INTERVIEW: Kimi Maeda on her Ephemera Trilogy Opening at Trustus Friday

 

This Friday night in a departure from their typical programming, Trustus Theatre opens Kimi Maeda's Ephemera Trilogy, a piece of performance art based in puppetry, but delivering so much more than an adult puppet show. Staged in three parts and using performance art methodologies that include flashlights, sand, shadow art, and more, the performance will take place at the Trustus Side Door Theatre and will run from April 22nd through May 7th on Thursdays at 7:30, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, and on Sundays at 3. Jasper asked artist Kimi Maeda a few brief questions to better prepare us for receiving her work. Here's what we learned: ... Jasper: Jasper has been following your work on the Ephemera project for a while, but for our readers who are just learning about this project can you please summarize what the project is about? Kimi: In The Ephemera Trilogy, I use shadows and sand to capture the strangeness of living in between two different cultures.  Japanese folktales combine with stories of my mother coming to America, and archival footage from Japanese American relocation camps are intercut with sand drawings of my father as a young boy.  The constant desire for Home and a unified Identity that always seems to be just out of reach. ... Jasper: This is a trilogy, right? How is it divided and what should viewers expect from each section? Kimi: I see The Homecoming as a short shadow puppet overture to the other two pieces, and so I have placed it at the beginning of the evening.  Themes that get introduced will be revisited and elaborated upon later. The Crane Wife provides several re-readings of a Japanese tale in which a crane transforms into a woman, combining it with my own experience growing up as a Japanese American in a white New England town and my mother’s experience immigrating to the United States.  It utilizes an overhead projector, mounted and hand-held lights, paper cut-outs, fabric collages, three-dimensional objects, and even my own body to cast shadows. Using sand, shadow, and projection Bend tells the true story of two men incarcerated in a Japanese American relocation camp during World War II: my father, an Asian Art historian who suffered from dementia at the end of his life, and the subject of his research, Isamu Noguchi, a half-Japanese-half-American sculptor. ... Jasper:  You created this completed project over six years, is that correct? Was the project fully formed when you began it or did the trilogy aspect present itself to you in the process? Kimi:  When I began working on these pieces I had no idea of the scope that the entire project would take.  Like a lot of artists, I think there are certain themes that I gravitate toward: Home, trans-cultural identity, and memory.  While The Crane Wife focuses on my mother’s story, Bend focuses on my father.  After I created Bend it seemed natural that the pieces should fit together.  I create work as a way of understanding my place in the world.  As I get older I learn new things and try to incorporate that into my work. ... Jasper:  And you've had the opportunity to tour this performance, is that correct? Can you tell us a bit about taking the project on the road -- where you've been and what that experience was like? Kimi:  There are many different themes in Bend and so I think people connect to it in different ways.  When I took it to the International Sonoran Desert Alliance in Ajo, Arizona, as well as the Crossing the Borders: Puppets in the Green Mountains Festival in Putney, Vermont, the topic of immigration was very much on people’s minds.  In Arizona it was powerful not only to be in the desert landscape that my father experienced when he was interned, but also to hear the stories related to the border. Taking Bend to Arkansas and the former site of one of the internment camps was also an amazing experience.  All that’s left of the camp is a smokestack at the edge of a cotton field.  The only Japanese American in the audience was a man who had been born in the camp.  His family was one of only seven that stayed in Arkansas when the camps were closed, and his was the only family that remained permanently.  It was moving to hear audience members talk about asking their parents why the US government had incarcerated its own citizens.  Before I began my last tour the Mayor of Roanoke, VA wrote in reference to Syrian refugees that “President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it appears that the threat of harm to America from ISIS now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then.”  As more survivors of the camps pass away, I think it becomes more vital than ever that we remember the injustice and we make sure that it never happens again. I wrote this Facebook post before I started the last tour: For the past few years my father has been slowly fading away. The illness that began as a wrong turn on a familiar drive home eventually reduced him to the shallow breathing that kept us on edge by his bedside. When he died, he left an emptiness in his wake. People ask me if it is difficult to be doing a performance about his life so soon after his death. In some ways I think it is actually comforting. I created this show during his illness as a way to cope with everything that I was feeling. Rehearsing in preparation for the tour has been similarly therapeutic. I come into the studio every day and draw my dad over and over again while I listen to recordings of his voice. I am memorizing the shape of his face and the wrinkles on his brow. He feels very present, and that is filling the emptiness. Bend is about forgetting, but it is also about memory. The New England Chapter of the JACL and I originally intended this Day of Remembrance Tour to commemorate Roosevelt signing Executive Order 9066 which led to the incarceration of Japanese American families on the West Coast after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Now I think it is actually a fitting memorial for my father, as well. A friend of mine whose father died recently wrote that “After the initial flurry of burial, obituary, and funeral arrangements passed, I began to think more about my dad from when he was healthy. The years of sickness have faded more, and the memories of my dad through all the years of my childhood and beyond have become stronger. It was like when my dad passed, the years of illness did too, and I was left with the times of what really mattered.” In Bend I express my fear that my father’s memory will be forgotten. However, this tour is not only allowing me to keep his memory present, it is also giving me the opportunity to share his story with so many people. Jasper:  Finally, is this it? Is this project completed and are you moving on to something else now? Or will there be another part to Ephemera? If you're moving on, do you know what your next project will be or can you give us some hints to what you're thinking of? Kimi:  I don’t know that there will be another part to ephemera, but I think the piece as a whole will continue to grow as I get older.  Even returning to The Crane Wife after six years I feel as though I’m in a very different place emotionally and intellectually, and so I’ve added a whole new section at the end to try to address this. Purchase tickets here.

LIVE REVIEW: The Mobros, Watson Village, and the Gardener and the Willow at New Brookland Tavern

  April 15, 9:16 PM EST Like Metallica, Rancid, the Dixie Chicks, and Blues Traveler, the Gardener and the Willow is one of those band names that lets listeners know in advance what they’re signing up for. Never mind that the Gardener and the Willow isn’t a ‘band’ in the traditional sense; the name can’t help but conjure images of pastoral gentility. Indeed, the music of sole member Austin Lee, presumably pulling double duty as both gardener and willow, is gentle—even elegant—in spirit. In execution, it’s gentle in the way that someone calmly categorizing all the ways you’ve ruined their life is gentle.

When Lee takes the stage with his guitar, there is only a scattering of people watching from the adjacent floor. The rest are hanging around the bar, shooting pool, or smoking cigarettes on the back patio. The first song sounds both ominous and lonesome. Over the crack of cue balls knocking 10’s into corner pockets and cans of Pabst hissing to life, Lee’s voice remains steady, undeterred, even pretty. You can tell this song means something special to him. By the second number, the headcount of those actually paying attention has increased 100%, making a solid eighteen. Dempsey’s Aaron Reece joins Lee onstage and they sound good together, both vocally and on guitar. Those about to rock are getting antsy; there’s some uncertain shuffling among their ranks. Maybe they’re put off by a confessional, flamboyantly emotional male spilling his guts before their eyes. As the set goes on, a few more people make their way to the floor, curious. But only a few. By the last song, Lee’s voice is all but drowned out by barroom chatter and he leaves the stage as he arrived, inconspicuously and to polite applause. It’s a shame and he deserves better. From the direction of the bar, someone says what is either, “I haven’t heard the Mobros in two years,” or, “I haven’t had Marlboros in two years.” Either way, another shame.

10:11 PM EST Call it the Opener’s Curse. In between the Gardener and the Willow’s last song and Watson Village’s first, the number of bodies at NBT nearly doubles. This is a crowd is clearly ready for some good old fashioned rocking out and, true to form, Watson Village does its best to deliver. Singer/guitarist Tyler Watson, drummer David Moody, keyboard player Zack Cameron, and bassist Tyler Phillips are off to a good start. The first tune—high-energy, riddled with blues—serves as a de facto antidote for the un-ecstatic soul baring that has come before. The follow-up, “Putty In Your Pocket,” means well but loses its way in an overlong jam that never quite finds its climax. Watson Village takes the misstep in stride and soldiers on. Game to cut loose, the audience is right there with them, strong in enthusiasm if not in sheer numbers. The back patio might well boast the night’s highest attendance so far and the bar never really empties.

