On Jasper's Radar -- IN THE BUBBLE WITH JAIME HARRISON - A Short Documentary by Emily Harrold

Emily Harrold

Back in the spring, Wade sellers and I had the opportunity to catch a screening of a film by SC filmmaker Emily Harrold about a battle in the war that American culture doesn’t seem to want to ever end. It was called Meltdown in Dixie.In the wake of the 2015 Charleston Massacre, a battle erupts in Orangeburg, South Carolina between the Sons of Confederate Veterans and an ice cream shop owner forced to fly the Confederate flag in his parking lot. MELTDOWN IN DIXIE explores the broader role of Confederate symbolism in 21st century America and the lingering racial oppression which these symbols help maintain.” (American Documentary) We were impressed by the film and the filmmaker and, once again, proud of another SC artist using their talent and passion to better represent the South as something other than the geographic pit of ignorant rednecks that most of mass media depicts us as.

Now, Harrold is at work completing another documentary that will tell the story of Jaime Harrison and his 2020 senate campaign against Lindsey Graham, called In the Bubble with Jaime. Here’s a snip of info from Harrold’s Kickstarter page:

In the 2020 election cycle in South Carolina, African American Jaime Harrison takes on Republican incumbent Lindsey Graham to run for US Senate. But what happens when the COVID pandemic sets in? In a state with one of the largest African American populations in the United States, Harrison must face not only a global pandemic but a legacy of racial injustice that makes winning an uphill battle.


When he announced his run for Senate back in 2019, nobody thought Jaime Harrison stood a chance. A Black Democrat running for Senate against Trump favorite Lindsey Graham in a state like South Carolina? But by October 2020, Jaime was on track to prove everyone wrong. He raised more money for his race than any US Senate candidate ever before. And he did it while running an almost completely virtual campaign. 

IN THE BUBBLE WITH JAIME pulls back the curtains on Harrison’s historic campaign. See Jaime and his team as they struggle to balance meeting voters face-to-face with the challenges of staying safe during the height of COVID. Get a glimpse of Jaime not only as a Senate candidate, but as a father of two young boys who must keep up with school remotely. Follow political director Bre Maxwell as she travels across South Carolina, building excitement for one of the biggest campaigns the South has seen in decades.  And step out of the bubble with reporter Joe Bustos as he tries to get a read on voters in the weeks and days before the election.”

Harrold’s Team

Have a look at what Harrold is up to and consider getting behind this project. If Meltdown in Dixie is any indication of her work, In the Bubble with Jaime will be something all South Carolinians — especially film and history aficianodos —will be proud of.

Cindi Boiter

Jasper is Thankful for YOU - a message from Cindi

From the bottom of our hearts, we are …

At this time of year those of us at the Jasper Project like to say thank you to the universe for the treasures that have come our way, just like everyone else.

In addition to all of you who support our mission by donating, volunteering, spreading the word, participating in our projects, and reading what we write, I am also thankful for our hardworking board of directors. The Jasper Project board of directors give of their time, energy, and their own wealth and blessings to keep Jasper afloat and actively serving the needs of our arts community at the grass roots level that we believe is so important.

Here are some of the things this board has done for Jasper this year: They have sold tickets, hung posters, hauled and delivered magazines, put up stages and run sound and light for performances. They have baked and prepared food, picked and arranged flowers, balanced our books, filed our taxes, managed projects, written articles, consulted with artists and donors. They have donated their own funds, and so much more.

They also shared with us the people, places, and things in the greater Columbia arts community that they are thankful for themselves.

Read on to see what they had to say..

—Cb

Jasper Project board vice president & director of Harbison Theatre, Kristin Cobb says, “I am thankful for Larry Hembree because he is always willing to lend a hand to all of us in the arts world.”

L-R Joe Hudson, William Cobb, Kristin

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According to USC professor Drue Barker, “I am thankful to live in a city with a thriving contemporary dance community with leaders like Erin Bailey, Martha Brim, Bonnie Boiter-Jolley, Stephanie Wilkins, and Wideman-Davis!” 

Christina Xan, who writes articles and manages the Tiny Gallery project, in addition to always being at the ready to help out wherever she can, agrees, saying, “I’m thankful for Stephanie Wilkins because she has used her compassion and skill to carve new, unique spaces for dancers and dance in Columbia.” 

Stephanie Wilkins and Bonnie Boiter-Jolley, co-founders of the Columbia Summer Rep Dance Co.

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Our intern Stephanie Allen, who is also an excellent writer and devoted to the cause, says, “I’m thankful for the CMA because they continually make themselves accessible to students like me and create open, welcome spaces for the community.”

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Web Maven and graphics guru Bekah Rice, says, “I'm thankful for the MANY outdoor markets in Columbia because they make buying local goods, especially art, more accessible and provide artists and artisans in our community more opportunities to make a living.”

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Jasper Project board president Wade Sellers says, “I’m thankful for an independent film community that continues to create and grow while supporting their fellow creators. The past ten years have seen imaginative new voices emerge in our city. More importantly we have seen those filmmakers get to know each other, share ideas, and share their skills. Our city and the surrounding areas are the rare place where roadblocks that usually hinder access for independent filmmakers don’t exist. I look forward to the new stories these filmmakers will tell in the coming years.”

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Bert Easter, who manages the Jasper Gallery in the Meridian Building in downtown Columbia, says, “I am thankful for ceramics artist Virginia Scotchie of USC who has partnered with me to show student work alongside her art at the Jasper Gallery at the Meridian on Main and the display windows along Washington and Sumter Street.

I am also thankful for the neighborhoods who have had art-in-the-yard events. These meet-the-artist events have been fun,” Easter continues. “I am thankful for the city’s poet laureate, Ed Madden. He’s so cute... oh and he does poetry and art stuff too.”

Columbia City Poet Laureate (and Cutie) ED Madden

artist - Virginia Scotchie

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Paul Leo says, “I am thankful that we have a lively Opera scene here in Colombia, between the productions of The Palmetto Opera Company and The Southeast Division Metropolitan Opera Competition which is starting back up in January 2022 at Columbia College. Columbia's art scene is rich in the preservation of the classical art forms as well as encouraging new and innovative art forms. That is what makes it a truly great city!”

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Board member and manager of the Lizelia project Len Lawson says, “I'm thankful for Columbia Museum of Art, Writer-in-Residence Ray McManus, and Drew Barron for the excellent work on the Hindsight 20/20 Series and Binder Podcast of which I'm grateful to have been a part.”

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Thanks to all of our diligent board members including Grayson Goodman, Al Black, Barry Wheeler, Diane Hare, Christopher Cockrell, Laura Garner Hine, and Preach Jacobs.

If YOU feel like you might have a gift to offer the Jasper Project by way of contributing to our publications, helping out at events, or even applying to be a member of the board of directors, please let us know! We’re always looking for sisters and brothers in the arts who want to join us in our labor of love.

In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the Jasper Project!

Columbia Conservatory of Jazz Alum Ashley Green Wins Princess Grace Award & Signs with Alvin Ailey Dance

My soul feels like it leaves my body sometimes and yet I have chills from my head to my toe. — Ashley Green

Columbia is home to a plethora of artists who put their all into their work. One of these passionate communities, rife with those reaching for the stars, is the dance community. Ashley Green, 23, grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, before moving to dance in Seattle and New York.  

Some of Green’s first serious studies were with Columbia’s Dale Lam, who fondly recalls their moments together: “Les and I would drive her halfway home to meet her mom, who would pick her up and take her on home.”

 

Jasper had the chance to talk with Green about her recent accomplishments, such as winning a Princess Grace Award and joining dance company Alvin Ailey.

 

JASPER: Was dancing an early love for you, or something you fell in love with over time? 

GREEN: When I was younger and first starting dance, I actually didn’t like it that much. But then around nine, it became everything. I would never want to leave the studio. I would stay until 10 o'clock at night. Sometimes I wouldn't even be dancing but would love just being there late.

 

JASPER: And you danced in Charleston and Columbia, right? Did you go to school for it as well? 

GREEN: Around 13 I started coming to the Columbia City Jazz Conservatory to dance with Dale Lam. My initial objective after graduating high school was to move to New York or LA, but I spent half a summer in LA and realized I didn’t want to be there. I knew I had to go to school, then, and I chose Point Park University in Pittsburgh, where I studied dance.

