped by on a First Thursday to peek at the art, Anastasia’s spirit continues within you. We hold the light and love that this gallery and its people put forth, and it is up to us to spread that light even after the gallery closes its doors.

If you want to celebrate the love, community, and light that is Anastasia & Friends for a final First Thursday event, come out to Last First, this Thursday the 6th at 6:00 p.m. You can find more information on their Facebook event page.

Columbia Museum of Art Curator Will South Reflects on the Loss and Future of Art

We made them, and it is we who must preserve them. Or, in extreme cases, remake them.

-Will South

The young artist Will South on the bank of the Seine

Art is not forever. Paper fades to yellow then brown and turns to dust. Rust never sleeps, and corrodes sculpture. Canvas and panels swell and shrink, paint cracks and falls away. Objects are stolen, bombed, and buried beneath the ocean.

And then there is fire, the universally feared and ever-present threat to the survival of objects. Buildings can and do burn to the ground, and all that is inside may be destroyed completely. The number of paintings, drawings, books, furnishings, inventions and—most importantly—people that have perished in flames is incalculable.

The burning of Notre Dame in Paris is the latest, and one of the greatest, reminders of the fragility of all things. Even the largest, most impressive monuments need protection. We made them, and it is we who must preserve them. Or, in extreme cases, remake them.

The burning of Notre Dame raises other issues injurious to our global cultural life. In the wake of the fire, some have mourned “the loss of a thousand years of history.” Not so. We know as much today about the history of Notre Dame as we did before the fire. History is judgement, and is made by people—it answers the question: how did we get from A to B? Those judgments are with us (and subject to ongoing revision). Many have already declared that Notre Dame “witnessed so many seminal events” and observed such historical luminaries as Napoleon and Joan of Arc. Actually, the stone and glass that made Notre Dame witnessed nothing. Our tendency to anthropomorphize everything on earth only serves to keep us thinking that everything is about us. Notre Dame is an object, not a living thing.

Why is it so special then? Because not all objects are equal. Size varies, weight varies, colors, texture and so on. When something is made, it functions (most often) to serve a purpose: we use forks to eat, shoes to protect our feet, bowling balls to entertain. A massive Gothic cathedral such as Notre Dame was made to express in a grand holistic manner the faith and world-view of a civilization. Arguably, this was a more ambitious purpose, if less perfunctory.

Study a fork, and you quickly get the point: it’s necessary to eat and a fork helps. Shoes, however fetishized in the modern world, help us navigate the environment by preventing cuts and blisters. Bowling balls are part of a very broad narrative of how important it is to have leisure time—play is not frivolous. It is part of forming a balanced personality.

Now, study Notre Dame, and the entirety of a complex belief system unfolds, as does the economic and social fabric of Europe in the Middle Ages. For Notre Dame to have been built eight hundred years ago remains an astonishing feat—what social force could have been so powerful as to propel its construction?

One answer that must be considered is status. Whichever city had the largest cathedral could claim preeminence. This status would attract kings and pilgrims alike, driving the local economy and serving to consolidate the power of that city. To build the tallest cathedral (one sign of its superiority) was no small task, it required all available resources and over one hundred years to build. Cities competed for this status, as they do today.

And, study of Notre Dame inevitably leads to the centrality of faith in human history. Status exists across the animal kingdom, thus the top dog and the queen bee. But it is the human species that has experienced a profound and relentless belief in a non-material world beyond the one we directly encounter each day. Faith, perhaps more so than status or economics, has driven creativity to its most glorious heights, whether in the Sistine Chapel, the Taj Mahal, or in Milton’s Paradise Lost. To understand ourselves as a species, we need to access the most complete expressions of our desires. Which are not forks, shoes or, however useful, bowling balls.

We need Notre Dame. Though it is an object, it is one that arose from magnificent forces, and one that can be a factor in transformative experiences. Meaning, an individual standing inside that incredible architecture may experience the most exalted of human ambitions, as opposed to the most ordinary. It is in us to feel that magnificence, that exaltation. Notre Dame, a work of art as well as a house of worship, enables those precious experiences, whatever one’s beliefs.

Notre Dame can be rebuilt, and must be. Not to preserve history, that is not its function. Nor to be an ongoing witness, that’s a physical impossibility. We need to experience it. That experience—to see and smell and hear an object designed and built to touch the miraculous—can become part of us.

In a world of endless needs, where children starve and veterans go homeless, perhaps this year we can stretch just a little bit more and contribute to the rebuilding of one of our priceless treasures, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, a testament to our search for the transcendent. — Will South

How to Help —

 Please visit the Friends of the Notre Dame de Paris to make a financial donation.

http://www.notredamedeparis.fr/friends/donate/

Visit Jasper’s specially created Facebook “event” to share your own thoughts about the Notre Dame fire and preserving/protecting/rebuilding the places that create our cultural landscape — at https://www.facebook.com/events/2071745049605312/

Jasper Project Announces Names of Women Honored for the Supper Table's Array of Remarkable SC Women

Become a part of the Jasper Project’s most ambitious multi-disciplinary project thus far in one of two ways:

Women and girls are invited to join Jasper on one of six occasions to paint tiles honoring an Array of Remarkable SC Women

Support the Supper Table by sponsoring a tile ($100), educational panel ($300), place-setting ($1000), or table segment ($3000)

(see below)

The Supper Table – An Array of Remarkable SC Women, Categorized by Contribution

Activists & Politicians

These women spent/have spent their lives fiercely advocating for what they believe in either through the work they do or by working in government positions.

• Bambie Gaddist, M.D. (September 21, 1955 – present) HIV/AIDS activist; Executive Director of The South Carolina HIV/AIDS Council.

• Bernice Robinson (February 7, 1914 – September 3, 1994) activist in the Civil Rights Movement and education proponent who helped establish adult Citizenship Schools in South Carolina; first African American woman to run for a political office in the state.

• Candy Waites (February 21, 1943 – present) former president of the League of Women Voters of Columbia; served on Richland County Council for twelve years; former State Representative for House District 75 

• Elizabeth Hawley Gasque Van Exern (February 26, 1186 – November 2, 1989) Congresswoman elected into the House of Representatives on September 13, 1938; first woman elected into Congress for the state of South Carolina.