10:58 PM EST There was a time not that long ago when the Mobros were one of the most talked-about bands in the Midlands. Not yet old enough to buy their own beer, the sibling duo was rightfully hailed as junior blues saviors, soul food you could watch ripen in real time. These claims were validated in 2013 when the late B.B. King picked them as the opening act for a handful of his Southeastern tour dates. Their buzz has died down a bit since then, as buzz tends to do, but spending a large chunk of the past two years on the road has only tightened the chops of a band already known for its proficiency. There’s no shortage of blues-rock bands slumming it in dives and selling out arenas all over the US, but a true blues band is something altogether less common, and that’s exactly what the Mobros are. For them, ‘rock’ is not a verb but, with the addition of Canaan Peeples on bass, the Mobros have evolved into a trio now more at home on a dingy stage. Kelly Morris’ singing voice carries a heft of soul usually reserved for older, wearier men. His fingers fly up and down the guitar neck with avian grace. His brother Patrick on drums is the spine, the foundation, holding the songs erect with crack timing and understated flair. The standing room is swelling to capacity now and the whole place smells like whiskey and tobacco. This is what folks have come to see. With their button-down shirts tucked neatly into their slacks and not a hair in their mini-afros out of place, the Morris Brothers look like professionals. Not showmen by nature, their live appeal rests solely in their talent and the unmasked joy they take in performing. From their opening song until the finale, there is no pretense of innovation, only two young men (and their bass player) doing what they were made to do.

April 16, 12:06 AM EST I battle the despair that comes with settling one’s tab but emerge more or less intact.

Columbia Museum of Art Wins National Medal for Museum and Library Service

Congratulations to the Columbia Museum of Art for winning the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the highest honor awarded to such an institution and, this year, awarded to none more deserving.

Those of us who have been around Columbia long enough remember when the art museum was some incommodious space where we only went on field trips if we were children and for very specific openings if we were adults. The art museum represented a type of art that didn't really have a place in our lives.

Yes, there were a few lesser-known pieces by better-known artists in which we felt a sense of municipal pride, and yes, many of us had our favorites in the museum's collection or a painting or two with which we enjoyed some special relationship. But even with the art we loved, we were bad lovers. There was nothing about the walls on which the art lived that invited us to visit. We approached the building carefully--like we were visiting the rich old lady down the street with our Ps and Qs at code yellow, careful to wipe our feet before entering, using our church voices or not speaking at all.

Let's call those The Bad Old Days. 

Few institutions experience the kind of renaissance CMA has realized over the past few years.

Where patrons once tiptoed through the galleries, today we celebrate in them. We gather there like a huge extended family and feel welcome within its walls. Rather than reverence we feel a sense of comfort and community and homeyness. We visit the spaces because it makes us feel good or we just need a fix of the art we know belongs to us. And it's not just the art currently hanging on its walls. Columbia Museum of Art has given us the art of Warhol and Leibovitz and O'Keeffe and Curran and more. By empowering our community with a working knowledge of art history and art appreciation Columbia Museum of Art has created a place in our lives for the art it exhibits and the place where it exhibits it - our museum home.

Again, congratulations to everyone at CMA for a honor so well deserved.

News from Girls Rock Columbia - and Camp Registration DEADLINE!

THESE ARE THE GIRLS WHO WILL BECOME THE WOMEN WHO WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD AND MAKE IT RIGHT.

If you've had your head in a sock for past few years you might not know about Girls Rock Columbia and we're sorry for you. But it's not too late to get the girls in your life involved in this wonderful opportunity to learn how strong and mighty and awesome they can be. And, glory to all the gods and goddesses, they can do it via Rock 'n' Roll!

The big news is that, this year, Girls Rock Columbia will be offering a two week teen camp!

The first week of TEEN CAMP will take place July 11 – 15 & July 18 – 22 – girls and trans* youth 13 and up will rock out in traditional GRC fashion. The second week, July 18-22, those same rad teens will be returning to camp for FREE as TEEN LEADERS! During this camp session they’ll work with GRC volunteers to carry out camp activities (facilitating workshops, troubleshooting gear, leading assemblies, mentoring younger campers, etc), while continuing to have their own band practices!

For the non-teen tweeners (ages 8 - 12) there will be the One week camp as per usual on July 18 - 22. And both camps will rock the house on July 23rd for the Girls Rock Showcase.

And here's our favorite part --

"Girls Rock Columbia exists to foster a community of girls and trans* youth, ages 8-17, through music, performance, and various workshops. The program encourages an environment that cultivates self-confidence, challenges gender stereotypes, promotes positive female relationships, creativity, and leadership.  The ultimate goal of Girls Rock Columbia is to empower everyone involved; both campers and volunteers, to take the sense of community learned from within the organization and carry that throughout the city they call home.

The Girls Rock Camp Alliance values diversity of age, race, economic status, gender expression, size, physical ability, developmental ability, musical interests, learning styles, nationality, religion, thought, citizenship status, and sexual orientation. We promote respect and do not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia, or other discriminatory behavior or expression."

But you should neither wait nor hesitate to enroll that young woman in your life because

REGISTRATION CLOSES APRIL 17TH!

Jasper Indie Grits Picks, Day 3: Overall and Aprons (7pm, 4/16)

First, BIG FREEDIA!!!!!!!

Now that that's out of the way, Overalls and Aprons (7pm screening 4/16) looks like a fascinating choice for tonight if for some reason you don't plan on catching the bounce queen in action. Indie Grits always prides itself on digging into the corners and crevices of Southern culture, and this feature documentary does exactly that by celebrating the farm-to-table movement while critically examining if, why, and how sustainable agriculture is viable for modern-day farmers. And, in some sense, this is really just a love letter from filmmaker Thibaut Fagonde to the thriving culinary and farming communities in Charleston. Familiar faces and places abound in the trailer, and it's hard not to get wrapped up in the obvious excitement and fervor Fagonde brings to the subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rdTZ0QUKdw

Jasper Indie Grits Picks, Day 2: Paperback (4/15, 9:30pm, 4/16 2pm)

Amid a deep slate of films on Day 2 of Indie Grits, we want to highlight one of the few narrative features that dot the festival's lineup, Adam Bowers' Paperback. On spec it looks like a romantic comedy crossed with wry slacker existentialism, but one of the great things about Indie Grits curation is that they tend to pick films that subvert such expectations.

Personally, I've always a bit bowled over by truly independent narrative features. The amount of time, money, and energy which go into making them without studio backing is astounding, and it's a tremendous artistic achievement to go through all that for an uncertain screening future. It's also something that, given the overwhelming amount of movies and television we have access to, is far too easy to take for granted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWAAwUFvEYQ

Words, Words, Words: Shakespeare’s First Folio comes to USC by Haley Sprankle

 

“Come in, take a seat on the couch.”

I walked into Professor Robert Richmond’s office, and saw pictures everywhere of various productions he has directed both at the university and around the country.

Most of these productions are the works of Mr. William Shakespeare himself.

From April 14-30, the University of South Carolina is hosting Shakespeare’s First Folio, and since all the world’s a stage, there will be a myriad of ways Columbians can experience these exquisite and well-known works.

“The First Folio is a book that was created seven years after Shakespeare’s death, and is really the book that gave us Shakespeare’s works. Without that compilation of his plays, we probably would have lost many of them, and he wouldn’t have been the most performed playwright in the world. So it seemed appropriate that we should program a number of events.” Richmond explained. “The Tempest, which is the Main Stage production in Drayton Hall, was seemingly fitting because it was his last play and was his farewell to the theatre in many ways.”

The Tempest isn’t the only production on campus to catch a hint of the bard though. Louis Butelli will star in the one-man production and original piece, Gravedigger’s Tale (April 21-23, Longstreet Theatre) and a group of players will perform in an outdoor production titled “Jukebox Shakespeare” (April 23, outside of Thomas Cooper Library).

“Gravedigger’s Tale is an interactive audience piece in which the audience is given a human bone and on the bone is a question. Louis Butelli, playing the gravedigger, invites the audience in a random order to ask a question, and he gives the answer back all in Shakespeare except for just a couple of little adjoining words that get in from A to B,” Richmond elaborates. “Jukebox Shakespeare will be a traveling troupe of Shakespearean players who will perform different scenes, monologues, speeches, and soliloquies on the green outside of the library. It will revolve around the crowd because it’s just really based on passers-by. People will be able to take requests from the ‘greatest hits’ of Shakespeare, so we have everything from Romeo and Juliet to Hamlet to Twelfth Night to Richard III to Henry V.”