 

JASPER: Was there a turning point with dance where you knew, “I want this to be my life." 

GREEN: Realistically, the time I fully knew would've been college. One day I realized, this is actual work, actual, actual work. This is trauma coming to the surface. This is work with no pay, with mental health issues here to stay. And I just didn’t know. But then one day I went into the studio by myself, and I was just dancing, and I was like, ‘wow, I want to do this forever.’

 

JASPER: How would you verbalize the feelings that accompany you when you dance? 

ASHLEY: When it feels really good, it feels very orgasmic. My soul feels like it leaves my body sometimes and yet I have chills from my head to my toes. And I think that's what keeps me…it feels like a drug, like I'm fiending for it at all times. Even when I hate it, I'll come home after work and I'm like, "I need that feeling." So, I'll just go dance in my living room.

 

JASPER: And you chased that feeling to Whim W’Him in Seattle, right? What went into the decision to go and then leave there? 

GREEN: My whole gist of everything is that I want to inspire younger generations. And with Whim W'Him, I could have done that, but it's different because everyone in the company was white-facing or of Asian descent...which was beautiful and great, but I don't think that for who I wanted to reach, I could ever reach them there. Seattle is very white as well, and while I love Seattle, and I love that company, I wanted to broaden my brand—dare I say—and broaden who I reach.

 

JASPER: How did you choose Alvin Ailey as your place to go? 

GREEN: They called me one day because they were looking for new people. Somebody, maybe a friend, suggested me to the director, and then from there, I got into the company. I didn't audition or anything—I think they couldn't have an audition because of New York's COVID protocol. But I wasn't seeking it. It kind of fell in my lap.

 

JASPER: And it was around this same time, this year, that you won the Princess Grace Award, right? Can you tell me about it? 

GREEN: My director in Seattle told me they were going to nominate me in February, and I was like, okay, I'm 23, I don't know how that's going to work out because I'm so young. It's very competitive and prestigious. But Princess Grace has always been a goal of mine—I just thought it wouldn't happen until I was like 27, 28. I honestly forgot I applied, and the lady called me a good ten times before I finally answered, and when she told me I won, I couldn’t believe it. Twenty-three has been a year of successes for me, and I just feel so lucky.

 

JASPER: So, what does a day in the life of Ashley Green the award-winning dancer look like? 

GREEN: Well, usually, I wake up at like 8:00/8:30. My fittings are usually at 9:00, and then from the fitting I go to ballet class. From class, I go to rehearsal until 7:00, and then I come home and try to stir up some courage to dance in my living room because that saves me. You know, let me settle down from this long day and be with myself.

JASPER: Do you have a favorite style or styles you return to, especially when you dance for yourself? 

GREEN: I think contemporary is my favorite, but maybe because it's the best I can do. What I have the most fun doing is hip hop. I just don’t do it very often. I really like them all, but hip hop is my favorite one and contemporary is the one I'm good at.

 

JASPER: Do you have ideas for your career post-twenty-three? 

GREEN: If God is willing, I really would love to move to Europe. I want to dabble in literally everything that I can before it's too late, but I'm just kind of on the ride. Honestly, the goals that I’m accomplishing here right now are my goals that I had for myself at like thirty. Something that I really want to do is own my own dance company. Eventually. And if I didn't, I think I would love to start a community facility for young girls, a mentorship program so that they could feel like they're supported with professional dancers behind their back.

 

JASPER: In your career so far, have you had any moments that stand out? 

GREEN: I have one. It was my second semester of college, and I was doing a Garfield Lemonius piece, and I connected to it on such a deep level. I was in this moment of time where I felt like I was really stepping into my own artistically and with my body, and I remember being on stage and–literally–I could see clouds, and it felt like angels were singing to me while I was doing this dance…even talking about it, I get chills because I felt the winds on me. And that's the most memorable moment I have as a dancer. And my parents had surprised me and were in the audience, and I didn’t know it!

 

JASPER: It sounds like your parents have been extremely supportive. 

GREEN: They sacrificed so much for me. Truly and honestly, I would not be here without them and their sacrifice, always being such a crucial support system that I have needed throughout my life and moving through the process of adulthood and finding myself.

 

JASPER: On the note of finding yourself, earlier you discussed dancing amongst white-facing and Asian dancers; would you mind speaking about your journey as a Black dancer? 

GREEN: I think it's hard sometimes for me to speak on the topic because I was lucky enough to be a very talented Black dancer, so I got treated differently. Granted, yes, there are microaggressions at all times because I am a Black woman in a white space. But it's like...this is why I'm in these spaces. If there's a white space, I'm going to enter it. It might put me in danger mentally, but it's showing we need representation in each spot. Because how can you evolve with no culture? And I think this is also why I need to step out eventually to another space, like interjecting space for Black dancers in European spaces so that kids here or there who are Black feel like they can enter these spaces confidently.

 

You can follow along Ashley’s journey as she creates these spaces on her Instagram @awagreen98.

By Christina Xan

 

PRINT WORTHY! Coming back Around with Kasie Whitener

Kasie Whitener puts an unapologetic spin on nostalgia.

Whitener writes for Gen X, the forgotten generation: a generation of latch key kids who grew up in the ‘90s and now, according to Whitener, find themselves sandwiched and silenced between Millennials and Baby Boomers.

Her latest novel, Before Pittsburgh, was written during quarantine, but climaxes at the crisis of another generation: 9/11. Though Whitener originally tried to build the book around 9/11, “it didn’t work,” Whitener says.

For Gen X, 9/11 came at a pivotal time in their 20s, potentially changing the trajectory of their lives. After one event, their world was suddenly vastly different than the day before. Taking years to just survive after that kind of crisis, Whitener says that looking back today makes Gen X wonder if this is the same future that they had hoped for on September 10. As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 nears, Before Pittsburgh revisits how 9/11 was the turning point for everything for Whitener’s generation.

However, a large part of Whitener’s dedication to writing about Gen X is the recognition that most experiences aren’t unique to her generation. Whitener notes that the pandemic may be having a similar effect on the current generation of 20-year-olds that 9/11 had on hers.

Writing Before Pittsburgh during quarantine combined intentional nostalgia with current emotions of disconnection and uncertainty. “There’s a lot of emotion in there that might not feel like 2000, 2001— it might feel a whole lot like 2020,” Whitener says.

This notion of coming back around, perhaps lived in real time in the creation of Before Pittsburgh, is crucial to Whitener’s work as a writer. Whitener has used memory as a literary device consistently throughout her writing, now using more natural and meandering transitions than the snap flashbacks that her earlier work featured.

Whitener believes that the way the story is told is just as important as important as what is happening in the plot. “Those memories, when they come at you, they come at you for a specific reason …I wanna dive in. I wanna be back in that moment,” Whitener says.

Before Pittsburgh follows Whitener’s debut novel, After December, filling a three-year gap that was skipped over in the first novel. After December was decades in the making, as Whitener had been working with these characters since she was 13 years old. The novel was written, rewritten, put on hold, and edited again. “Those characters have always been there,” Whitener says.

After the time-intensive creation of After December, however, Whitener wrote Before Pittsburgh in just 18 months. Brian, the protagonist of Before Pittsburgh, navigates feelings of alienation from his friends, things that felt very relevant to Whitener’s experiences during quarantine. Using those feelings as guidance, the story came together very quickly for her.

While After December covered a period of just five days, Before Pittsburgh had to explain the years preceding the conclusion of After December. Instead of using chapters as markers, After December was divided by each day. With far more time to cover in Before Pittsburgh, Whitener used locations to section out the novel. This geographically based mode of storytelling allows the reader to see Brian’s compartmentalization of identities and ultimate growth into a more authentic version of himself.

Though Whitener has finally completed her work with the characters she’s been writing about since adolescence, she doesn’t imagine she’ll ever stop writing. After earning both undergraduate and graduate degrees in English, Whitener got her PhD in Organization and Management from Capella University. As her more full-time gig, Whitener teaches at the Darla Moore School of Business.

Whitener holds many different identities: Entrepreneur, educator, author, and radio show host, to name a few. On the side, she even visits book clubs that read her work. To Whitener, they’re all connected. “It all comes out of the writing,” Whitener says. “Everything I do is somehow related to writing. Always has been.”