• Gertrude Sanford Legendre (March 29, 1902 – March 8, 2000) American socialite who served with the American spy agency, Office of Strategic Services, during WWII; owner of Medway plantation in South Carolina; known as a noted explorer, big-game hunter and environmentalist.

• Gilda Cobb-Hunter (November 5, 1952 – present) Democratic member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, representing District 66 in Orangeburg County; first African American woman to be elected into the State House for this county.

• Harriet Hancock (Unknown) Co-founder of the South Carolina Pride Movement and longtime activist. The Harriet Hancock LGBT Center is named after her, offering a supportive meeting space for those of the LGBTQ+ community.

• Harriet Keyserling (Unknown – December 10, 2010) First woman to represent Beaufort in the South Carolina Legislature; an advocate for Women’s rights who advocated for the arts and environment.

• Harriet McBryde Johnson (July 8, 1957 – June 4, 2008) Disability rights activist who was disabled due to a neuromuscular disease; American author and attorney who was named Person of the Year by New Mobility.

•  Irene Dillard Elliott (August 7, 1892 – April 5, 1978) The first Dean of Women at the University of South Carolina; involved in many civic, educational and cultural organizations.

•  Jane Edna Harris Hunter (December 13, 1882 – January 13, 1971) African American social worker and founder of the Phillis Wheatley Association of Cleveland, formally known as the Working Girls Association.

•  Janie Glymph Goree (Unknown – January 2009) Political activist who was elected the first African American female Mayor in South Carolina.

• Jean Toal (August 11, 1943 – present) First woman and Roman Catholic to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Carolina.

• Keller Barron (Unknown – present) Actively involved in the League of Women Voters where she has served as local and state League president, Barron advocates women’s rights, voters’ rights, improved race relations and education reform.

• Linda Ketner (May 12, 1950 – present) philanthropist who was a candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina’s 1st congressional districts; activist for the LGBTQ community, women, and affordable housing.

• Malissa Burnette (Unknown – present) Certified specialist in employment law; has a history of fighting for cases that involve discrimination, civil and constitutional rights, sexual harassment, breach of contract, non-compete agreements, wage claims, and academic tenure and promotions issues.

• Marian Wright Edelman (June 6, 1939 – present) President and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund; activist for children’s rights.

• Marjorie Hammock (January 24, 1936 – Present) Licensed clinical social worker in Columbia, South Carolina; former President of both the SC Chapter NASW and the Columbia Chapter of the National Association of Black Social Workers; social justice advocate.

• Nancy Barton (Unknown - present) Founder and Executive Director of Sistercare, an organization who provides services and advocates for domestic violence survivors and their children.

• Nancy Stevenson (June 8, 1928 – May 31, 2001) American politician who served as Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina from 1979 – 1983; first woman to be elected to the South Carolina statewide office.

• Nekki Shutt (Unknown – present) attorney and activist from Columbia, South Carolina; honored as Lawyer of the Year for 2019.

• Nikki Haley (January 20, 1972 – present) The first female governor for South Carolina who went on to serve as United States Ambassador to the United Nations; governor who took down the Confederate Flag at the State House.

• Reshma Kahn (Unknown – present) Founder and Executive Director of the Shifa Free Clinic; passionate about serving the uninsured at the same level of the insured.

• Ruth Ann Butler (Unknown – present) Civil rights icon and founder of the Greenville Cultural Exchange; worked to preserve the history of African American stories. 

• Sarah Mae Flemming (June 28, 1933 – June 16, 1993) African American woman expelled from a bus in Columbia, SC, for refusing to give her seat up, several months before Rosa Parks. Her lawsuit played a massive role in the Parks case months later.

• Susan Dunn (Unknown – present) Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of South Carolina; a fierce advocate for the advancement of women in the practice of law.

• Tamika Gadsden (Unknown – present) State leader of the South Carolina Chapter of the Women's March and longtime women’s rights advocate.

• Tootsie Holland – (Unknown – Unknown) women’s rights activist; former Regional Director of NOW (National Organization of Women).

• Vivian Anderson (Unknown – Present) Founder of Every Black Girl, an organization supporting justice for African American girls; recognized by Essence for being one of the 100 woke women of 2018.

Actors

These women were/are actors on either the stage or screen with many of them being recognized for their talent with nominations and awards.

•  Andie McDowell (April 21, 1958 – present) Golden Globe nominated actor and model; known for roles in Groundhog Day, Green Card, and Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

• Anna Camp (September 27, 1982 – present) actor, known for her roles in TV Series True Blood, Mad Men, and the Pitch Perfect movies.

• Danielle Brooks (September 17, 1989 – Present) actor and singer; known for her role as Tasha "Taystee" Jefferson on Orange Is the New Black; received a Tony nomination for her portrayal of Sofia in the 2015 Broadway production of The Color Purple.

• Lauren Hutton (November 17, 1943 – present) American actress and model who signed, at the time, the biggest contract in the history of the modeling industry with makeup brand Revlon (1973).

• Mabel King (December 25, 1932 – November 9, 1999) American film, stage and TV actress whose roles include Mabel “Mama” Thomas on the ABC hit show, What’s Happening!! and Evillene the Witch on the stage musical, The Wiz.

• Mary Louise Parker (August 2, 1964 – present) American actor and writer who has received both a Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy Award for roles that she has played; known for her roles in the TV series Weeds and the movie Fried Green Tomatoes

• Monique Coleman (November 13, 1980 – present) Actor and producer who is known for her roles in the hit movie franchise, High School Musical.

• Nina Mae McKinney (June 12, 1912 – May 3, 1967) American actor who got her start on Broadway; one of the first African American film stars in the United States.

• Viola Davis (August 11, 1965 – Present) American actor and the first African American actor to have won an Academy Award, Emmy Award and Tony Award; known for her role on the show How to Get Away with Murder.

• Virginia Capers (September 22, 1925 – May 6, 2004) Broadway and stage actor; won the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical for her role in Raisin.

Artists

These women were/are artists of any medium or contributed greatly to the arts in South Carolina.