Clearly, Richmond is no stranger to innovation. His productions often include unique takes on familiar pieces that transform the work and drop audiences into completely different worlds.

“Well, I think every generation has to redefine him [Shakespeare] in that it has to become accessible and exciting and it needs to be something that a younger generation can understand and feel a part of and complicit in the action,” Richmond says. “So The Tempest is actually a weird play because it has a reputation of being very serious, but actually there’s huge amounts of fun in it. There’s clowns, magic, and fantasy characters. I wanted to try and do a production that is sort of Pan’s Labyrinth meets Shakespeare, but it has to have a sort of an appeal to our sensibilities so that we understand the science fiction of it, the fantasy element of it. Ours is not the sandy beach, castaway version of the play. Ours is a Lord of the Rings version of the play with Celtic music that is obviously very evocative that really tells the audience and makes them think about what it would be like to be stranded on an island.”

Outside of USC’s theatrics, the Thomas Cooper Library will host classes, discussions, and speeches from people such as Shakespearean scholar Stephen Orgel, the First Folio exhibit “Much Ado About Shakespeare” will be open in Hollings Library, and the South Carolina Shakespeare Company will perform Merry Wives of Windsor in Finlay Park.

“To me, it’s less about the book and more about the humanity that is in the book,” Richmond closes. “The book itself is significant; it’s changed the way that we think, the way that we talk, the language that we use. In that book are 1,700 words that had never been spoken before. His [Shakespeare’s] influence on the language that English-speakers share across the world is huge. But the book itself is just a book; it’s about what is in the book and what the book says to each and every one of us.”

For more information about the upcoming events this month, go to http://library.sc.edu/p/FirstFolio!

6 Questions with Wade Sellers whose film ANATOMY OF A FLOOD Premieres at INDIE GRITS

 

JASPER:  The work you've done for Indie Grits this year is untitled in the program literature. Is that intentional? Is there a title or could you give it a title now, if you had to?

SELLERS:  The title of the installation is Anatomy of a Flood. I don't think I had a title for it when they asked for the proposals from the artists. I had a general idea but didn't decide on a title until I solidified the concept.

~

JASPER:  Tell us just a little bit about the impetus for your film.

SELLERS:  I had been asked by a friend if I would be willing to video the interior of a home for insurance purposes that had been damaged by the flooding. I agreed and realized that this was a way that I could offer what I do to those affected. I ended up capturing footage of many homes that were horribly damaged by the flood waters and during the time I spent in each one, the damage and its effect on the owners weighed on me. I though of talking to the owners then and asking about their experience but I couldn't, I didn't feel it was right to do. I wasn't gathering news, I would've asked very personal questions and it was too soon.

When I was asked to participate in the Waterlines project by Seth, I wanted to revisit those home owners and others affected by the flood and have them tell me their personal story of that night.

The narrative of the film is fairly narrow. I asked those that I interviewed to tell me only of their experience the night of October 3rd until the time they left their home the next morning.

 ~

JASPER:  Sometimes Indie Grits films are a work in progress - is yours? (If yes, how so?)

SELLERS:  The project is finished and was originally intended to be a one time screening because of the nature of how it is projected. I've changed my thinking now and think it would be appropriate to be projected as one piece on one wall.

 ~

JASPER:  What was the most challenging part in the process of making this film?

SELLERS:  It is always hard to edit out good parts of a story and Anatomy of a Flood was no different. There were some moments of each person's story of the night of the flood that were extremely engaging, but didn't really fit in the whole of the piece. Since the film is projected on three different walls the timing of each visual was a bit tricky but turned out to be very effective when played together.

The technique I use in editing the interviews is based off of what I developed for a documentary series I directed and edited, where we interview many people about one event. The interviews are then edited together to feel as if it is one continuous story but told by many people and from their personalities in telling the story you get the idea of the makeup of them as individuals and as a community.

 ~

JASPER:  How did making this film affect or change you as a filmmaker?

SELLERS:  The project itself is the first time I have created a film to be projected on multiple screens at the same time. At the heart of it it is a narrative documentary, the only difference is that it has contrasting images projected at the same time on opposite walls. I create films that tell engaging stories. I wanted this to be the same but also wanted to add the element of other possible narratives trying to fight and disorient the viewers attention.

 ~

JASPER:  What do you hope people will take away from having seen the film?

SELLERS:  I don't feel I overstretched my limits with Anatomy of a Flood. Projecting on multiple surfaces isn't new, but I think the project does offer an engaging opportunity for viewers. My goal with it is to have the viewer struggle to watch and listen to the narrative while having the secondary images fighting for their attention as well. It is supposed to illicit an emotional response, to disorient or maybe confuse-much like the events of the night of the flooding or much like diving into water and not knowing, for a split second, which way is the way to the top.

But in the end, I want the viewer to be able to say that they had a shared experience and that they may feel closer to our community.

"If you are someone who creates, then I think it is critical that you push yourself and create something that speaks to your community after your community has suffered. The fact that our community has organizations such as The Nickelodeon and One Columbia that not only support and encourage but commission these efforts puts our city in a position to strengthen the fabric that holds it together in ways we won't realize until the years ahead." - Wade Sellers

Jasper Indie Grits Picks, Day 1: The Color of Fire (4/14, 7pm @ The Nick)

The 2016 Indie Grits Festival is coming at us full steam today (Thursday, April 14th), with a great slate of films, the launch of both the Indie Bits video game showcase the Scenario Collective's The Sweet Spot venue for the weekend, and the riverside performance of eighth blackbird.

While the gorgeous outdoor venue for the latter group is likely to steal most of the thunder of this year's festival, particularly when the day-long festivities there on Saturday culminate with the twerking spectacle of bounce queen Big Freedia, we here at Jasper always have a special affection for the indie film heart of this annual event. In that spirit, each day of the festival we're going to try and highlight a film or two we think is worth your time.

--

The Color of Fire (70 min, dir. by Dorian Warneck; Screening 4/14, 7pm @ The Nick )

While we hate to steer anybody away from eighth blackbird's unique performance next to the Congaree, The Color of Fire was one of the initial film announcements that really caught our eye. Directed by Dorian Warneck, a young Charleston photographer and editor at the Lunch and Recess creative agency, the documentary is an exploration of Dorian's father Diether, who experienced the bombing of his hometown of Dresden, Germany, at the end of World War II and was an enlisted soldier in the Nazi army at the age of 15 for the final month of the war.

The younger Warneck interviews his father as the two travel to Germany to visit Diether's elder siblings and see Dresden "for the last time." Most of Diether's life is filled with "love, family, intrigue, art, and personal accomplishment," but the film's intent on getting at how such a single, pivotal decision at a crisis point in world history can alter the trajectory and meaning of a person's life is heavily poignant, as is Dorian's desire and willingness to dive this deep into such a tragic part of his family history. This has all the makings of an Indie Grits selection to remember.

https://vimeo.com/122779507

Dadaesque Exhibit at 701 CCA

If someone had told me ten years ago that Columbia would be hosting an international exhibit of Dada-inspired art tonight, like 701 CCA is in fact doing, I'd have have smiled and nodded before rolling my eyes enough to make me dizzy, not sure if many of us had even heard of  the Swiss-inspired Dada movement, much less have an appreciation for it.

But such is the caliber of arts interest in 2016 Columbia, SC.  And much of this interest is built on the backs of previous arts intensives provided by Columbia Museum of Art and Columbia College whose exhibitions and attached programs dedicated to the likes of Andy Warhol and Georgia O'Keeffe have stimulated and nurtured what is becoming a passion for arts history and arts appreciation in the city. We are growing in our desire for not only more challenging art, but for the ability to understand what it is that makes some art more challenging.

Kudos to  701 Center for Contemporary Art for presenting Dadaesque, which is the culmination of their 701 CCA's Dada Days in Columbia, a series of programs through which the center has been marking the one hundredth anniversary of the Dada movement, which many art historians recognize as the impetus for most of what we now perceive as contemporary art.

“The exhibition will surprise people in that it shows the scope of Dada’s influence on contemporary art,” says 701 CCA board chair Wim Roefs, who curated the exhibition. “It’ll be surprising to know, for instance, that Columbia mainstays such as Mike Williams and Clark Ellefson create works that are firmly rooted in the Dada movement. While, like many other artists in the show, they don’t see themselves as Dada artists, they would readily acknowledge that it was the innovations of Dada that informs and facilitates at least part of their artistic output.”