Her radio show on 100.7 The Point serves as a weekly writing workshop and focuses on promoting South Carolina Writers. Her work as an entrepreneur goes hand in hand with her work as an author. Whitener notes that, while her writing career may look different from others, it’s common for authors to have multiple sources of revenue.

Whitener founded Clemson Road Creative in 2012, a business that functions as a for profit consultancy. Jodie Cain Smith, managing partner, firmly believes in Whitener’s role as an educator and a businessperson in addition to her work as a writer. “So much of being an author is being an entrepreneur,” Smith says.  

Ambition is a key word for Whitener. She wants more— not more money, fame, or, really, anything specific. “24 usable hours in the day, right? I just want all of them to be filled up with something meaningful.” Whitener says.

In addition to working with Whitener at Clemson Road Creative, Smith edited both After December and Before Pittsburgh, though she would never call herself Whitener’s editor. The two have been working together for years now; Whitener edits some of Smith’s work and the two share generational experiences.

“There are these generational truths in her writing that I struggle to find other places, so I really enjoy re-living my youth in her writing,” Smith says. She notes the detail with which Whitener remembers and writes the past, from fashion to music to even the cocktails characters drink. Though Smith was initially apprehensive about Whitener using 9/11 as a plot device in Before Pittsburgh, she changed her mind completely after reading the scene. Smith says Whitener captured the fear and grief of 9/11 and put it in real time. She had to read that section of the book several times, enjoying it as a reader, before she could edit it.

The story made Smith wonder what other stories should be created that address the shared terror of 9/11— something that, to her, Whitener proved could actually be done. Whitener carved out a space for generational representation, weaving in Gen X identity in a way that doesn’t feel exclusive.  “There’s a quality of almost numbness in lot of Gen Xers and we took independence and we stretched it to detachment almost,” Smith says. Before Pittsburg, in Smith’s opinion, explains that phenomena while maintaining a wide appeal.

However, this brand of “Unapologetically X,” as Whitener describes herself, didn’t always come naturally. Whitener noticed other creators from her generation being hesitant to identify as Gen X. Because so much of her work revolved around writing, even before the publication of her first novel, Whitener found that targeting people her age helped her establish an audience. By the time she turned 40, she felt no need to put on any kind of show or premise that wasn’t truly her— including any false professional identity.

While Whitener doesn’t expect that this authentic professional identity will ever be limited to just being an author, there’s certainly more coming. “One of my writing partners says that I’m like a popcorn maker,” Whitener says. “[I’ve] got all these kernels in the oil— at some point one’s gonna pop. And then they’re all gonna pop.”

Who knows what might pop next?

By Stephanie Allen

Lori Starnes Isom Explores Emotion Through Faces and Figures in New Tiny Gallery Show Sentimental Mood

Jazz Stylist

As we bundle up and get prepared to gather around tables and share thanks with ourselves and the ones we care for, consider expressing that love with an irreplaceable drawing or painting from Lori Starnes Isom, Jasper’s featured November Tiny Gallery artist, whose show Sentimental Mood is up now. 

Lori Starnes Isom is a New Yorker at her origins, born in Brooklyn and growing up in Queens, where she went to an arts high school and college. Her first interest in art came far before school, however, around age six.

 “I remember drawing lots of go-go dancers wearing white boots - probably inspired by the show ‘Laugh-In,’ which most likely inspired my desire to be a dancer as well!” Isom recalls. 

Though her schooling in art absolutely aided in Isom’s understanding of the genre, she roots most of her ability to “voraciously” consuming and studying other artists’ work as well as art content in print. This seed continued to grow not just as a student but a teacher, with Isom having taught children's art classes at the private level.

 As an artist, Isom is proficient in a plethora of mediums, though her favorite is charcoal due to her longstanding history with it and its “depth and richness.” When it comes to painting, specifically, she prefers watercolor due to its translucent texture and visuality. 

Visionary

“At first my work looked really stiff because I was trying to control the paint. But after a while, I learned that watercolor works best if you let it do its thing,” Isom explains, “I eventually switched over to acrylics because framing charcoals and watercolors got way too expensive!”  

Acrylic also provides a “versatility and ease of use” that allows Isom to repaint and alter art while already in-progress, which works in tandem with her personal style that she refers to as “loose [and] painterly.” In contrast to this is the detail she puts into faces, with figures and portraits often being the subject of her work. 

Isom credits artists such as Mary Cassatt, Johannes Vermeer, and John Singer Sargent as being inspiring forces for her. This compounds with her personal motivations in storytelling.  

“My driving force is always to tell a story or pursue an idea. I work from old photos a lot because I'm familiar with the people in them, and I deeply enjoy the challenge of bringing life to them,” Isom intimates, “I also really enjoy working in monotone and large, solid swathes of color because it causes the viewer to focus more on the story.”   

Isom’s process is one of balancing the freedom of ideas and maintaining simplicity, which allows for a striking expression of emotion and affect, finishing a piece when there is “nothing more that needs to be said.” 

For this Tiny Gallery show, Isom offers an intimate exploration of humanity, focusing on what she loves most: people. Sentimental Mood is a collection of 8 new and old pieces in multiple mediums.  

In one, a watercolored woman stands tall, gazing above her at something just off canvas. In another, a couple with soft, blurred faces yet stark emotion stand pressed against another, with an emerald green dress its center. Another zooms in close to a singing woman, mouth open in the ecstasy of song, fingers softly tendrilled around her microphone. 

“As far as a favorite,” Isom shares, “I think that would be "Close to My Heart", because it's a simple pencil drawing of my mom and her mother, Daisy, whom I never got to meet.”  

Close to my Heart

Within or outside the show, Isom has and continues to make a mark on our community with her expressive, pointed, and unique work. “I am acutely aware that it's a gift to be able to express myself in a creative way and know that I am in full control of how far I allow that creativity to grow,” she effuses. 

Isom’s show will be up until November 30th at Jasper’s online gallery, which is accessible 24/7: https://the-jasper-project.square.site/tiny-gallery.    

Concurrent to and after the show, Isom’s work can be viewed at the new Gallery 537 in Camden, South Carolina. You can also follow along her journey on Instagram and Facebook @loristarnesisom. 

 

—    Christina Xan

Featured CCA Biennial Artist Reclaims the Feminine Through “Monstrous” Installation

“…rather than reiterating these narratives throughout history of what makes women ‘women,’ or what makes women monstrous, I think women should be the ones to decide and to retell those narratives.”

Think of your favorite werewolf. Are you a traditionalist watching American Werewolf in London? Maybe your high school years were filled with Team Jacob debates or MTV made you a Scott McCall fan. Regardless, think about what all these representations have in common. What would these look like if the main monsters were women? 

This is what new South Carolinian, artist Marina Shaltout, asks in her installation Bad Bitch. Told best in her own words, this installation is a “meta-camp, multi-channel video installation that tells the story of a female werewolf exhibiting three symptoms of PMS (Ravenous, Reckless, and Raging).” 

A female werewolf being new or surprising is inherently ironic—women are no strangers to being portrayed as monsters. However, the feminine monster is typically just that: feminine. Think Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy or Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique; even in a non-human form they remain feminine, complete with sexual organs and rife with sensuality.

 If women are ever portrayed as fur-covered monsters, they are rarely allowed to be seen as women, losing all sense of femininity. This is the dichotomous relationship of the female monster, either too feminine or not feminine at all.

 Shaltout relates this in part to the experience of women portrayed by the media, saying, “It's this really interesting process where we women have this notion of, ‘I want to be this woman, but society hates this woman and deems her crazy or problematic or undesirable, so I also hate this woman and therefore I hate myself.’”

 With her own body, Shaltout resists this patriarchal narrative that defines the feminine by its standards. In these installation videos, she dons a full-body wolf costume and dresses it up with wigs, jewelry, and nails. She refuses to let the monster lose its femininity and refuses to let that femininity be comfortable.

“I explore mythologies of females throughout history and the way that we conflate femininity with evil and societal problems. I specifically consider how female monsters are sexualized while male monsters are bad-ass grotesque figures, and I'm interested in flipping those gender notions of what a monster has to be,” Shaltout reveals, “But rather than reiterating these narratives throughout history of what makes women ‘women,’ or what makes women monstrous, I think women should be the ones to decide and to retell those narratives.” 