• Alice Ravenel Huger Smith (July 14, 1876 – February 3, 1958) watercolorist, painter, and printmaker; one of the leading figures of the Charleston Renaissance

• Anita Pollitzer (October 31, 1894 – July 3, 1975) photographer, charcoal artist, and suffragette who was a member of the National Woman’s Party and was instrumental in the passage of the 19th amendment.

• Anna Vaughan Hyatt Huntington (March 10, 1876 – October 4, 1973) American sculptor who both created the first public monument by a woman in New York City and created the city’s first monument dedicated to a historical woman

• Betsy Teter (unknown – present) co-founded the Hub City Writers Project in 1995, opened Hub City Bookshop; winner of Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts

• Elaine Nichols (Unknown – Present) Supervisory Curator of Culture at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture; curator of the Black Fashion Museum collection.

• Elizabeth O’Neill Verner (December 21, 1883 – April 17, 1979) Known as the “best-known woman artist of South Carolina of the twentieth century,” Verner was an artist, author lecturer, and preservationist who was one leader of the Charleston Renaissance; helped found the Southern States Art League.

• Gail M. Morrison – (Unknown - Present) educator and philanthropist; longtime patron of the arts in Columbia; her and her deceased husband were major benefactors of the Philharmonic, City Ballet, CMA and others; former director of the Commission on Higher Education

• Georgette Seabrooke (August 2, 1916 – December 27, 2011) Best known for her mural, Recreation in Harlem, displayed at Harlem Hospital in New York City; South Carolina native known as a muralist, artist, illustrator, art therapist and non-profit chief executive and educator

• Georgia Harris (July 29, 1905 - January 30, 1997) One of the Catawba tribe’s former master potters; award-winning nurse who received the National Heritage Fellowship Award.

• Helen Hill (May 9, 1970 – January 4, 2007) American filmmaker, artist, writer and social activist; known as one of the most well-regarded experimental animators of her generation after the release of her final film, The Florestine Collection.

• Kitty Black-Perkins (Unknown) Chief Designers of Fashions and Doll Concepts for Mattel’s Barbie, where her “Black Barbie” was the first doll of color to take the name Barbie (1979-1980).

• Lily Strickland (January 28, 1884 – June 6, 1958) Composer, painter and writer who published 395 works including sacred music and children’s songs.

• Mary Jackson (February 3, 1945 – Present) African American fiber artist who received the MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 2008 for “pushing the tradition in stunning new directions” with her sweetgrass basket weaving.

• Suzy McCormick Shealy (Unknown – present) American artist; was awarded the Order of the Palmetto in 2017; served on the Board of Trustees of the Walker Foundation at the School for the Deaf and Blind

Athletes

These women were not only athletes but often broke boundaries for women and people of color in their fields.

•  Alice Coachman (November 9, 1923 – July 14, 2014) track and field athlete, first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal

• Dawn Staley (May 4, 1970 – present) Hall of Fame basketball player and coach; three-time Olympic gold medalist

• Jackie Frazier-Lyde (December 2, 1961 – present) American lawyer and former professional boxer; born the daughter of former Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier.

• Katrina McClain Johnson (September 19, 1965 – present) Retired American basketball player who has played for many USA teams and three Olympic teams; inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

• Louise Smith (July 31, 1916 – April 15, 2006) Known as the “first lady of racing,” Smith was a NASCAR racer who became the first woman inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1999.

• Lucille Ellerbe Godbold (May 31, 1900 – April 5, 1981) American athlete who competed in the 1922 Women’s World Games; the 1st woman in South Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.

• Mamie Peanut Johnson (September 27, 1935 – December 18, 2017) Professional female baseball player who was the first female pitcher and one of only three women to play in the Negro Leagues.

 Businesswomen & Executives

These women spent/have spent their lives either founding their own businesses or working their way to the top of their respective businesses, breaking the glass ceiling both gender and race wise.

• Darla Moore (August 1, 1954 – present) investor and philanthropist; has been mentioned in Forbes Fortune, Working Woman, Worth, Wall Street Journal, and CNN; school of business at USC is named after her.

• Debra L. Lee, Esq. (August 8, 1954 – present) businesswoman; currently the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BET; named one of The Hollywood Reporter’s “100 Most Powerful Women in Entertainment”

• Kathy Riley (Unknown – present) Executive Director and Founder of the Columbia Women’s Shelter.

• Kay Thigpen (Unknown – present) Co-founder and Managing Director of Columbia, South Carolina’s Trustus Theatre.

• Laura Bragg (October 9, 1881 – May 16, 1978) First woman to run a publicly funded art museum, the Charleston Museum, in 1920. 

• Marva Smalls (Unknown – Present) Entertainment executive; Vice President of Public Affairs and Chief of Staff at Nickelodeon Networks.

• Sylvia Woods (February 2, 1926 – July 19, 2012) American restaurateur who founded the restaurant Sylvia’s in Harlem, New York City. She is known as the “Queen of Soul Food.”

Educators

These women spent/have spent their lives educating/mentoring groups &/or the community to better understand both the history and current societal structures of South Carolina.

• Augusta Baker (April 1, 1911 – February 23, 1998) African-American librarian and storyteller, renowned for her contributions to children’s literature

• Barbara Williams Jenkins (August 17, 1934 – present) educator who greatly contributed to the library profession on a local, regional and national level; first African American President of the South Carolina Library Association

• Brooke Bauer (unknown – present) – first Catawba Indian to receive a PhD; professor of History at USC – Lancaster

• Charlotta Spears Bass (February 14, 1874 - April 12, 1969) educator, newspaper publisher-editor, and civil rights activist; first African-American woman to own and operate a newspaper in the US; first African-American woman nominated for Vice President.

• Cynthia Graham Hurd (Mid-1900s – June 17, 2015) librarian who fought for literacy for all; housing rights activist; victim of Charleston AME church shooting

• Dr. Wil Lou Gray (August 29, 1883 – March 10, 1984) Influential educator focusing on adult literacy who was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame; only female of 34 nominations for the South Carolina Man of the Hall Century Award.