The group exhibition period will run from April 13 through June 5 and in addition to featuring Columbia-based artists Clark Ellefson and Mike Williams will also feature Jason Kendall of Columbia and Colin Quashie, whom we'd still like to call our own and Hilton Head's Aldwyth. Our artists will be joined by artists from throughout the US as well as sound poet and 701 visiting resident artist Jaap Blonk and Janke Klompmaker, both from The Netherlands. There will be a Gallery Talk at 2 pm on Sunday, May 15th.

What You Need to Know About Dadaism

Need to brush up on your Dadaism? Here's a very brief primer on how this strange arts movement, which was very much anti-arts movement, fits into the bigger picture.

"Dada was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of the First World War. This international movement was begun by a group of artists and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition. The origin of the name Dada is unclear; some believe that it is a nonsensical word. Others maintain that it originates from the Romanian artists Tristan Tzara's and Marcel Janco's frequent use of the words "da, da," meaning "yes, yes" in the Romanian language. Another theory says that the name "Dada" came during a meeting of the group when a paper knife stuck into a French–German dictionary happened to point to 'dada', a French word for 'hobbyhorse'."

-- Dona Budd, the Language of Art Knowledge

• Dada or Dadaism was a form of artistic anarchy born out of disgust for the social, political and cultural values of the time. It embraced elements of art, music, poetry, theatre, dance and politics.

• “The beginnings of Dada,” poet Tristan Tzara recalled, “were not the beginnings of art, but of disgust.”

• For Dada artists, the aesthetic of their work was considered secondary to the ideas it conveyed. “For us, art is not an end in itself,” wrote Dada poet Hugo Ball, “but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in.”

• Dadaists both embraced and critiqued modernity, imbuing their works with references to the technologies, newspapers, films, and advertisements that increasingly defined contemporary life.

KEY WORDS --> EXPERIMENTAL. PROVOCATIVE. UNORTHODOX.  SPONTANEOUS. IRREVERENT. READYMADE. RADICAL. SUBVERSIVE. VARIED.

 For more on Dadaism click here and here, too.

Carol Pittman at City Art for Artista Vista

City Art announces its upcoming exhibition of new works by Carol Pittman opening Artista Vista, the annual spring Vista gallery crawl, April 21, 2016 with opening reception from 5:00 – 8:00 PM.  The exhibit will continue thru June 2016.

These new works are an evolution from her tile work into acrylic paintings. Many of the paintings focus on the circular composition as she sees the world as a continuing entity. The colors that she uses are greatly influenced by her love of colorful clothing for herself and other people and from the vivid colors she experiences in her travels to Greece especially. The circular motif can obviously be interpreted as an expression of the flow of life and hers is always one of great optimism. Her joy and vitality of life come thru her works as rendered in the colors that she uses.  Her tile pieces are an extension of her free spirit.

Carol Pittman began her art career at eight years old with her mother “dropping” her off on Saturdays at the Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Va.  She moved to Columbia at sixteen and studied art with Moselle Skinner at Dreher High School.  She has attended universities in various locations, while a navy wife and raising three sons.  Universities include Coker College, Old Dominion University in Virginia Beach, the University of Maryland, The Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples Italy, and finally received her BA in Art History, and MA in Sudio Art and a MAT in teaching art, all from the University of South Carolina.

She taught art appreciation at USC for 25 years and has exhibited at many places, including the Asheville Art Museum, the Columbia Museum of Art, Dorothy McCrae Gallery in Atlanta, Nina Liu Gallery in Charleston, the Florence Museum, USC-Sumter, the Fine Arts Center in Camden, and at City Art in Columbia.

Pittman comments, “Byzantine painters used rhythm and the repetition of elements in order to draw the viewer into the work.  Rhythm is also important in my work.  I use rhythm to draw in the viewer.  Sometimes, I also include dancing and musical instruments to show that my women are not passive, but active.

“My years spent in Naples, Italy and travels each year to Greece are also reflected in my art.  While in these countries, I am surrounded by colorful tile, pottery shards, roman and renaissance frescoes, and other evidence of ancient cultures.  I try to make connections between women in the ancient world and the world in which I live.”

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

On Gender by Ed Madden (as He Prepares Tess Demint for the Vista Queen Stage)

“You learn a lot in drag.” – Panti Bliss/ Rory O’Neill, A Woman in the Making (2014)

~

Last Monday I published a poem online at the Good Men Project, a website devoted to rethinking masculinity—“Translations,” a poem about gender and race and how we like to put people in boxes.  I had been teaching creative writing to some young writers last fall, I was still thinking about the Confederate battle flag and the Black Lives Matter movement, and I had been asked to write a poem for a transgender remembrance ceremony and the GLBTQ student organization’s “lavender graduation” ceremony.  It all came together in this prose poem, maybe more essay—in the old sense of trying out something, thinking through something—than poem.  (I am deeply grateful to my student Caleb for talking with me about non-binary identification—his words are the heart of the poem.)

~

I’ve been thinking a lot about gender, as I prepare for my performance in Vista Queen this coming Monday, because gender is very much in the air, in the cultural conversation—from Trump’s misogyny to Hillary’s candidacy.

On March 24, North Carolina passed a law that has been called “the most anti-LGBT legislation in the country.”  It undoes all local nondiscrimination laws and specifically excludes gay, lesbian, and transgender people from legal protections.

Ironically, International Trans Day of Visibility was celebrated just a week later, on March 31.

Now Senator Lee Bright of Roebuck has proposed similar legislation for South Carolina.

~

Before I entered, I asked my colleagues in Women’s and Gender Studies if it was okay for me to enter.  They said sure.  One said don’t do it—not because she objected, she just said, “You’re already too busy and beleaguered.”  Well, true.

But I asked because drag can be risky business when you work in gender studies.

On the one hand, drag is a central example in the work of theorist Judith Butler and celebrated by folks influenced by that work.  Drag, they say, makes visible that all gender identity is a performance, a repetition of acts and styles and embodied tropes of how we fit—or don’t fit—into the binary gender system: male/female.  (Yes, there’s a Wikipedia page on this.)

But, on the other hand, I suppose there’s that old gay tradition of female impersonation that tends toward misogyny rather than subversion or understanding.  For example, see this really smart essay from a Stanford student which notes, “if drag is to be subversive, then it must challenge or undermine systems or institutions that oppress those performing.”  Yes, I think, as I work on Tess DeMint’s script.  That is, the subversion mustn’t simply reinforce the powers that be, but question them.

I think about those old “womanless weddings” often held in rural Southern churches and segregated high schools in the 1940s and 1950s—often connected, as Brock Thompson notes in The Un-Natural State: Arkansas and the Queer South, to blackface minstrelsy as well. These performances were popular across Arkansas and the South, and, as Thompson points out, had more appeal (and played a more essential function in enforcing behavior) in communities where the racial and class divides were stark.

I think about the fact that, according to Chris Bull and John Gallagher’s Perfect Enemies, an analysis of anti-gay politics, that one of the most effective and prevalent tropes of anti-gay organizing in the 1990s was a male teacher in drag.

The Stanford student also says that “as drag becomes more and more a mainstay of our culture, it is important for those partaking in it—queer or not—to be mindful of and question the origins and implications of the personas we perform.”

~

Over spring break I read the biography of Panti Bliss, the extraordinary Irish drag queen, featured in the recent documentary The Queen of Ireland.  I’ve had the extraordinary pleasure of seeing Panti perform several times when I’ve been over in Ireland—even once attending the low-key and lovely Monday night “Make-and-Do-Do” craft nights at Pantibar, where she assigns a craft project and a bunch of grown men do their best with craft sticks and pipe-cleaners and marla (Irish for Playdoh).  I think our assignment that night was something Brazilian.  Laughter, community, friendship—all of it with the soundtrack of the hilarious Panti and the deeply nostalgic primary classroom smell of Playdoh.

I’ve been thinking about Panti as I work on Tess, about what drag can and can’t do. If you don’t know Panti, you should watch her speech—her noble call—on a Dublin theatre stag about homophobia.  Yes, I’m raising money for an institution that I love, a theatre that has in its very mission statement: “Our success will be measured by our commitment to collaboration and innovation, while our impact will be measured by the creation of a more diverse and vibrant Columbia.”