This narrative consists of three videos, featured on three individual, decorated TVs. Each video presents the main character—Shaltout in costume—in three action sequences: in one, she is eating cakes messily, surrounded by purple fur and the moon that beckons her; in the second, she is putting on makeup at a light blue vanity with its shattered pieces creating the frame itself; and in the third, she is dancing, moving with glitter and framed by the oxymoronic exotic yet inherently natural foliage. All three parts of this installation coalesce at a peak wherein the character at their center stops existing to please the watcher.

 All the materials seen in the videos and on their frames are either handmade or personally sourced by Shaltout. The vanity was found, while the pieces on the frame were created to simply look like the broken furniture in the video. The cake fixtures actually came first with the pastries in the video baked by Shaltout to match. These “moments of artifice,” as she calls them, are key to her work and bridge the faux with authenticity. 

Learning what to create and what to reuse is key to ensuring her process moves along seamlessly, and Shaltout’s varied artistic background surely helps. Though born in Missouri, she grew up in Illinois where she went to college and received her BFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing before doing a residency at New Mexico State University and finally becoming an MFA candidate in 3D and Extended Medium at the University of Arizona.

 Her work with 3D sculpture aids in hands on work, like wrapping violet fur or placing robin egg blue wood on a TV frame. Her work creating appendages supports her visual eye, seen in the careful cultivation of wardrobe or recreation of baked goods. And her work with body-based installation and performance allows her to blur the line between self and other. 

“Visuals is my favorite part. It's me saying does this glittery dress work for this? It's a gathering of materials and then kind of playing around to see what will work, and a lot goes into it,” she intimates, “I think I debated about the color of the wig for two weeks straight. These little things—they're arbitrary and yet hold so much weight—and at the end of the day, I get to make those decisions myself, which is really cool.” 

Video installation adds a fresh layer to performance in this ability to shift visuals and have multiple takes and edits. There are never many cuts, but Shaltout is able to play with lighting and color, even recreating sound. There always is an organic element, however, to what happens when the camera is turned on, and some things, like breaking the vanity, can only happen once.  

“I do script; I storyboard. But I'm more of a writer, so I'll write out the sequence of actions that I plan to take in my videos. And I kind of have that as like a blueprint, but a lot of times my work is improv,” Shaltout describes, “I set myself up with my props and with the general idea, but a lot of it is just kind of going with the feeling in the moment.”

 Donning these costumes and props both makes Shaltout appear as if she could be anybody and specifically embodies a particular part of femininity and perception of the feminine. What at first glance could appear as a strange, silly Halloween costume is a rumination on the very control of women’s bodies and personas, and by turning our expectations of both storytelling and genre on their head, Shaltout is able to reclaim the monstrous feminine.  

In the future, Shaltout aims to continue these stories in different, yet perpetually linked, personas. Her current idea involves mimicry, flowers, and phallic-shaped foods, but that’s your sneak peek for now. Regardless, she will continue to assert that if you’re going to represent me as a monster, I’m going to make you look at me as the “monster” I truly am. It is her, and our, narrative now. 

So—why are there no woman werewolves? They make people in a patriarchal world uncomfortable. They represent a breaking of boundaries and a power that makes people scared. But they should be. And we, as women, should be comfortable and proud of our power, fur and claws included. 

Bad Bitch is currently on display at 701 Whaley’s Center for Contemporary Art as part of their “Biennial Part 1,” which is up until November 14th. Read more about the Biennial here:

Shaltout now resides in Hartsville, South Carolina, teaching at Coker University as a Visiting Assistant Professor. You can follow her journey at her website.

-Christina Xan

Jasper Galleries presents Pam Bowers at Motor Supply

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Jasper Project

will host a

Meet the Artist Evening

in the Motor Supply Bar on

Thursday, November 18th from 6 - 9pm

during Vista Lights.

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

REVIEW: Scenes from Metamorphoses, USC Theatre

I have to admit that I was surprised to see that the play, Scenes from Metamorphoses, based on the myths of Ovid by Mary Zimmerman, was being offered as part of the USC Department of Theatre and Dance’s season. My friend Ed Madden and I, along with our spouses, saw the play last weekend during its brief engagement, October 28-31, at the Booker T. Washington Lab Theatre on Wheat Street. Having had the opportunity to see the multi-award-winning production at Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway in 2002, my memories of the experience were profoundly moving, and I remember being as impacted by the starkness of the minimalist set and costuming as I was by the power of the script and the heft of the acting and direction. The lighting in the Broadway production was so finely achieved that it almost became a character on its own.

Was it a good idea for a university to present a project as robust as Scenes from Metamorphoses? I’m still not sure.

A highly sophisticated project, Zimmerman refined her Metamorphoses over years of workshopping productions beginning in 1996 at Northwestern University. By the time it arrived on Broadway in 2002, the final iteration of the project was something pristine and exquisite. A compelling combination of the robust and the delicate that captivated audiences by reminding us of that conflict and resolution—hence, change—are both timeless and essential to life. The fact that Zimmerman also directed the play during its years on and off-Broadway should not be overlooked in terms of the organic flow in which she was able to offer her production.

While the title suggests that the presentation is an incomplete set of vignettes, in reality, we saw the play with all characters, as written, except with fewer actors. Based on David Slavitt’s 1994 translation of Ovid’s Metamorphosis the play features Cosmogony, Midas, Alcyone and Ceyx, Erysichthon and Ceres, Orpheus and Eurydice, Narcissus, Pomona and Vertumnus, Myrrha, Phaeton, Apollo, Eros and Psyche, and Baucis and Philemon. Zimmerman selected the myths to dramatize in order to replicate the rise and fall of a successful project, with all elements needed to create the arc of a well-accomplished stage play. Her use of the myth of King Midas, before his startling conflict and after his ultimate resolution represent the state of equilibrium that the play opens with and circles back to at the end.

The USC presentation featured Asaru Buffalo, Ezri Fender, Cameron Giordano, Cady Gray, Brighton Grice, Carly Siegel, and Nakao Zurlo, with direction by graduate student, Tiffani Hagan.

There were a number of challenges facing the team presenting Metamorphoses at USC last weekend. The greatest may have been the fit of this play for a group of undergraduate students. It can be difficult to discern where strengths and weaknesses come from—whether it is the actors or the director—without the conceit of knowing what the actors have brought to the table on their own. There was certainly an inconsistency in the performances with some players taking on a conscious meta theme to their interpretations and others a more lackadaisical approach. It was difficult to tell whether some of the nonchalance was prescriptive or organic. Others seemed uncomfortable but I’m not sure if their discomfort came from their roles or their own skin.

Madden made particular note of this. “One of the most interesting lines to me is: ‘You know what happened.’ The play is self-conscious about the fact that we know most of the stories. The art of the play lies in how they are put together and in how they are acted.” 

Given the use of the meta-dramatic theme, Madden, who rated the story of Narcissus as among the most beautifully told, based on the “gestures and movement of the actors,” but wondered “why a woman held the mirror for Narcissus—given his love for his own male beauty, it is the one spot in the entire play that could have included a queer element.”

The greatest challenge to this interpretation of Metamorphoses may be found in the absence of the pool of water which is central to every story line and is, in fact, the touchstone of the play. Originally written to have positioned center-stage a large, multi-use body of water serving as a character in and of itself—a place to wash, the ocean, the river Styx, and more—the pool  of water should act as the central part of the set, as a prop, as a destination, as a central unifying thread, and as the greatest symbol of change, or metamorphosis, itself. While this interpretation of the play uses a wooden barrel in that role, the barrel also becomes a receptacle for props and discarded clothing, and it is cast aside and ultimately moved off stage in what felt irreverent to this viewer.

The height of the performance, for both Madden and I, was the telling of the story of Phaeton, son of Helios, who hounded his father into letting him drive his chariot of horses across the sky creating the daily rising and falling of the sun. Phaeton’s failure to handle such a daunting task results in the scorching of the land and other earthly consequences as the boy had taken on more than he was capable of accomplishing. We both appreciated the role of the therapist who offered, as Madden says, “a way to understand the myth, and yet the very human story if the teenage boy.”

The epitaph on Phaeton’s tomb is ironically said to read, “Here Phaeton lies who in the sun-god's chariot fared. And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared.” And while the cast and crew of Mary Zimmerman’s Scenes from Metamorphoses certainly did not fail, there is no doubt that they grew from the experience in the face of so many challenges presented them, not the least of which were the challenges they each wore on their faces—the very emblem of creating performance art in the days of Covid-19: their masks. As Madden says, the masks “Made some of the language difficult to understand, especially if the music was too loud, and may have caused some over-acting because the actors could not depend otherwise on facial movements to carry emotion.”