• Lucy Hampton Bostick (November 6, 1898 – July 8, 1968) Devoted librarian and citizen who contributed to the development of the library system in Richland County & South Carolina; served as Secretary of the SC State Library Board for almost 40 years.

• Martha Schofield (1839 – 1916) Abolitionist and Educator who opened Scofield’s School in 1870 in an effort to teach her students to become “themselves” while still teaching them basic skills such as reading, writing and math. 

• Millicent Brown (Unknown – present) Claflin professor; one of the first African American children to integrate South Carolina schools with the case Millicent Brown vs. SC School District 20 (1963).

• Rev. Sharonda Coleman- Singleton (Unknown – June 17, 2015) Speech-language pathologist for Goose Creek High; track and field coach who brought many athletes to the state tournament; victim of the Emanuel AME Church shooting in Charleston who is honored by many.

• Victoria Eslinger (Unknown – Present) litigator; mentor at the USC School of Law; winner of the 2012 Bissell Award, 2009 Advocate of the Year, and a Compleat Lawyer Platinum Award.

Scientists & Medical Professionals

These women were/are scientists, astronauts, nurses, and doctors, who spent/have spent their lives saving the lives of others and making scientific breakthroughs.

• Catherine Coleman (December 14, 1960 – present) –American chemist, former United States Air Force officer, and retired NASA astronaut

• Hilla Sheriff (1903 – September 10, 1988) South Carolina physician who became one of the most respected medical officials during the twentieth century; held positions such as Health Officer in Spartanburg County and the Director of the Board of Health’s Division of Maternal and Child Health in Columbia.

• Juanita Redmond Hipps (July 1, 1912 – February 25, 1979) Known as one of the Angels of Bataan during the early months of war; a nurse for the United States Army Nurse Corps and the author of bestselling book, I Served on Bataan, which spoke on her experiences in the Philippines.

• Maj. Gen. Irene Trowell-Harris (Unknown – present) Commissioned in the New York Air National Guard in April 1963; held the positions of chief nurse, nurse administrator, flight nurse instructor and flight nurse examiner; first female in history to have a Tuskegee Airmen Inc. Chapter named in her honor

• Maude Callen (November 8, 1898 – January 23, 1990) Nurse and midwife whose work was brought to national attention through the photo, “Nurse Midwife,” by W. Eugene Smith when it was published in Life in 1951.

Singers & Performers

These women were/are singers, dancers, models, or other performers who either helped the state in some way or represented SC as they performed around the world.

• Ann Brodie (December 13, 1929 – March 9, 1999) internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer; founding director of Columbia City Ballet.

• Bertha “Chippie” Hill (March 15, 1905 – May 7, 1950) blues and vaudeville performer who recorded with Louis Armstrong

• Dorae Saunders (unknown – present) transgender woman of color from Columbia who was a finalist on season 3 of America’s Got Talent

• Etta Jones (November 25, 1928 – October 16, 2001) American Jazz singer who received three Grammy nominations for her albums Don’t Go to Strangers, Save Your Love for Me, and My Buddy. Her album, Don’t Go to Strangers, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

• Gwendolyn Bradley (Unknown – Present) American soprano born in Bishopville, South Carolina, who has performed on both opera and concert stages around the world.

• Linda Martell (June 4, 1941 – present) Country and blues singer who was the first African American Woman to sing at the Grand Ole Opry.

• Mariclare Miranda (Unknown – present) Prima ballerina for Columbia City Ballet since 1997; founder and principal instructor of the Columbia Conservatory of Dance.

• Marlena Smalls (Unknown) Gospel Singer known for forming the Hallelujah Singers in 1990 in hopes to promote the Gullah heritage.

• Maxine Brown (August 18, 1939 – present) American soul singer whose track “We’ll Cry Together” reached #10 in the Billboard R&B chart.

• Melanie Thornton (May 13, 1967 – November 24, 2001) American pop singer who was the lead singer of the band La Bouche from 1994-2001.

• Ophelia Devore-Mitchell (August 12, 1921 – February 28, 2014) First African American model in the United States; helped establish the Grace Del Marco Agency, one of the first modeling agencies in America.

• Sarah Reese – (Unknown - Present) instructor and opera singer who has traveled and performed throughout the world; praised by a plethora of sources such as The New York Times; won on the “Ted Mack” show.

Writers

These women are poets, novelists, essayists, journalists, playwrights, and more who were often inspired by their own lives in the works they wrote and frequently used their written works as a form of activism.

• Annie Greene Nelson (December 5, 1902 – December 23, 1993) novelist and playwright; first African American woman from South Carolina to publish a novel

• Betsy Cromer Byars (August 7, 1928 – present) author of children's books; won a Newbery Medal, a National Book Award for Young People's Literature, and an Edgar Award 

• Beryl Dakers (Mid-1900s – present) Emmy nominated broadcast journalist; first black person on air reporting news for WIS radio; worked for ETV.

• Blanche McCrary Boyd (1945 – present) novelist, essayist, and screenwriter; feminist & LGBTQ+ advocate  

• Carrie Allen McCray (October 4, 1913 – July 25, 2008) novelist and poet;
  one of the founders and first board members of the South Carolina Writers Workshop

• Charlayne Hunter-Gault (February 27, 1942 – present) journalist; former foreign correspondent for National Public Radio; Civil Rights Activist

• Dori Sanders (June 8, 1934 – present) African-American novelist, food writer and farmer; winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award

• Dorothy Allison (April 11, 1949 – present) best-selling author; nominated for the 1992 National Book Award for her novel Bastard Out of Carolina

• Dot Jackson (August 10, 1932 – December 11, 2016) Novelist and longtime journalist for the Charlotte Observer.

• Elizabeth Allston Pringle (May 29, 1845 – December 5, 1921) Female rice-plantation owner; author of the best-selling novel A Woman Rice Planter; wrote about her childhood and women during the Civil War.

• Elizabeth Boatwright Coker (April 21, 1909 – September 1, 1993) Author of nine novels with plots revolving around the legends and family histories of South Carolina; inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame in 1992 for her impact on South Carolina and American culture and history.