A more diverse and vibrant Columbia.

~

Tess has been writing a few little limericks in preparation for the performance, just in case she has occasion to recite a poem or two.  While most of them are about herself, as they should be, there’s this one she wrote this morning:

A not very Bright man named Lee wants to police who can and can’t pee. But trans is no crime, so let’s say, no not this time, and fight Mr. Bright’s bigotry.

~

I’m a 52-year-old (yes, really) man who has never done drag (yes, really)—unless you count the bearded college student in a bathrobe who lip-synched “You Can’t Hurry Love” with 3 friends at a church retreat (I don’t).

Panti says in her recently released autobiography A Woman in the Making that, if you can’t quite achieve beauty, you can certainly achieve interesting.

Maybe Vista Queen isn’t supposed to be political, but when I slip on my heels and try to walk and move through the world in shoes that slow me down and make me conscious of my body in ways I’ve never been conscious of my body, I think otherwise.  I think about the annual Walk A Mile In Her Shoes march against rape and sexual assault, the local event hosted by Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands to be held next Thursday, April 14.  (Register here before Sunday!)

I’m still tinkering with my act.  It will be an evening of people doing deeply uncomfortable and outrageous things for a theatre they love.  I hope it’s interesting.  I hope it’s subversive.  I hope it raises lots of money for Trustus.  Mostly I hope I can stay upright on those heels.

You can donate to Tess DeMint online at Trustus, or at her GoFundMe page.  It’s for a great theatre, a good cause.

As Panti says, You learn a lot in drag.

What One Columbia Has Done for You & How You Can Return the Favor - Addresses, Talking Points, and More

(For letter-writing talking points, please skip to the bottom of the page.)

 “A place without a distinctive cultural aura is much less apt to land on visitors’ itineraries than those with such amenities. There is no easy way of accounting for this economic impact, beyond affirming that tourism, a form of direct participatory experience, is one of the world’s largest industries and is closely tied to creative destinations.”

--From “Creative Placemaking”

The Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the United States Conference of Mayors and American Architectural Foundation.

One Columbia's Mission: to advise, amplify and advocate for strengthening and unifying the arts and history community by supporting arts and historic preservation tourism, promoting collaboration, coordinating advertisements, and celebrating the role of arts and history in this community

AMPLIFY

One Columbia creates a Comprehensive Calendar of Arts and History Events that shares information on typically about 150 active events at any given time and over 330 registered organizations that submit events and a weekly email of weekend activities that reaches over 9,000 people both in the Columbia market and beyond and includes social media promotion throughout the week

One Month was a Citywide, month-long celebration of the arts as a whole featuring special events and connections between established events during the month of April. This project was converted to the Cultural Passport program in Fall 2013 which was designed to provide more opportunities for engagement between the over 75 participating arts organizations and their audiences. Over 5000 were distributed in addition to the creation of an application for iPhone

Film Columbia/Capture One Columbia  is an initiative to collect video footage of events throughout the city of all different types for marketing and promotional purposes, resulting in 21 finished videos and over 700 Gb of raw video footage that is available to all arts organizations, media, organizations that promote the city

Public Art is another way One Columbia is creating unique spaces around the city that demonstrate creative talent and establish more vibrant places to live, work and visit. One Columbia formalized a program with the City of Columbia in 2014 that has led to three significant sculptures (two on Main Street, one in the Vista) adding over $55,000 in value to the City’s art collection. The formal program has inspired collaborative efforts with Richland Library (resulting in over $375,000 in value), Kroger Supermarkets (approximately $12,000), Edens (approximately $10,000) and the Columbia Metropolitan Airport (approximately $250,000 over the next 10 years). One Columbia has also developed a community of buskers and street performers to enhance the visitor experience and demonstrate artistic talent. It has also enrolled Columbia to participate in national arts celebrations such as International Make Music Day (June 21) and National Poetry Month (April).

One Columbia is hosting an Art-o-mat, a former cigarette machine that has been converted to dispense $5 pieces of handmade art, which will help engage the public in art by making it accessible, but also encouraging Columbia’s artists to participate and get their name in one of the over 100 active machines throughout the country.

Established the position of Poet Laureate for an individual to bring awareness of the city as an arts hub outside the city and create projects that enhance Columbian’s daily lives through the arts. Ed Madden, the inaugural poet laureate, has created a project to display poetry on the bus system and to celebrate National Poetry Month by putting poetry on coffee sleeves

ADVISE

One Columbia provides basic resources for arts organizations and artists, including office/meeting space, permanent mailing address, video and still cameras, easels, copies and prints and Notary Public services.

It brings together organizations to increase the size, scope and level of awareness of events including the 150th Anniversary of the Burning of Columbia (nearly 30 participating organizations) and the creation of the city’s first cultural district in the Congaree Vista as part of a program offered by the South Carolina Arts Commission

It facilitates leadership transitions for events such as First Thursday on Main, Deckle Edge Literary Festival to replace the SCBF, and adding artistic elements to Artista Vista, Indie Grits, Hip Hop Family Day and others.

ADVOCATE 

Identifies strategic needs of the arts community through meetings with arts leaders.

Utilizes opportunities to determine and share key data points that benefit arts organizations and make them more competitive for support from regional and national sources of support including a Creative Industry Report completed by WESTAF and the upcoming follow-up to the Arts and Economic Prosperity study with the Americans for the Arts  - Where are we going from here?

One Columbia will continue to work toward a more unified arts community and will assist in connecting the city’s arts and historic preservation communities to regional and national resources.

More emphasis will be placed on developing a long-term vision for the arts in the city.

Public art projects will expand through work with private partners and more emphasis will be placed on the improvement of public and quasi-public spaces under the principles of creative placemaking.

More collaborative activities under unified themes will be developed that bring together all art forms and create greater recognition of the city throughout the region, nation and globe

What You Should Know

In a memorandum from City Manager Ms. Teresa Wilson dated September 3, 2013, the City determined “that One Columbia’s proposed mission and budget are activities that constitute advertisement and promotions related to tourism development under the Hospitality Act and as such, operating activities of One Columbia are eligible expenses to receive funds under the Act.”

One Columbia for Arts & History was supported with 2015-2016 Hospitality Tax funding at the level of $167,600. The organization has utilized these funds to continue work toward the mission of the organization to advise, amplify and advocate for strengthening and unifying the arts and history community by supporting arts and historic preservation tourism, promoting collaboration, coordinating advertisements, and celebrating the role of arts and history in this community.

In the past year, the organization has taken great steps in accomplishing this mission. To better amplify the arts community’s work and based on the principle that passports provide access to new experiences, One Columbia has continued it’s cultural passport program for Columbians to utilize when attending events and venues in our city. With over 100 organizations and venues participating, passport holders collect unique stamps across various genres of art and history. As they collect stamps, they become eligible for perks including gift cards, art supplies, t-shirts, and event tickets. Passports come in the form of printed booklets or a free iPhone application to make the program as accessible as possible. This program amplifies awareness about the extent of the arts community and allows arts organizations to connect with their growing audiences. Thus far, over 5,000 passports have been distributed at a full range of cultural events.

The organization has made significant progress in establishing its process for public art and has installed the first works created as a result of the process. Pieces created as part of this formal process are privately funded and publicly owned and maintained. One Columbia installed two new pieces of public art on Columbia’s Main Street in 2014 and one new piece on Lincoln Street in the Congaree Vista in 2015, equivalent to approximately $55,000 new public art investment in the City. One Columbia has adapted the program to assist in projects that are sponsored by private property owners or developers and has initiated projects with the Richland Library, Kroger Supermarkets, and the Columbia Metropolitan Airport. By working with the Richland Library, One Columbia will have coordinated artist identification and project selection of pieces of art for nine renovated locations of the library representing over $375,000 of public art investment in the Midlands in the next year.

In June 2015, in collaboration with Rice Music House and WXRY FM, the city of Columbia participated in international Make Music Day. The day featured free, live, outdoor concerts in various districts of the city, as well as a central event where 100 free harmonicas were distributed to participants.

One Columbia has also worked with Indie Grits in expanding its arts component, including the coordination of a mural space on the corner of Main and Taylor streets that changes annually. For the 2015 Indie Grits, One Columbia coordinated two major outdoor art installations and hosted an artist-in-residence that focused on the City’s history and monuments.