Kudos to the cast and crew of USC’s Metamorphoses. Every theatre artist should be so lucky to as to have the opportunity to make this play a part of their artistic lives.

-Cindi Boiter with Ed Madden

 

Join the Jasper Guild today!

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

Thursday, October 28th at 5 pm

Motor Supply

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

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

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

About this exhibition of his work at Motor Supply:

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



PREVIEW: Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses at USC Lab Theatre

Senior theatre major Nakoa Zurlo as Hades  

The University of South Carolina theatre program will present Scenes from Metamorphoses, Mary Zimmerman’s profoundly moving adaptations of classic Greek myths, October 28-31 at the Lab Theatre.  

 Showtime is 8pm nightly.  Tickets are $10 and available online at sc.universitytickets.com.  

In keeping with university safety protocols, masks will be required of all audience members, actors and crew, and seating will be limited to allow for appropriate social distancing between all patrons.  The Lab Theatre is located at 1400 Wheat St. on the first floor of the Booker T. Washington building.   

While the show’s title might indicate an abridged version of Zimmerman’s popular play, the production will indeed contain all the original’s text but with a smaller-than-usual cast of seven.  Hailed in 2002 as “the theatre event of the year” (Time), the award-winning Metamorphoses is a breathtaking fusion of classic and contemporary storytelling, bringing Roman poet Ovid’s timeless myths to dazzlingly theatrical life. Mary Zimmerman’s daring adaptations explore the wide gamut of our universal experience, from love to loss, from joy to despair, connecting it all with the idea that nothing in life comes without transformation.  

"Mary Zimmerman's lovely, deeply affecting work...shows that theater can provide not just escape but sometimes a glimpse of the divine." — Time 

“It’s a really unique combination of adaptations of Ovid’s stories mixed mixed with other iterations of the myths and Zimmerman's own interpretations of who the characters are and what they could be,” says director Tiffani Hagan, a second-year graduate theatre student.  “Each story touches on universal themes like love or loss or fear of the unknown, making them stories that everyone can relate to.” 

The play juxtaposes the mythic stories of well-known characters such as Midas, the greedy king who receives the power to turn everything he touches to gold, with lesser-known figures like Erysichthon, cursed by the goddess Ceres to endure an insatiable hunger.  Hagan says this production emphasizes the anachronistic style of the myths as they are presented in the play, placing many of the ancient tales in modern, often humorous settings.  Think Midas as a Steve Jobs-esque business mogul or Apollo’s son Phaeton telling his story in a therapy session on a pool float. 

“The myths can jump in and out of time because they really are timeless,” says Hagan. 

Cast in the production are undergraduate students Asaru BuffaloEzri FenderCameron GiordanoCady GrayBrighton GriceCarly Siegel, and Nakoa Zurlo.  The production’s design team includes third-year graduate student Heather Gonzalez (costumes) and undergraduates Logan Brodfuehrer (scenic), Brooks Beaty (lighting), and Josiah Burton (sound). 

 “These are stories we’ve all heard at some point in our lives,” says Hagan. “The characters show up again and again in television shows or movies, whether we recognize them as being originally Greek myths or not. This play is a fun way to see them in another light and in a new way.”  

For more information on Scenes from Metamorphoses or the theatre program at the University of South Carolina, contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803-777-9353 or via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu.  

 

 —Courtesy of USC Department of Theatre and Dance

 

 

 

Renee Rouillier Explores Joy and Freedom Through Sculpture in New Tiny Gallery Show

October is a month of transition: first cool mornings of the year, beginning of turning leaves, and the first thoughts of holiday get-togethers. Renee Rouillier explores the larger transitions of freedom and confinement, loss and joy, in her Tiny Gallery show, Messages from Nature. Learn more about her and her show, which is in its final week, below!

Renee Rouillier grew up in rural Upstate New York as one of four siblings in a time where “the world felt like a safer place to live.”

Rejecting any safety nets, however, young Rouillier embarked on a brief journey to an Airline Academy before settling in Rochester and enrolling in its Institute of Technology’s evening art program. At this time, she mainly worked with two-dimensional art and received a Certificate of Fine Arts.  

A new path opened after Rouillier underwent major surgery in her early 40’s. At this time, she decided to quit her job and return to school, choosing the Arts Program at SUNY Brockport.

“This is where everything began to come together,” Rouillier recalls. “I found myself evolving into the person I was meant to be and realized what a difference it made when someone believed in your capabilities and provided unconditional support.”

Soon, this blanket of enlightenment spread wings when Rouillier became immersed in and inundated by sculpture and clay, which she felt unlocked a connection she had never been able to find in 2D art. She began exploring interests and ideas, finally settling in a pocket of inspiration around Surrealism and German Expressionism.

“I began winning awards and honors and more importantly,” Rouillier asserts, “I began to believe in myself…drawing from art with an edge, dark side, or unforeseen side of reality.”

Not long after, Rouillier graduated with a BFA and a BS in Interdisciplinary Arts for Children with Honors and was offered a fellowship at the University of South Carolina concentrating in Ceramics and Sculpture, both studying and acting as a Teaching Assistant and Instructor of Record in Ceramics and Three-Dimensional Study.

“This is also another time-period I will always treasure,” Rouillier intimates, “The total involvement and atmosphere created between undergraduates, graduate students, instructors, and professors to create a whole interactive community; I cherished teaching and my students.” 

This experience culminated in an MFA, followed by an additional eight years of teaching at USC Columbia, USC Aiken, Columbia College, and South Carolina State University, before fully settling into the art community in Columbia, participating in events like The Supper Table, where she designed the place setting for Dr. Matilda Evans.

In preparation for her Tiny Gallery show, Rouillier turned to pieces sculpted before the pandemic but not completed. When the studio she sculpts at reopened, she began selecting pieces and adding surface treatments, which is “accomplished using oxides, underglazes, and glazes with multiple firings.”

Rouillier’s process for this show reflects both her baseline as an artist and her emerging feelings from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I find myself continuously observing my surroundings, interactions, and world events,” Rouillier shares, “This series focuses on the freedom and joy, or my so-called interpretation of it, that I felt animals and wildlife experienced during our confinement.” 

Messages from Nature is filled with ruminating animals, not revealing their thoughts, but staring straight ahead as if beckoning you into conversation. Monkeys and hippos float as avian and amphibian friends perch on their rounded heads. Leopards and rams sit in an excess of both their own patterns and patterns not inherent to them. All the while, these ruminating animals are punctuated by the occasional face of a girl or goblin.

Rouillier’s personal favorites from the show are “Unusual Friends” and “Mystical,” the former of which reflects a challenge she faces—adding that little additional touch that completes the piece.”

“When I built the hippo, I liked it by itself, but it needed an additional element: the hummingbird,” Rouillier reflects, “When I underglazed (matte) the hummingbird and initially fired it, something still wasn't quite right—I put that little touch of gloss glaze on the beak and that did the trick.”

Renee Rouillier’s Messages from Nature will be available to peruse and to purchase from 24/7 on the Jasper virtual gallery space until October 31st: https://the-jasper-project.square.site/tiny-gallery. If you are looking for a unique holiday gift, a handcrafted sculpture is irreplaceable.

As for the future, Rouillier “can’t wait to see what evolves,” and you can follow her journey in the community as she takes on new adventures with her three-dimensional creations.

- - Christina Xan

REVIEW -- Amityville 1925

Seven years in the making, playwright and founder of Theatre Mysterium, Christofer Cook, brings his new play, “Amityville 1925” to the black box performance space at Columbia Music Festival Association, 914 Pulaski Street in Columbia’s Vista.

Inspired by mythology surrounding the famed house at the center of the Amityville Horror franchise, Cook’s cast enacts a tale about the Moynahan family, a real family who occupied the home in 1925. In Cook’s imagination, the Irish Catholic family of five is transplanted to Amityville, NY taking up residence at 112 Ocean Avenue, the same house that has appeared to be malevolently sneering down at us in all our scary movie-induced nightmares since the first film debuted in 1979.