• Essie Mae Washington-Williams (October 12, 1925 - February 4, 2013) Daughter of former Governor of South Carolina, Strom Thurmond; a teacher, author and writer known for her pro-racial segregation policies.

• Grace Lumpkin (March 3, 1891 – March 23, 1980) American writer of proletarian literature with much of her work focusing on the Depression Era. Her first book, To Make My Bread, won the Gorky Prize in 1933.

• Gwen Bristow (September 16, 1903 – August 17, 1980) American Author and Journalist known for her best-selling western romance, Jubilee Trail; inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 1989.

• Helen von Kolnitz Hyer (December 30, 1896 – November 14, 1983) American Poet named the second South Carolina Poet Laureate from 1974-1983 by Governor John C. West.

• Josephine Humphries (February 2, 1945 – present) Author who wrote many novels inspired by the landscape of Charleston, SC, and her own life in the South; recipient of the 1984 Hemingway Foundation/PEN award.

• Mary Boykin Chestnut (March 31, 1823 – November 22, 1886) American author; known for her book published as her Civil War diary, which outlines the society and its struggles throughout this time.

• Mary C. Simms Oliphant (January 6, 1891 – July 27, 1988) South Carolina historian; updated the 1860 history of South Carolina textbook, which was adopted by the State Board of Education.

• Nikky Finney (August 26, 1957 – present) American poet who advocates for social justice and cultural preservation; inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors in 2013.

• Peggy Parish (July 14, 1927 – November 19, 1988) American author known for her children’s book series; published over 30 books in her lifetime.

• Sheila R. Morris (Unknown - Present) author and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights; wrote Southern Perspective of the Queer Movement, a collection of the true stories of LGBTQ+ individuals in South Carolina. 

• Sue Monk Kidd (August 12, 1948 – Present) American author whose work has debuted at number 1 on The New York Times Best Seller List; best known for her novel, The Secret Life of Bees, which was turned into a fairly well-critiqued movie.

• Vera Gomez (Unknown – present) Greenville based poet; founding member of the first Greenville Poetry Slam team that won the 1998 Southeast Regionals, bringing the first, all-women team to Nationals.

• Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor (April 4, 1937 – September 3, 2016) Culinary anthropologist, food writer, and broadcaster on public media; produced two award-winning documentaries.

• Virginia Mixson Geraty (1915 - 2004) American Author who published books in the Gullah Language; Gullah Scholar and defender of the language.

The Jasper Project presents

An Array of Remarkable South Carolina Women – an ancillary project of The Supper Table

When Judy Chicago created her monumental 1979 art installation, The Dinner Party, the artist knew she wanted to highlight the accomplishments of more than just the 39 women who have place-settings at the table. So Chicago created the Heritage Floor upon which the names of 999 women were written on more than 2000 tiles.

The Jasper Project’s Supper Table* takes further inspiration from Chicago’s installation with an ancillary project called an Array of Remarkable South Carolina Women, consisting of 120 ceramic tiles, each embossed with the name of an exceptional SC woman, embellished and signed by a woman from the Midlands community, and set into wall-like panels for display.

You are invited to embellish one of these tiles, each of which honors a SC woman, living or deceased, whose life’s work has improved or continues to improve humankind. There is no cost to participate and all ages are welcome. All you need to do is sign up for one of the designated time slots, go to the Columbia Arts Center at 1227 Taylor Street, choose your subject and then paint and sign your tile. Your name will be recorded in our commemorative book, alongside the bio of the woman whose tile you paint, and you will be invited to an opening reception for the tiles later this summer.

Times to paint:

·        Wednesday, April 17, 6 – 8 pm

·        Wednesday, April 24, 3 – 5 pm

·        Tuesday, April 30, 6 – 8 pm

·        Wednesday, May 1, 3 – 5 pm

·        Wednesday, May 8, 3 – 5 pm

·        Saturday, May 11, 1 – 3 pm

*The Supper Table is the Jasper Project’s most ambitious project to date! A SC-centric homage to the 40th anniversary of Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, the Supper Table honors 12 women from SC history who devoted their lives to breaking barriers and improving humankind including Mary McLeod Bethune, Alice Childress, Septima Clark, Mathilda Evans, Althea Gibson, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, Eartha Kitt, Julia Peterkin, Eliza Pinckney, Modjeska Monteith Simkins, Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, and Sarah Leverette.

Participating Artists include:

Bohumila Augustinova – Columbia Art Center, Anastasia and Friends

Eileen Blyth – www.eileenblyth.com

Tonya Gregg – www.tonyagregg.com

Mana Hewitt – www.manahewitt.com

B. A. Hohman – www.facebook.com/bahohman

Heidi Darr-Hope – www.darr-hope.com

Lori Isom

Flavia Lovatelli – www.flavia-lovatelli.com

Laurie Brownell McIntosh – www.lauriemcintoshart.com

Michaela Pilar Brown – www.michaelapilarbrown.com 

Renee Roullier –www.reneerouillier.com

Olga Yukhno – 310art.com/olga-yukhno

Literary Artists

Jennifer Bartell – poet and educator - https://jenniferbartellpoet.com/

Carla Damron – social worker and author of The Stone Necklace - http://carladamron.com/

Joyce Rose Harris – poet, The Watering Hole

Kristine Hartvigsen – editor, author of To the Wren Nesting

Meeghan Kane – founder, editor UnSweetened

Monifa Lemons – poet, founder The Watering Hole

Eva Moore – editor, Free Times

Marjory Wentworth – SC poet laureate

Qiana Whitted – USC professor of English and African Studies, author of Comics and the US South

Candace Wiley – poet, founder The Watering Hole

Christina Xan – poet, adjunct English professor, USC 

Claudia Smith Brinson – The State, Columbia College

Additional Artists

Kirkland Smith – portraitist

Jordan Morris – table artist

Betsy Newman –filmmaker advisor

Mahkia Greene – filmmaker coordinator

Vicky Saye Henderson – theatre artist coordinator

Lee Ann Kornegay – long-form and short-form filmmaker

Brenda Oliver – ceramicist

Diane Hare  - ceramics assistant

Kathryn Van Aernum – photographer/graphic artist

Cindi Boiter – project director/editor

Christina Xan- assistant project director

Filmmakers (4/15/19)

Betsy Newman, Lee Ann Kornegay, Laura Kissel, Roni Nicole, Ebony Wilson, Tamara Finkbeiner, Josetra Robinson, Katly Hong

Public Invited to Participate in Supper Table Tile Painting for an Array of Remarkable SC Women

The Jasper Project presents

An Array of Remarkable South Carolina Women – an ancillary project of The Supper Table

When Judy Chicago created her monumental 1979 art installation, The Dinner Party, the artist knew she wanted to highlight the accomplishments of more than just the 39 women who have place-settings at the table. So Chicago created the Heritage Floor upon which the names of 999 women were written on more than 2000 tiles.