One Columbia has also started the development of a true community of buskers to bring the arts out onto the streets an into the daily lives of the city’s citizens.

To get more art in the hands of more people and inspire citizens to start art collections in an affordable and fun way, One Columbia has become a host of an official Art-o-mat. The converted cigarette machine vends small pieces of unique art. The machine will be placed at various venues throughout the city. One Columbia partnered with Izms of Art to create Art Linc, a celebration of chalk art in the Lincoln Street Tunnel that was held on November 7.

To further celebrate the artistic identity of the Congaree Vista, One Columbia worked with the Vista Guild to bring together a plethora of stakeholders in order to develop a strategic plan and application for the creation of a formal cultural district as recognized by the South Carolina Arts Commission.

In conjunction with the goals of offering Columbia’s citizens ample opportunities to engage with art, the organization has worked with the City of Columbia to establish the Gallery at City Hall.

One Columbia for Arts & History again served as a major partner in carrying out the One Book, One Community program. One Book, One Community seeks to engage the community in a reading project by selecting one book to read together during the month of February. This year’s selection was The Stone Necklace by Carla Damron, and programming was strongly connected with the activities of the Deckle Edge Literary Festival.

New partnerships were forged including one with The State Newspaper, which serialized the chapters One Columbia has also partnered with Jasper Magazine, the Richland Library and the USC Press to distribute Fall Lines, a free literary journal featuring the writing of Columbians and South Carolinians.

In an effort to increase Columbia’s profile as an artistic city, One Columbia worked with the Mayor and City Council to establish the office of poet laureate for the city. In Resolution R-2014- 081, City Council permitted One Columbia to carry out a process for identification and selection of a poet laureate to serve a four-year term in order to represent the city’s rich literary tradition and to carry out activities that engage citizens with poetry and language. Ed Madden began his term as the City’s inaugural poet laureate in January 2015 and since then, One Columbia and Dr. Madden have worked together to create a project with The COMET bus system to feature poetry themed around life in a city on each of the buses in the system. They also created a chapbook of the collected poems and the poems about transportation are featured on the printed bus schedules. This project will continue in 2016 with the theme focused on rivers.

One Columbia has put great effort into commissioning and collecting video footage of various arts and cultural events throughout the City. The collected footage is freely available to arts organizations, tourist organizations, promotional groups, and media organizations to feature the vibrancy and diversity of Columbia’s cultural life and can be viewed as part of our Film Columbia initiative at https://vimeo.com/onecolumbia.

In association with the Americans for the Arts, One Columbia will be collecting over 800 surveys regarding the spending of attendees at the diverse arts events throughout 2016. This data will result in an economic impact study of the arts of the greater Columbia area including Richland and Lexington counties and builds on a similar study that was done in partnership with the Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington Counties in 2010. This data will be important in giving arts organizations necessary context for their impact and help them when applying for grants and donations for future programming.

In 2013, the City of Columbia lost a highly respected and valued citizen upon the passing of Mr. Steve Morrison. Mr. Morrison had been a visionary of the arts community and the chair of the One Columbia board of directors. To honor him, One Columbia established the Steve Morrison Visionary Award to recognize an individual in our community that has brought foresight and ambition to the development of Columbia’s cultural life. This past year, the organization selected the recipient to be Mr. William Starrett, the executive director and artistic director of the Columbia City Ballet. The presentation took place in front of a full house at the fall concert of the SC Philharmonic.

One Columbia has led the way to transition First Thursdays on Main to new leadership made of Main Street’s important stakeholders ensuring the continuity of a vital activity that brings a significant amount of visitors out to the City’s main thoroughfare 12 evenings a year. One Columbia assists with planning and connecting organizations and artists that can create unique and interesting content to each month’s activities.

And, at the announcement of the cancellation of the South Carolina Book Festival by the Humanities Council SC, One Columbia has worked with partners to develop a new replacement literary festival to fill the void. This event saw a successful inaugural year featuring over 70 authors bringing nearly 1000 participants to Columbia’s Main Street.

One Columbia for Arts & History is very grateful for your recognition of the enduring value of the arts and historic preservation in advancing Columbia’s standing as a vibrant community where creativity and preservation can be fostered to the benefit of residents and visitors alike. 

_____

If you would like to express your appreciation of One Columbia and your desire that the organization continue to be fully funded by the City of Columbia please write to the following individuals:

Mayor Steve Benjamin

skbenjamin@columbiasc.net

Councilman Sam Davis

sdavis@columbiasc.net

Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine

tidevine@jilawfirm.com

Councilwoman Leona Plaugh

lkplaugh@columbiasc.net

Councilman Moe Baddourah

mobaddourah@columbiasc.net

Councilman Howard Duvall, Jr.

heduvall@columbiasc.net

Councilman Edward McDowell, Jr.

ehmcdowell@columbiasc.net

Talking Points:

• One Columbia’s structure and line item, H tax-funded budget were designed, voted upon, and approved by City Council in 2012.
• It should not be incumbent upon the employees of a city office to create the funding for their own salary and operating expenses.
• One Columbia cannot carry out their mission if they also have to compete for funding with the arts organizations and individual artists they serve.
• One Columbia has become an integral and indispensable part of the Columbia arts community. (Please consider using examples of ways you have been impacted by the work of One Columbia from the comprehensive text above.)
• The issue boils down to whether Council understands that the city needs an organization to work as an objective office of cultural affairs charged with helping the entire arts community and that it can be funded in a variety of ways.
• Members of City Council should not use the arts and One Columbia as weapons in a power play against the mayor.

Call for Artists - Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County

The Bassett Gallery at the Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County (FAC) is currently accepting artist materials for consideration for exhibition in the Bassett Gallery to be scheduled from September 2016 through May 2017. All submissions will be considered for both solo and group exhibitions.

Artists must submit samples via email, linked to a “cloud” portfolio (Drop Box, Google Drive,) or by sending a CD or flash drive with at least 10 images. These images should encompass the artists’ methods and styles. A resume, submission form, description of the style of work, its size and medium used should all be included. Submissions must also include a brief artist statement and be representative of the work that will be on exhibition. All forms of artistic mediums will be considered.

Submission forms can be found on the Fine Arts Center website at www.fineartscenter.org/gallery, or you may drop by the FAC Box Office to get a copy. Materials will not be returned unless requested.

Materials will be accepted through May 20, 2016. Send to:

Bassett Gallery Exhibits Committee

Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County

810 Lyttleton Street

Camden, SC  29020

Please email your submissions to jpeterson@fineartscenter.org. For questions regarding submissions, contact Jane Peterson at jpeterson@fineartscenter.org or by phone at 803-425-7676 ext. 305.

Artists are responsible for load-in, hanging, and tear-down of the exhibit. Any expenses incurred by the artist(s) for travel, set-up, tear-down, etc. of any exhibition are not covered by the FAC. The cost of exhibiting in the Bassett Gallery is the full responsibility of the artist(s.) Artists should be willing to allow some or all of the pieces in the exhibition to be available for purchase. The selected artists will be notified by the FAC no later than June 30, 2016.