In Cook’s play, the family arrives at their new home with their furnishings intact due to the kindness of Jesse Purdy, the patriarch John Moynahan’s best friend. They immediately have the home blessed in traditional Catholic fashion by the local priest Father Fitzgerald but, despite the ostensible blessings bestowed by the man of the cloth, something is awry from the start. Noises from beneath the floorboards, pops and snaps from the fireplace, toppled furniture and books flying through the air. Everything one would expect from a home we hope to be haunted.

But the Moynahan family of three adult children and parents are smarter than the average haunted household-dwellers and they use their deductive powers and Irish intellects to solve the mystery of a house that has a mind of its own.

Or do they?

Amityville 1925 is a world premiere play with exceedingly strong bones and quite a bit of meat on them, to boot. Having seen the first ever public performance of the play on its opening night of Thursday, October 21, I was engaged by where the story was going, where it took me, and impressed by the scenery along the way.

Cook has assembled an excellent cast of actors, each holding their own and contributing singularly significant pieces to the puzzle. The cast successfully performs as one expects an ensemble to do with no weak links and no characters overshadowing others.

The fourth wall having been delightfully broken from the onset as the players approach the stage via the audience, pausing on the steps of the home to acknowledge the beginning of their occupancy of the house, as well as the beginning of the play, various characters return to their conversation with the audience  throughout the performance. The convention works well as a comfortable narrative device with little to no meta-referential disruption.

As family matriarch Catherine Moynahan, Zsuzsa Manna neatly walks a narrow path of being both devoutly religious but still intellectually astute and perceptive. Her Irish accent was captivating as was that of her on-stage spouse, Frank Thompson in the role of John Moynahan.

The three Moynahan siblings, Stephanie Walker as Eileen, Katie Mixon as Marguerite, and James Nolan as Thomas, are strongly portrayed. Walker’s performance was particularly engaging, evoking comparisons with that of Samantha Sloyan’s Bev Keane on the Netflix drama Midnight Mass. Even on opening night the audience got a sense of the essence of the siblings’ unique personalities which, as the run progresses, I feel certain will acquire even more depth. James Nolan’s performance suggested a far more mature actor than I expected when I recognized his youth. As he more fully actualizes his role I would expect to see more of the youthful anger and frustration the character Thomas suggests as the play goes on.

In fact, the inference of a little more backstory for the family members as-a-whole might serve to further enrich the play. I would love to know more about the relationship between the children. While Walker’s Eileen appears naively boy crazy when she meets Father Fitzgerald, it is her (more mature or possessed?) sister who acts on those impulses later on. Why is this?

And no family with adult children under one roof get along so cordially and in such a non-confrontational manner as do the Moynahan siblings. The addition of inter-relationship awareness might add texture to the siblings’ characters. Similarly, I’d love to know some incidental history of the friendship between John Moynahan and his best friend Jesse Purdy, played devotedly by Landry Phillips.

The most challenging role of the play was that of Father Fitzgerald which Charlie Goodrich accomplished with ease. Goodrich fully possessed the variation required of his role, leading the audience to believe that Father Fitzgerald was quite the actor himself.

My only frustrations with Amityville 1925 were issues that could be avoided by two things: workshopping the play to address some of the small narrative gaps mentioned above, and the hard work of a good stage manager. As someone who appreciates the difficulty of presenting what is often a one-person production, I know well how frustrating it can be to have to put out fires when you’d rather be putting flowers in a vase to make everything pretty. A stage manager would make sure the set looked complete by finishing the painting and wallpapering so raw wood doesn’t peep through an empty grandfather clock. They would dust the lower shelves of tables at audience eye-level, replace an anachronistic plastic pesticide bottle with a glass jug marked with a skull and crossbones, and made sure the bed’s box springs couldn’t be seen on the floor.

That said, the fact that this playwright/production team put a performance of this caliber together is an unusual and quite remarkable accomplishment and they deserve high praise. The play is grounded, smart, wryly funny in unexpected places, (here’s to soda bread and rotting corpses), and thoroughly entertaining. It may, in fact, be the best thing you’ll see this Halloween season.

The next time I see it, and I really want to see it again, I hope it will be on a more professional and hospitable stage with a larger crew, a bigger budget—though Theatre Mysterium clearly did a lot with a little—and all the bells and whistles a well-conceived and soundly performed piece of theatre art like Amityville 1925 deserves.

October 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th
28th, 29th, 30th, 31st

These are Thursday - Sunday performances. 8:00 curtain, except Sundays which are 1:00 pm matinees.

General admission. Tickets are $20 per person. Go to TicketLeap.com to make reservations.

USC Opens Neil Simon's Rumors at Drayton Hall Friday Oct., 15th

The University of South Carolina Theatre Program will launch its 21/22 season in uproarious style October 15-22 with a production of Neil Simon’s raucous comedy Rumors at Drayton Hall Theatre.  

Show time is at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with additional 3 p.m. matinee performances on Saturday, October 16 and Sunday, October 17. Admission is $15 for students, $20 for UofSC faculty/staff, military, and seniors 60+, and $22 for the general public. Tickets may be purchased online at sc.universitytickets.com. Drayton Hall Theatre is located at 1214 College St., across from the historic UofSC Horseshoe. In keeping with university safety protocols, masks will be required of all audience members, actors and crew, and seating will be limited to allow for appropriate social distancing between all patrons.  

Sharp-edged wit meets madcap farce in legendary playwright Simon’s hit 1988 comedy.  When the first pair of guests arrive for an anniversary party at the opulent home of Charlie Brock, the Deputy Mayor of New York, they find their host unconscious, shot in the head (well…the ear lobe), and his wife missing.  Wanting to protect Charlie – and themselves – from potential scandal, they fabricate a lie to tell the rapidly-arriving partygoers, setting in motion an ever-more-hilarious series of cover-ups, misunderstandings and mishaps. "Has nothing on its mind except making the audience laugh." - The New York Times

Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize (1991) and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor (2006), in addition to numerous Tony® awards, Neil Simon was one of the most successful writers of the 20th century, with hits like The Odd CoupleBarefoot in the Park, and Biloxi Blues becoming long-running successes on stage and screen.  His work has become especially personal to director David Britt, who counts Rumors as the seventh Simon play he’s helmed in the last decade.

“I am a student of Neil Simon and his writing,” says Britt.  “When I was growing up, he was as popular a playwright as anybody, and I see his influence in everything I’ve seen since. I will always pay tribute to him.”

There’s an old expression, ‘I dropped my basket,’ meaning you've lost it...  Everybody’s basket gets dropped in Rumors!

Although the playwright told The New York Times that Rumors was his “first farce” and “completely different for me,” the play’s humor is still classic Simon. “It’s a sarcasm that many of us in the South may not be familiar with,” says Britt of the Simon’s signature one-liners.  “Our sarcasm is often very passive-aggressive, but his is straight to the point.  It’s given and received with the same attitude.”

In keeping with the classic form of farce, Rumors’ comedy is rooted in characters who become completely unraveled in the wake of fast-moving chaos and absurdity.  However, Britt says that Simon’s heightened characters are still totally relatable.

“Having read about Simon and the circles he ran in I think these characters are people he would have attended parties with.  There’s no one in this play who is an unbelievable person and that’s what we’re going for -- to hold up a mirror and say, ‘Look how crazy we all are under pressure.’”  

“There’s an old expression, ‘I dropped my basket,’ meaning you've lost it,” he adds with a laugh.  “Everybody’s basket gets dropped in Rumors!”

Britt’s production will bring its own special sense of zaniness to the proceedings, transporting audiences back to the “decade of excess” with a 1980s design aesthetic filled with shoulder pads, big jewelry and even bigger hair. “This play is not only a farce, but a comedic commentary on the socio-economic status of the wealthy,” says graduate design student Kyla Little, costume designer for the production.  “Material possessions have an interesting way of changing the confidence of the human psyche and I take pleasure in exaggerating that through the aesthetic trends of that era.”

Additional designers for the production include Professor Jim Hunter (scenic), graduate design student Lawrence Ware (lighting), undergraduate media arts student Alisha De Jesus (makeup) and guest artist Danielle Wilson (sound.)  

The show’s cast includes students Brandon BadinskiJohn BoulayJesse BreazealeZoe ChanBilly CheekKoby HallAndie LoweCaroline McGeeJordan Pontelandolfo and Isabella Stenz.