The Jasper Project’s Supper Table* takes further inspiration from Chicago’s installation with an ancillary project called an Array of Remarkable South Carolina Women, consisting of 120 ceramic tiles, each embossed with the name of an exceptional SC woman, embellished and signed by a woman from the Midlands community, and set into wall-like panels for display.

You are invited to embellish one of these tiles, each of which honors a SC woman, living or deceased, whose life’s work has improved or continues to improve humankind. There is no cost to participate and all ages are welcome. All you need to do is sign up for one of the designated time slots, go to the Columbia Arts Center at 1227 Taylor Street, choose your subject and then paint and sign your tile. Your name will be recorded in our commemorative book, alongside the bio of the woman whose tile you paint, and you will be invited to an opening reception for the tiles later this summer.

Times to paint:

·        Wednesday, April 17, 6 – 8 pm

·        Wednesday, April 24, 3 – 5 pm

·        Tuesday, April 30, 6 – 8 pm

·        Wednesday, May 1, 3 – 5 pm

·        Wednesday, May 8, 3 – 5 pm

·        Saturday, May 11, 1 – 3 pm

*The Supper Table is the Jasper Project’s most ambitious project to date! A SC-centric homage to the 40th anniversary of Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, the Supper Table honors 12 women from SC history who devoted their lives to breaking barriers and improving humankind including Mary McLeod Bethune, Alice Childress, Septima Clark, Mathilda Evans, Althea Gibson, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, Eartha Kitt, Julia Peterkin, Eliza Pinckney, Modjeska Monteith Simkins, Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, and Sarah Leverette.

Ginny Merett Wins Jasper's Time for Art Best in Show Award

Congratulations

Ginny Merett!

Corsage by Ginny Merett

Jasper congratulates artist Ginny Merett on winning The Jasper Project Time for Art Best in Show Award on Saturday night, December 8th, at the Time for Art Gala, presented by COR at the Columbia Museum of Art.

Merett’s work, Corsage, was unanimously chosen by the judges from the works by 14 artists who had been selected by the Jasper Project to be honored at the event. The judges remarked on the painting’s “unique attention to detail and dedication to the artist’s innovative aesthetic” as well as her “vivid choice of color palette.” Jasper will explore more of Merett’s work in the spring issue of Jasper Magazine.

Other honored artists selected by The Jasper Project include Kathryn Van Aernum, Michael Krakewski, Olga Yukhno, Sharon Collings Licata, Pat Gilmartin, Flavia Lovatelli, Sean Rayford, Lucas Sams, Thomas Washington, Herman Keith, Keith Tolen, Jan Swanson, and Cedric Umoja. Through an arrangement with the Jasper Project COR purchased a piece of art from each of these artists at an artist-stated fair market rate then auctioned the art pieces for a volunteer hour currency at the Saturday night gala.

~~~~

Artist Statement, Ginny Merett: I never forget a face. There are no two alike. I’m inspired by the faces in my grandmother’s 1920s photo albums, faces of strong women and ordinary faces in the crowd. Using collage techniques, I create new faces and personalities that focus on eye-to-eye contact, and the connection between the viewer and my work. Collage is tactile. I get to feel every piece of paper in several ways. Tear. Cut. Glue. Embellish. I plan and gather my color palette from found papers just like a painter gathers paint. I glue papers as varied as maps, sheet music and pages from old textbooks to fill in all areas. Once the glue has dried, I outline each shape to show emphasis and unity. I’m reserved yet my art is loud and gaudy and complex. This is my alter ego. My art is me on the inside.

Artist Bio: 1954) Art has sustained award-winning artist Ginny Merett throughout her life and is the cause for her every success. She studied Art Education at the University of Georgia and earned two masters degrees from The University of South Carolina. She devoted 30+ years to teaching art to children of all ages while developing her style in painting murals, creating watercolor paintings, and drawing portraits in graphite. Currently, Ginny uses collage techniques to create portraits and figurative works of art. Her influences include David Hockney’s 'joiners,' Hannah Hoch’s timeless collages, and the beautiful execution of John Singer Sargent’s portraits. Ginny is a member of FigurativeArtists.org, Trenholm Artist Guild and South Carolina Artists. She lives in Lexington, SC with her two dogs, Bingo and Jack.

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?”

Highlighting the Jasper-Selected Artists Being Honored at Time for Art

When COR (Columbia Opportunity Resource) came to Jasper and asked us to help with their annual Time for Art project we were excited to say yes. Time for Art is a unique project in that bidders attending the swanky gala held this year on Saturday, December 8th at the Columbia Museum of Art bid for art not with dollars and cents, but with volunteer hours. Jasper likes the idea of valuing a person in terms of the time they have to offer over the money they have to spend. But we wanted to make sure that the artists whose work is being auctioned are not only paid a fair price for their art, but that the artists themselves are honored for the important contribution they make, not only to the Time for Art event, but also to the Midlands area everyday by practicing their art.

So Jasper agreed to select a panel of artists who we wanted to honor and introduce these artists to the folks at COR, who then purchased or will purchase their art to auction this weekend. In addition to choosing the artists, we also asked that COR treat the artists and their guests to free admission to the gala, that they recognize the artists at the gala and give them a round of applause, and that they allow judges for the Jasper Project to award a Jasper Project Best in Show award consisting of a feature article in the spring issue of Jasper Magazine.

Over the next few days leading up to the gala, Jasper will be highlighting the 14 artists we selected as Time for Art Honorees. Yesterday we highlighted Michael Krajewski, Olga Yukhno, Flavia Lovatelli, Sean Rayford — Here are today’s honorees:

Keith Tolen

Keith Tolen is a retired arts educator from Kershaw County who just closed a solo show at Harbison Theatre.

Lucas Sams

Lucas Sams studied art at Temple University, the University of SC, and the SC governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities, He lived for a while in Japan.

Kathryn Van Aernum

From Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kathryn Van Aernum is a photographer, painter, visual arts educator, and creativity coach.

Sharon Collings Licata

Sharon Collings Licata is a Sculptor/Photographer & Instructor, Shamanic Practitioner, Sand a member of the faculty for SC Faculty for Foundation For Shamanic Studies.

Olga Yukhno Featured in December's Tiny Gallery Series

Thursday Night December 6th

6 - 9 pm

Jasper Studio #7 at Tapp’s Arts Center

The Jasper Project’s Tiny Gallery Series returns this Thursday night —always for First Thursdays — with an installation of 3D art from Olga Yukhno, who Hallie Hayes profiled earlier this fall. Yukhno is bringing a collection of both jewelry and objet d’art purposefully selected for exhibition based on their unique and innovative designs but also on the exciting holiday presents they will make for those on the discerning givers’ lists.

We caught up with Olga and asked her a few questions about this upcoming show.