Exhibitions in the Bassett Gallery normally change every four to six weeks.  The Gallery is free and open to the public.  Hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday-Wednesday andFriday, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Thursday.  The Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County is located at 810 Lyttleton Street in Camden.  For more information about the FAC, please visitwww.fineartscenter.org or call (803) 425-7676, ext. 300.

~~~~

Poems Flow with Your Cup of Morning Joe via River Poems from One Columbia and the office of the Poet Laureate

 

Local poets come together to create coffee sleeve poems about the historic flood and rivers of Columbia for national poetry month this April.

In conjunction with One Columbia for Arts and History, Ed Madden, the city of Columbia’s poet laureate, has created a project titled River Poems. This project will focus on bringing poetry to the people of Columbia during the entire month of April. Since 1996, April has been national poetry month, and one of the tasks of the poet laureate is to promote the literary arts. “As a project for the poet laureate, last year and this year both, we put poems on the buses. We had already decided the theme this year would be the river, because it is the theme for Indie Grits, but I think the flood added additional urgency to the theme,” says Madden.

Along with the bus project, the second project this year was to put the poems on coffee sleeves. “We’ve been trying to think of ways to promote poetry in unexpected places, so coffee sleeves felt like a really obvious place to put poetry,” says Madden. “You can drink your morning cup and read beautiful literature.”

Seven local writers came together for this wonderful opportunity to spread literature around the city. The writers include, Jennifer Bartell, Betsy Breen. Jonathan Butler, Bugsy Calhoun, Monifa Lemons Jackson, Len Lawson, Ray McManus, and Madden himself. After sending out a limited call to those artists to create a piece of poetry eight lines or fewer, each poem was then stamped on thousands of coffee sleeves that will be distributed at independent coffee shops around Columbia. Including both Drip locations, and the Wired Goat.

“I think the idea of the coffee sleeves is so smart. Columbia has a healthy relationship with the arts, especially the performing arts. But the city gives a lot of love to the fine arts, the design arts, and the literary arts that has thrived here for quite some time.  You’d expect that from a capital city to a certain extent. But what is unique in Columbia is that the art scene is so diverse, and there is a growing respect for that diversity. The literary scene is no exception. There is a little something for everyone here. I hope that resonates,” says Ray McManus, poet and author of the poem Mud.

Each of the eight poems centers around the idea of the river that runs through Columbia. This idea ties in with the theme of this year’s Indie Grits Festival, which is Waterlines as well as The Jasper Project’s multi-disciplinary project Marked by the Water, which will commemorate the first anniversary of the floods in October. There are also a few featured poems that represent the voices of people effected by the historic flood which ran through the city last October. Overall, each poems creates a sense of what the rivers mean to each poet, and how in many ways people are still mending together the pieces almost six months later.

When writing her poem titled What Stays, Betsy Breen was thinking back to a particular image she recollects from the flood. “I was thinking about the flood in October, and all the debris that washed up during that time. I have a particular image in my mind of a part of Gills Creek that I pass every morning on the way to work. The week after the rain stopped, it was filled with both keepsakes and trash. I was thinking of that when I wrote this poem,” says Breen.

It was almost opposite for McManus, who says most of his inspiration almost always comes from books and projects. “I love exploring directions that I didn’t otherwise intend. I’ve always been drawn to rivers; the way they perform; the way they’re always moving. And we depend on them more than we realize, especially in the most basic of functions. We grow from rivers, from the mud of rivers. At some point they become a part of who we are,” says McManus.

National poetry month begins on April 1. Columbia is sure to be celebrating all month with something to read as people drink their coffee and travel to work. “We are always looking for more ways to promote the arts, and I believe this year that includes a pretty unique project,” says Madden.

Don’t forget to pick up your cup of morning joe this month to feel the inspiration of poetry. Breen reminds us that “National Poetry month is much larger than this poem or project, of course, and I do hope people pay attention to all the different kinds of poetry around them.”

-- Alivia Seely

More From Tess DeMint: Ed Madden Compares Notes with Former Vista Queen Participant Jason Watkins (Tess Tickles)

This is the fifth in a series of blogs written by Tess DeMint (aka Professor Ed Madden), a contestant in the 18th annual Vista Queen Pageant, a fundraiser for our beloved Trustus Theatre.

Please support Tess by visiting Trustus Theatre. Each vote costs $10 and all money goes to Trustus Theatre.

You can also donate to Trustus (and support Tess!) at Tess’s donation site:  https://www.gofundme.com/fxudjbhs

“Just have fun,” he said.

Last week Bert and I had dinner with Jason and Katy Watkins–Jason is also known as Tess Tickles, the 2014 Vista Queen. I wanted to know what the experience of Vista Queen was like for someone who had been through it, what advice he might have for me, drag novice and VQ newcomer.

When we walked in the restaurant—one of their favorites—the wait staff welcomed Jason by name, circling around us almost like courtiers for royalty. Jason made his way between tables, shaking hands with other regulars. We got a special corner table—one apparently usually reserved for another regular patron and his wife. It was made available to us. The waiter already knew what Jason wanted.

In another corner, I saw Jim and Kay Thigpen. A good sign. This was the place to be.

Katy is an old friend (we tied for “most liberal” when we went through Leadership Columbia together, ages ago), so there was some catching up, new jobs and old acquaintances. But then we quickly got down to business. I asked about costumes, about practicing in heels. I asked about talent.

Jason didn’t have a fitting with a costumer, he said. No fake hips. Katy laughed, “He’s a perfect size 6.”  Both of them talked about particularly beautiful queens, particularly memorable acts, particularly drunken contestants.  She said Tess/Jason was hilarious, though she occasionally wanted to crawl under her seat.

Jason wrote a song for his talent. He pulled out his phone at the table, read me the lyrics.  That year, the sixteenth contest, the theme was “Sweet Sixteen,” so Jason wrote a song about being 16—a boy at a military school, rebellious, desperate for sex, the chorus emphasizing that he could never have dreamed, when he was 16, that he might be a Vista Queen.

“Just have fun,” Jason kept saying, telling me about the madness of backstage. “And just remember, they’re all drunk,” as if that might temper my stagefright. I wasn’t sure.

Tess Tickles and Tess DeMint. It was the old Tess and the new, and their faithful consorts. It was instruction in local knowledge and vernacular practices of drag—what to expect, what to avoid. There at a corner table over sushi and salmon, royal counsel, advice from a queen.

Avoid Arts Fatigue: Jasper Pop Up Release at The Whig

This is the time of year when the abundance of arts events in the Soda City become almost overwhelming and, if you're not careful, arts fatigue can set in and you end of missing out on some fine opportunities to see some important art just because you've ingested all the great films and fashions and studio tours you can handle. You are done. Sated. Nothing more than a blob of a person trembling on the sofa mumbling terms like diagesis, denouement, and iconographic, groping blindly for a bag of Doritos and the remote and listening for the soothing tones of the intro score to Sanford and Sons.

Jasper decided that rather than adding to the overflowing cup of cultural activities availing themselves to us in the calendar days ahead we'd just keep it simple this month.

Come on out to The Whig tonight anytime after 7 and pick up your new copy of Jasper. Will Green is whipping up a batch of Jasper Juice with herbs fresh from the Muddy Ford garden. The mag is lovely this time around with features on Meg Griffiths, Roni Nicole Henderson, and the Prairie Willows, some nice poetry, an essay by Susan Lenz, a guest editorial by O.K. Keyes, and a piece on Tamara Finkbeiner's favorite films, and more.

So stop by. It'll be chill.

Why I Said Yes - Tess DeMint (aka Ed Madden) Explains Love of Trustus

This is the fourth in a series of blogs written by Tess DeMint (aka Professor Ed Madden), a contestant in the 18th annual Vista Queen Pageant, a fundraiser for our beloved Trustus Theatre.

Please support Tess by visiting Trustus Theatre. Each vote costs $10 and all money goes to Trustus Theatre.

You can also donate to Trustus (and support Tess!) at Tess's donation site:  https://www.gofundme.com/fxudjbhs

I know my favorite row in the theatre.  I know my favorite seats.

I remember when Trustus Theatre staged Angels in America, one of the first if not the first regional theatre in the nation to do so.  I had seen the original New York production as a graduate student, and I taught the play at USC, so I was inclined to be critical.  But Trustus overwhelmed me with a beautiful, profoundly moving, and memorable production.

I remember Lonesome West and The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh and other crazy Irish plays at Trustus.  The playwright was savagely funny, and the local production amplified his ability to make violence simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.

Which one of those plays was it that Alex Smith as the suicidal priest broke my heart?

I remember the rocking productions of Spring Awakening (yes they did that here and it was fucking amazing) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch—and being so tickled when Hedwig clearly directed the song “Sugar Daddy” to a couple of dear friends in the front rows.  (I won’t call out your names, Gordon and Doak.)