“It’s non-stop laughter for the audience to watch,” promises Britt.  “There isn’t any message beyond just enjoying yourself watching these people who think they’re so collected become so uncollected in a matter of minutes.”  

“Just come and have a good time.”

For more information on Rumors or the theatre program at the University of South Carolina, contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803-777-9353 or via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu.   

 Courtesy of UofSC Department of Theatre and Dance

REVIEW: Workshop Theatre Welcomes Audiences Back with New Work - The Campaign, written and directed by Crystal Aldamuy

In Shakespeare’s day, Elizabethans went not to see a play, but rather to ‘hear’ a play.  If the mark of a listenable story is its strength of dialogue, Crystal Aldamuy has the gift of gab. She puts words into her characters’ mouths that make us feel as though we are eavesdropping through a tenement wall. This is more than evident in her latest feat of derring do, a two-act relationship drama called The Campaign produced by Workshop Theatre. Not only does Aldamuy exhibit an acumen for how people talk, but she also proves a competent craftsperson in the construction of plot.

The Campaign tells the story of Kyle McMillian, an ambitious thirty-something who embarks on entering a local city council race, and his life with his flamboyant partner, Seth Williams. The two young men grapple with the universal vagaries of keeping their love alive while cohabitating in somewhat claustrophobic quarters. Their relationship is further challenged by Kyle’s meddling mom, Naomi, whose raison d’etre appears early on to be shopping for her son and picking out just the right sofa pillows.  

At the outset, Kyle and Seth present as a familiar trope of ‘gay odd couple.’ Kyle’s reticence is juxtaposed by Seth’s inability to keep anything to himself. When the moment arrives for Kyle to announce that he has thrown his hat in the ring to be a local politician, Seth has become disillusioned by the reality of their relationship. Seth now must compete for Kyle’s attention and must ‘campaign’ for his true loyalty. This conflict reaches a fever pitch when a man named Timothy enters the picture later in the game.   

Aldamuy’s two main characters’ wants and drives become clearer as the play progresses. Though the inclusion of Kyle’s mother, Naomi, appears first as a single-dimensional plot device, her development of personae is enriched by a touching scene wherein she connects for the first time with Seth at the kitchen table. No spoilers here, though.

Josh Kern as the earnest Kyle McMillion, son of the apparently legendary politician, Walter McMillion, is excellent. He moves throughout the play with ease, giving us a protagonist who desires far more than simply being a domestic AC repairman.

Julian Deleon sparkles with quick one-liners and hilarious mood swings. Deleon may well be the audience favorite as he maintains a type-A drama queen personality who is culinarily challenged and suffers panic attacks during failed attempts at assembling Ikea shelves.

Tiffany Dinsmore is delightful as Naomi McMillion, a mother who strives to insert herself into her son’s life and relationship with the best of intentions. Dinsmore is believable and never over-plays her hand in a role that could so easily have become a caricature.

As a playwright, Aldamuy delivers and gives us some firm bones.  

Missing, however, are clear and smooth transitions between scenes that could better convey the passage of time. These moments, when actors enter and exit depositing and retrieving props in half-light, were confusing.

Act One seemed to take a while before any significant conflict gave its characters the impetus for action. It might also have been technically stronger had Aldamuy directed Josh Kern to vocally project more as he was difficult to hear at times, keeping us on the edge of our seats for the wrong reasons. This took nothing away, however, from Kern’s powerful exchange with Deleon at the end of Act II, two scenes back-to-back that were worth the price of admission alone.

The script struggled to present a narrative that is socially relevant in 2021 with scenes about condoms and AIDS prevention (though certainly still a part of world we live in) giving us tired theatrical territory, once an important innovation in the eighties by dramatists such as Larry Kramer and William Hoffman, but by now a trope with which audiences are overly familiar.

Challenges aside, however, The Campaign is well-worth your time. Workshop Theatre has another winner here with local stalwarts Aldamuy, Kern, Deleon, and Dinsmore at the helm. Remaining performances are few. Do not miss this one!

Fri, Oct 8 8 PM, Sat, Oct 9 8 PM, Sun, Oct 10 3 PM

Tickets at Workshoptheatre.com

 

Christofer Cook is an active member of the Dramatists Guild of America. He holds an MFA, an MA, and a BA. An internationally produced and award-winning playwright, his latest work is “Amityville, 1925” which opens at Theatre Mysterium on October 21st.

 

Celebrating 66 Years of Allen Ginsberg's HOWL

HOWL

by Allen Ginsberg

For Carl Solomon

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,

who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,

who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night

with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,

incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,

Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,

who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,

who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,

who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,

a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon,

yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,

whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement,

who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall,

suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark’s bleak furnished room,

who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts,

who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night,

who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,

who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels,
who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,
who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain,

who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa,

who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago,

who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets,

who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,

who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,

who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,

who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,

who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,

who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,

who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,

who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may,

who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword,

who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom,

who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,

who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake,

who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses’ rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,

who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hung-over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices,

who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the East River to open to a room full of steam-heat and opium,

who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion,

who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery,

who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music,

who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts,

who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology,

who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,

who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom,

who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg,

who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade,

who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried,

who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,

who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,

who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles,

who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other’s hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation,

who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity,

who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,

who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,

who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz,

who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave,

who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury,

who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy,

and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia,

who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia,

returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East,

Pilgrim State’s Rockland’s and Greystone’s foetid halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon,

with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M. and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination—

ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time—

and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use of the ellipsis catalogue a variable measure and the vibrating plane,

who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus

to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head,

the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death,

and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio
with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.

II
What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!

Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!

Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!

Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!

Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!

Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!

Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years’ animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!

Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!

III
Carl Solomon! I’m with you in Rockland

where you’re madder than I am

I’m with you in Rockland

where you must feel very strange

I’m with you in Rockland

where you imitate the shade of my mother

I’m with you in Rockland

where you’ve murdered your twelve secretaries

I’m with you in Rockland

where you laugh at this invisible humor

I’m with you in Rockland

where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter

I’m with you in Rockland

where your condition has become serious and is reported on the radio

I’m with you in Rockland

where the faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of the senses

I'm with you in Rockland
where you drink the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica

I’m with you in Rockland

where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the harpies of the Bronx

I’m with you in Rockland

where you scream in a straightjacket that you’re losing the game of the actual pingpong of the abyss

I’m with you in Rockland

where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse

I’m with you in Rockland

where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void

I’m with you in Rockland

where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha

I’m with you in Rockland

where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb

I’m with you in Rockland

where there are twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale

I’m with you in Rockland

where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs all night and won’t let us sleep

I’m with you in Rockland

where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls’ airplanes roaring over the roof they’ve come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse O skinny legions run outside O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we’re free

I’m with you in Rockland

in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night

First public reading, October 7, 1955, at the Six Gallery in San Francisco

Zachary Diaz and the Recycled Parts of Life

“If you’re always following the recipe, that’s as good as it’s ever going to taste.”

Zachary Diaz’s upcoming Stormwater show started with a ball of paper.

Years ago, Diaz wrote (and quickly discarded) an emotional letter to an ex, only to find the wadded paper months later. Capturing the words he had written on the page in a still life, Diaz hesitantly included the drawing of the letter in an earlier exhibition at Stormwater Studios. 

Several people pointed out the piece to him in the show, and Diaz started to realize a point of connection. “If that’s one way that I can connect with total strangers, how many more ways can we connect with other people? What other experiences or memories or reflections do we have that coincide with how someone else has felt?” Diaz asks. From that moment, a residency was born.

Diaz’s residency at 701 Center for Contemporary Art expanded this idea of unsent letters by outsourcing writing. Participants wrote letters to people or experiences, which were published anonymously on Diaz’s website. Several were selected to be the subjects of drawings that will be featured in his upcoming exhibition, which shows at Stormwater Studios from October 8-17.

This show is a combination of work from this residency and an earlier show called Cloudwalker, both of which were partially released online due to the pandemic.

Cloudwalker features clouds, as its title suggests, birds, and varying figures hidden in the compositions. “I like creating narrative stories that the viewer can make up themselves… I sort of lay the groundwork — I give them all the accents— and they can kinda come up with their own imagination what’s really going on,” Diaz says. He likes making work that makes people think.