~~~~

Jasper: From an earlier conversation with you we know that you are from Russia and have been in the states about 10 years. Can you specifically reflect on your time in Columbia and tell us how you've grown as an artist and who has influenced you the most in terms of your growth?

Olga: My time in Columbia has been challenging at times- it’s very hard to change countries, cultures and even art media. However, I’m tremendously grateful that I faced and was able to overcome such challenges as this process made me a better artist and, I hope, a better human being.

In the 10 years since I moved to Columbia, it has changed a lot. I feel that the last few years especially have been particularly good for the local art scene. I’m excited to not only witness this change but be an active part of it developing my work, helping other artists, connecting people and creating new opportunities!

I’ve been lucky to have quite a few people in my life who have influenced and supported me. Until this year I did all my work in community studios. Over the years I received so much encouragement from fellow artists who were working next to me! It has been a very humbling experience and I’m very grateful for all the friendships I made along the way.

Sheri Hood, the former owner of Our Hands Together Studio, has been one of the biggest supporters I’ve ever had and a wonderful friend through many trying and happy moments in my life. Her incredible kindness and wisdom have changed my life in many ways and served as a personal example for me.

My first Solo Exhibition and consequent gallery representation also happened in Columbia. Donna Green of Southern Pottery believed in me and gave me this opportunity that served as a powerful push in the development of my work. Since then I have been working with many other galleries throughout the Southeast but the first person who took a chance with my work will always have a special place in my heart.

I’ve been working at USC as the Gallery Director of McMaster Gallery since this summer and it has been an absolutely amazing experience of professional and personal growth. It’s been such a joy working alongside so many talented and dedicated people and being able to bring incredible art to Columbia.

And, of course, probably the most wonderful thing that I owe Columbia for is meeting my wonderful husband who is my biggest fan and supporter.

Jasper: What have you been up to since we last spoke earlier this year?

Olga: Life is getting more exciting every day! As I mentioned above, I’ve been enjoying curating exhibitions at McMaster Gallery. But I also work with other groups in Columbia to bring more opportunities to our city.

I have been working with Flavia Lovatelli to organize a series of EcoFab art exhibitions and fashion shows in Columbia and other parts of South Carolina. Just last week we celebrated the closing of EcoFab 2.0 at Anderson Arts Center and now we are getting ready for our biggest event yet - Charleston Fashion Week.

I also serve as a Gallery Coordinator for the Crooked Creek Art League and a Workshop Coordinator for Midlands Clay Arts Society. I’m a big believer in promoting and connecting people and creating new opportunities for artists. So I try to find ways to express this passion! My dream is for a bigger, more vibrant art community working together to help all the local talent really flourish!

Jasper: We're looking forward to hosting you as the third artist in our Tiny Gallery Series on Thursday, December 6th at the Jasper Studio (#7) in Tapp's Arts center. Can you talk a bit about what you'll be showing at this event? (would love to have some photos -- for the blog so no worries about hi res or anything)

Olga: First of all, I would like to thank the Jasper Project for this opportunity! I’m honored to have been selected and I know I’m in great company.

I will be showing some of my pieces from the Meditations Series. They are ceramic and mixed media Mandalas that symbolize peace, happiness and balance. They have brought a lot of joy and mindfulness in my life and I think these are the things we can all benefit from in the Holiday Season and the New Year. I will also have some jewelry. Personally, I love all jewelry related things- wearing, making, collecting- and I’m excited to share some of my favorite designs with the Jasper patrons!

Jasper: How does the Tiny Gallery Series work for you as an artist -- is it beneficial to you at all, and how so?

Olga: The Tiny Gallery Series is a wonderful idea! I love the opportunity to have a mini Solo Show as a part of a larger event. What I’m mostly excited about is meeting new people who have never seen my work. I think Jasper is a perfect “cultural bridge” to connect supporters of visual art, literary work and a richer cultural life in Columbia. I’m very glad this project has been started and look forward to many more successful events!

Jasper: After the Tiny Gallery Series, what's next for you and your art?

Olga: My 2019 is shaping up to be very exciting! The Tiny Gallery Series is a perfect introduction for me into the TAPP’S community as I will be a Resident Artist there for 5 months with a Solo Show in May.

I’m also working on a collaborative project with the amazing Columbia based artists Susan Lenz and Flavia Lovatelli to create a joint exhibition in conjunction with the Deckle Edge Literary Festival. Our show Alternative Storytellers will focus on literary stories with unexpected, thought-provoking new endings.

I’m very honored to have been selected as a featured artist for the Southern Exposure Series in March. This will be a very unique experience for me of creating a body of work based on the music performed at the closing concert of the Series.

In addition to Columbia based events, I will have a Solo Show Beneath the Surface at the Francis Marion Gallery in Florence, SC from February 18 till March 18.