I remember taking my honors seminar to see Standing on Ceremony last spring as the semester began.  A collection of one-act plays about same-sex marriage, the performance introduced most of the very issues we were about to discuss.  The Trustus production (and talkback after) helped to set a tone for the rest of the semester as we began our own serious study of marriage politics.  I usually give students the option of a creative final project rather than a traditional research paper, and a couple of students wrote their own one-act plays, adding to the political and emotional complexity of what they had seen at Trustus.

More recently, I remember Chad Henderson’s haunting and gorgeous production of The Brothers Size.  The extraordinary acting (my Vista Queen fellow contestant Bakari Lebby and his colleagues were amazing), the minimal but strangely beautiful and convincing staging.  The intimacy of the sidedoor theatre.  The fireflies.

I remember Jim Thigpen—and later Larry Hembree—introducing a play and reminding us that we could always trust the theatre (trust us), even if we didn’t know the play or the playwright, because it would be good and it would be done well.  And I remember Kay’s smiling face at the ticket window, her easy laugh.

I remember working so hard for years with gay and lesbian organizations in South Carolina, and the way that Trustus would open their doors to us, the way they’d let us buy out the final dress rehearsal for a show as a fundraiser for our local community center.  The way the place filled with GLBT folks and their friends, laughing through The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, laughing at Hunter Boyle as the bitchy Santa Claus, laughing through tears at the end as the lesbian couple gave birth to a child and the gay couple resigned themselves to the new HIV drugs not working.  I remember a room full of people I loved laughing and feeling giddy and connected to one another, giggling at the silliness of When Pigs Fly, or stunned by the professional production of Take Me Out.

It was the Jim and Kay Thigpen School of theatre and aesthetics and collaboration and community and inspiration and love.  It was and is the theatre’s mission: “a safe space for exploration of the political, the personal, and all things human.” It was and is the theatre’s artistic mission: to produce works “that start and nurture dialogues.”  As they say on the webpage: “Our success will be measured by our commitment to collaboration and innovation, while our impact will be measured by the creation of a more diverse and vibrant Columbia.”

I remember that fundraiser at Most Fabulous, the huge spread of food Bert prepared, and the enormous bouquet of flowers—mostly from our yard—and a potted night-blooming cereus Bert put on the table, the large prickly arm of it reaching over the spread, ending in a tight white blossom.  I remember that it opened up during intermission, the incredible smell filling the bar.  A magical night.

I know my favorite row in the theatre, my favorite seats.  I know Bert and I will order a bottle of white wine, and he will have to get the basket of popcorn refilled at intermission.  I know it feels like home to be there.

So when Chad Henderson walked up to me at the Deckled Edge literary festival’s opening night and asked me to be in Vista Queen, I said yes.  I didn’t think about it: I said yes.  I was immediately terrified at what I had agreed to (though Bert was clearly delighted), but I said yes.

Why?  Because I love this theatre.  Because of so many good memories and so many amazing plays.  Because of the community Trustus makes possible and the community it enables and sustains.  Because Chad asked me.  Because I know which seats are my favorites.

Not Drama Queen?! More from Vista Queen Contestant Tess DeMint (aka Ed Madden)

This is the third in a series of blogs written by Tess DeMint (aka Professor Ed Madden), a contestant in the 18th annual Vista Queen Pageant, a fundraiser for our beloved Trustus Theatre.

Please support Tess by visiting Trustus Theatre. Each vote costs $10 and all money goes to Trustus Theatre.

You’ve never been back here? she asked, smiling.

No, I hadn’t.

I followed Brandy into the back room, a door just beside Chad’s office, upstairs at Trustus.  Racks and racks slam-packed with costumes, dresses, jackets.  Shelves of labeled plastic bins.  Military hats.  How far did it go? I couldn’t see the other end. The long-suppressed theatre queen in me starting trembling, giddy, overcome. (Theatre queen, not drama queen.)  I ran my hand down a rack of jackets and fur.

It was my meeting with Brandy, who is helping with costumes for Vista Queen.  We met upstairs, in a small sitting room filled with a couple of rolling racks of dresses.  I had a couple of selections set aside from my first meeting with T.O., but Brandy was helping to augment and complete the look.

I had pretty good luck at my first drag consultation, and I even found something crazysexycool (and a little assymetrical) while shopping.  But we weren’t set, we weren’t certain.  There was one incredible black and blue metallic beaded gown that looked like Tammy Faye Bakker meets Loretta Lynn.  It was heavy.  It was tempting.  It was too small.

And anyway, was it really the right look?  Brandy and I talked about Tess, who she is, what she’s like.  I said ebullient and awkward.  We agreed: not church lady (that’s been done), but religious, perhaps awkwardly so.  Brandy described a character from the movie Blue Like Jazz, someone she said was almost uncomfortable to watch.  Uncomfortable.  Was that Tess?

Earlier in the day, over coffee at Drip on Main with Cindi Boiter, we talked about Vista Queen.  I showed her a photo of one costume selection.  She thought Tess should be sexier.  Should she?  Showed the same photo to another friend: he burst out laughing.

Also ran into Phil Blair from The Whig.  He’s sending me dates for Tess to do a Vista Queen fundraiser night at the bar.  (Watch for more info! Also a donation site up soon!)

Tess is still a work-in-progress.

So when Brandy said, “Let’s see what we can find back here,” and opened the door to that magic back room of props and costumes, I wondered: Is Tess back here?

We looked for a while, laughed a lot, found a cow outfit, but didn’t really find anything that said Tess, found ourselves back in the sitting room with the same selections I’d already tried on.  We talked about hip pads and bras.  Brandy jotted down some notes, about how to alter and accessorize what I had already to make it more fitting (literally and figuratively) for the Tess we imagined.

Bert said that one item we found really really really needed a little brooch of some kind.

I’ve got just what you need, Brandy said.  She pulled out a tiny heart-shaped pin with pink and blue gems out of her purse.

Perfect.

More from Tess DeMint -- TOO MOTHER-OF-THE-BRIDE: ON SHOPPING

This is the second in a series of blogs written by Tess DeMint (aka Professor Ed Madden), a contestant in the 18th annual Vista Queen Pageant, a fundraiser for our beloved Trustus Theatre.

Please support Tess by visiting Trustus Theatre. Each vote costs $10 and all money goes to Trustus Theatre.

Last weekend we decided to go shopping.

At that first consultation with T.O., I had tried on things from the theatre wardrobe, and settled, I think, on a couple of possibilities.  But no shoes there, and still in need of at least one more getup.  T.O. suggested visiting thrift stores, if only to get a sense of what I liked, what might work.

When we were in Arkansas during spring break, we ran across a booth of formal dresses in an antiques mall, all the dresses marked down to $30 and $40.  Maybe a formalwear shop closing up.  Some crazy things, mostly prom dresses.  We decided to check it out.  I slid a big jacket on: too small.  I found a chart for size translation on my phone: it included waist and jacket sizes for men and the corresponding women sizes.  We looked through all the sizes.  Nothing for me there.

That was, of course, before the consultation, before I’d even settled on a name or a persona.  Now I have a better sense of who I could be, what I might look like.

Goodwill, where we started shopping, was full of many things, but not much that seemed useful.  Way too many outfits that looked like tired professional women at work.  I did find a choir robe for $6, which seemed maybe worth buying.  The shoe rack had some scary-cool things, but nothing in my size, nothing in an interesting color.  I noticed my own shoes were dusted yellow—pollen, that film of yellow coating everything right now, the air filled with the sexual life of plants.

At one consignment shop, somewhat high-end, filled with furniture and bric-a-brac, as well as racks and racks of clothes, we had a little more luck.  There was a ruffled pink thing that looked promising.  (I texted Tio a photo. “Drama,” he wrote back approvingly.)  A large woman in orange seemed annoyed we were in her section, and practically pushed me aside with her cart.  She was perhaps unamused by two men giggling over the options on the plus-size dress racks, which could mostly be dismissed as (as Bert put it) “too mother-of-the-bride.”  Not the look for a Vista Queen.

At another consignment store, Second Chances, when we mentioned Vista Queen, the woman behind the counter brightened up, walked us through the store, determined to help us find the right thing.  When I told her what I thought my size should be (based on that internet research and the things I pulled on at the first consult, encased in my fake hips and bosom), she laughed, oh honey you don’t need something that big.  She pulled out a lovely beaded black size 16.  Just pull it on over your clothes, she said, to get a sense of how it fit, how it looked.  It was breathtaking—and breath-taking, too tight.

We checked our watches.  We had dinner plans.  It was our wedding anniversary—eleven years after being unlawfully wed, as I like to say, that long-ago ceremony filled with family and friends, but unacknowledged at the time by state law. While we searched the consignment shop, our minister, who now lives in the Upstate, sent a text of well-wishes from himself and his wife.

One more.  Behind the desk was a flouncy white ruffled dress that slid maybe too easily over my head.  Bert suggested a slit up the side to make it a little less matronly.  We texted a pic to T.O., me in the middle of the shop, the dress pulled over my jeans and green shirt.

He agreed with Bert: too mother-of-the-bride.

I hope T.O. deleted that picture.