The Jasper Project Joins with COR to Present Time for Art Gala & Volunteer Hour Fundraiser at CMA

The Jasper Project is delighted to partner with COR – Columbia Opportunity Resource – on this year’s celebration of Time for Art. Time for Art celebrates the Midlands’ arts, non-profit, and business communities through a silent art auction amidst an elegant Winter Wonderland gala on Saturday, December 8 at the Columbia Museum of Art. Volunteer hours are the currency of the evening and attendees bid for their favorite art pieces with hours of service to their community, taking their winning pieces home once service hours are completed.

COR invited the Jasper Project to participate this year by choosing 14 Midlands area artists to be honored on the evening of the gala. Selected artists then provided samples of their work from which COR chose and purchased one piece from each artist at a fair market price assigned by the artists themselves. All selected artists and a guest are invited to attend the gala as the guests of Jasper and COR where they will be recognized and honored. One artist will be chosen by an independent judge as the recipient of the Jasper Project Time for Art Best in Show Award and will be featured in the spring 2019 issue of Jasper Magazine.

This year’s honored artists are: Thomas Washington, Ginney Merett, Lucas Sams, Olga Yukhno, Michael Krajewski, Keith Tolen, Flavia Lovatelli, Sean Rayford, Sharon Collings Licata, Herman Keith, Kathryn Van Aernum, Cedric Umoja, Patricia Gilmartin, and Jan Swanson.

Tickets for the evening are on sale now and available at Eventbrite. The evening includes everything one would expect from a black tie optional affair with an open bar, hors d'oeuvres from F2T Productions, Management and Catering, a DJ (Big Time Entertainment), and live music by The Reggie Sullivan Band. Dress in your best and get ready to party! Tickets are $75/person and $140/couple. COR members have access to an exclusive discount.

Jasper’s Tiny Gallery Series Returns with Columbia’s Own, Thomas the Younger

 by: Christina Xan

Last month, The Jasper Project presented the first installment of its new Tiny Gallery series. With the help of the Columbia community, the inaugural event was a success. Continuing on this series will be local artist, writer, and creator, Thomas the Younger, aka Thomas Washington.

I was fortunate enough to meet with Washington this past Tuesday and experience his person as he shared with me details about his art and life and all the ways those two overlap.

Washington grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts where he says everything creatively sparked in him at the age of four. “Before four I had those foundational memories, like my first memory of my grandmother’s spiral staircase or my younger brother who peed on everyone,” he paused, and we laughed, “But after four my mind just woke up.”

Washington shared with me how after four he started consuming all the art and literature he could find, whether it was the Bible, stories, or the dictionary. As for how he started his art, specifically, he began by copying his father.

“I watched my father drawing one day while he was on the phone, and I saw this image come out of his pen, and I thought that was crazy,” Washington said, “When he was done, I took it and began to copy it over and over again until I felt I was closest to what he had done. That’s why I call myself Thomas the Younger.”

This experience didn’t just affect how he started his art, but it has influenced how he approaches creating every time he nears a canvas. “When I started copying my father’s art, I never thought that I could draw with something else, so I just drew with the same pen until it ran out, and even when it ran out, I drew with that same make and model,” Washington continued. “Through that, I learned something: even mistakes can be employed. If I made a mistake, I’d turn the painting right and turn it into something else.”

Approaching his art and literature in that way allows Washington to never be boxed in by specific conventions or genres. “I don’t limit myself to a genre because I just want to tell the story of people, whatever that means or needs,” he explains. “I believe there’s a story that all my art and literature is part of. It spans many worlds and contains all the genres you can imagine, because I love them all.”

Exploring a plethora of methods and genres not only allows Washington to create with limitless possibilities but to reach people in unique ways. “Yesterday someone came up to me while I was painting outside to ask for a cigarette, but after walking away, he came back and started talking to me,” Washington recounts. “After a bit, I went in the house, and, when I came back out, he was staring at my painting with an entirely new energy. He had walked around it, moved it, looked at all the angles.”

Washington proceeded to tell me how this young man shared with him how his painting made him feel something he couldn’t explain, and then he began opening up to Washington about the details of his childhood. Seeing this piece of art gave the young man an opportunity to connect with himself in a way he may not have otherwise been able to, a testament to the power of art itself. Washington says he “felt honored with how much he shared with me. He shared with me the core material of what makes him him.”

Humbly, he continued to say that when he finally came back to the house, he was visibly shaken. “My girl asked me what was wrong, and when I told her, she said that’s why they call you Shaman, because you can pull this out of people; you make their doors open, and their stories begin to flow.”

It’s all but impossible for a human being who feels the passion of all forms of creating so deeply to pinpoint what specifically their art is like. To do so would be to box it inside language. However, Washington knows what is important about it. “Every time we create, we are really expressing a part of ourselves, even if we think we’re hiding it behind someone or something nothing like ourselves,” he asserts. “It’s that way when I paint – I’m really painting me or some aspect of me or something I’m trying to express.”

His passion for creating parallels what he is passionate about in his life, both as a human and a humanitarian. “I consider myself an Afro-futurist, by default, really. My favorite subject is African-American women. Stoicism manifests itself so heavily in the African American community in general, through toughing it out or being tough, and women are as tough inside as others may project on the outside,” Washington elaborates. “It’s infinite. I try to not idealize it when I paint them; I just try to show their truth.”

Of course, this is not the only subject Washington paints or writes about. It is simply one of the many. His art can be colorful or black and white, can show people or monsters, can be chaotic or simple. In a more honest analysis: it is all of these at once. Regardless of what he will paint for this event, it’s of great importance to him as “This is part of my emergence.”

So, as for what to expect, really, it’s anything. It’s a convergence of the above, a reflection of the self, a reflection of the world. It is none of this, yet it is also all.

Confused? Good. That means you’re thinking. It means you’re curious.

To find some answers or better yet, more questions, come see Washington’s exhibit this Thursday at 6:00 p.m. at Tapp’s Art Center, Studio 7.

If you want to check out some of Washington’s past and current work, pop over to his website at: www.thomastheyounger.com

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