The Letters portion of the show is ongoing throughout the duration of the exhibition. Viewers will be invited to submit their own letters, all of which will culminate in an installation that will be featured in the show’s closing reception on October 17 from 6-8pm.

While Diaz is still conceptualizing how the installation will look, he plans on ordering the letters in a way that reflects their content, identifying themes such as love, forgiveness, and varying emotions.  

Since starting the Letters project, Diaz says he’s become a lot more interested in how he feels when he’s making. His earlier creative process involved stricter planning and reference sketching. Now, Diaz works more intuitively, which, in turn, has made projects go faster and made him more aware of what he’s creating.

Diaz tends to mix mediums in nontraditional ways, layering oil paint over gessoed paper and drawing on top with charcoal. “I don’t think there’s any concrete way to create something” Diaz says. “If you’re always following the recipe, that’s as good as it’s ever going to taste.”

By making the letters in this show anonymous, Diaz says that he gives people a shield to really be honest. This openness displays his belief that so many experiences in life are shared, whether you know it or not.

Diaz describes the exhibition as a dive into his mind. “If you’re interested in learning more about everyone around you through the eyes of an artist, then come to the show,” Diaz says. “It’s a story in two parts… Cloudwalker is about how I see the world and everything around me. Letters is about how you see the world and learning more about the people around you.”

The opening reception for the exhibition is October 9 from 5-8pm. Whether by attending the show or submitting an anonymous letter yourself, Diaz wants to help create connections.

“Artists are gardeners. We make roses from the recycled parts of life,” Diaz says. To see how one crumpled piece of paper turned into a show, stop by Stormwater Studios before October 17.

 - Stephanie Allen

Special Friends Free Concert Series Comes to Bourbon's Courtyard Saturday Night with Cap City Playboys

Free Concerts from the Chillest Place to Sip on Main Street?

Yes, Please

Capital City Playboys featuring l-r Kevin Brewer, Jay Matheson, Marty Fort

Capital City Playboys featuring l-r Kevin Brewer, Jay Matheson, Marty Fort

In keeping with his perpetual support of the city, restauranteur and hockey beauty Kristian Niemi is giving yet another gift to Columbia in the form of a free concert series in the swanky, yet comfy, courtyard of one of his prize restaurants and bar, Bourbon.

Located at 1214 Main Street, Bourbon is a whiskey bar with a menu that focuses on Cajun and Creole delights. Over the course of the pandemic, the intimate drinking restaurant expanded into its larger neighboring space, creating an adjacent bar and lounge with a partially covered multi-level courtyard, perfect for the city’s beloved shoulder seasons when breezes beckon us to sit outside and sip on something artisanal and, often, locally designed and created.

Last week, Brandy and the Butcher gathered a crowd and, this week, the Capital City Playboys will be performing one set only starting at 9 pm.

Kristian Niemi  - photo by Richard Best

Kristian Niemi - photo by Richard Best

“I’ve always tried to support local arts, whether musical or in any of the other disciplines, so this was just a natural progression,” Niemi says. “We’ve been doing live music at Black Rooster all year; it was time to do it at Bourbon, also. This series should honestly be called ‘Kristian’s Friends’ Bands’ series since nearly every band has members that are close friends of mine, and I love to see them perform. I chose bands that are all very upbeat, rocking bands for this series. We’ll do more with other genres in the future, but this first series is definitely rocking.” 

The series, sponsored by Jack Daniels distillery, runs through November 13th, and will include, among other Midlands-based groups, Glamcocks, Grand Republic, and will close out the series with Niemi’s self-claimed “best friend” and band, Tom Hall and the Plowboys. Niemi says that while he’ll start up a new concert series in the spring, he will continue to have live music on the patio, but it just won’t be concerts, per se. 

“I want it to be a concert, not background music,” Niemi says. “I really want the crowd to get into it; to get in front of the stage and dance and sing along. I really want a concert vibe. These artists have spent a lot of time writing original material and I want it appreciated as a concert.” 

Jay Matheson of the Capital City Playboys is excited about their show on Saturday night. “I know Kristian loves music and I’ll bet he would like to do more things like this just to be able to hang out himself and enjoy the show with friends,” Matheson says. “It’s a great space for a music show and the first one last week with Brandy and the Butcher was a really good time. Best fun I’ve had at a show in a while.”

“Jack Daniels distillery has signed on as our sponsor for this series, and as a part of that are giving away some cool stuff. In addition to us creating some special cocktails for the bands, Jack Daniels is giving away some swag and some bigger prizes that we’ll announce at the end of the series” Niemi says.  “They’ll include bottles of their Single Barrel selections, some high-end swag, and even an exclusive VIP tour of the distillery followed by dinner.” 

After a long strange trip, Jerry Fest is back this Sunday!

“Don't tell me this town ain’t got no heart”


Jerry Garcia

Per The Five Points Association …

The Five Points Association, Loose Lucy’s and Mind Harvest Press are hosting the return of JerryFest—live and in-person—this Sunday, October 3, 2021. A FREE outdoor concert held at the main Five Points fountain on Saluda Avenue, JerryFest runs from 2pm-10pm and features multiple bands all performing Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead music.

 

Since 2014, the event has welcomed around 1,200 to the Five Points village for a family- and pet-friendly afternoon of fellowship and music along with artisan crafts, food, beverage and merchandise vendors. JerryFest was started to commemorate the life and art of Jerry Garcia. Rock guitarist and musical icon, Garcia was best known as the lead guitarist for the Grateful Dead that inspired legions of followers known as “Deadheads.”

 “One of our signature neighborhood events returns with its tie-dyed sea of happy faces all enjoying 'rainbows full of sound,' as the song goes,” says Don McCallister, co-owner of Loose Lucy’s along with his wife Jenn.“

The music for the 2021 edition kicks off with the Columbia Community Drum Circle, followed by a regional headliner, the cleverly-named JGBCB (Jerry Garcia Band Cover Band). Local acts Big Sky Revival, Stillhouse and Gentle Jack round out the main stage bill, with the Red Shack Pickers performing at The Hubbell art installation across from Loose Lucy’s located at 709 Saluda Avenue. 

Fox 102.3 will be broadcasting live from 5pm-7pm at Greene and Harden Streets, and you’ll also get a glimpse of our JerryFest Dancing Bear parading throughout the festival footprint. There will also be an opportunity at the Columbia Fireflies booth for a photo op with Mason and our Dancing Bear.

 

Music Line Up:

  • Columbia Community Drum Circle - 2pm-3pm

  • Gentle Jack - 3pm-4pm

  • Big Sky Revival - 4:30pm-5:30pm

  • Stillhouse - 6pm-7pm

  • JGBCB - 7:30pm-10pm

 

Participating Vendors:

  • Bang Back Pinball Lounge

  • Blue Pizza

  • Booze Pops Columbia

  • Columbia Fireflies

  • Crowntown Cannabis (formerly Charlotte CBD Five Points)

  • Grizzly Belle

  • High Life Smoke Shop

  • Kombi Keg

  • Nessy's Naturals

  • Pelican's SnoBalls

  • Philly Flava II

  • Revyved Records

  • Something Special

  • Stolon Superfoods

 

There will be street closures that day from 10am-11:59pm. The 2000 Block of Greene Street starting at the stage in front of CJ’s down to Harden Street will be closed and blocked off. The main fountain plaza at 747 Saluda Avenue, Saluda Avenue in front of Starbucks and Saluda’s and the Saluda Avenue loading zone between the fountain and the Harden Street parking lot will be closed and blocked off as well. 

COVID-19 protocols will be encouraged for all festival participants and vendors due to the City of Columbia’s Mask Ordinance. Please see full details of the ordinance at columbiasc.gov. Cash will be accepted, but please bring credit/debit cards for your primary form of payment. Per SC Code of Laws Section 23-31-235, NO CONCEALABLE WEAPONS ALLOWED. 

For more information on JerryFest, please visit FivePointsColumbia.com/JerryFest. You can also follow the festival on Facebook @FivePointsSC, Twitter @FivePointsSC and Instagram @FivePointsSC.

 

Fall Lines 2021 RESCHEDULED for January 2022 Due to Covid

As per the directive of Richland Library,

the release and reading for

Fall Lines Volumes VII & VIII

has been rescheduled for

Sunday, January 23rd at 2 pm

in the auditorium of the

Main Branch of Richland Library.

All contributors are invited to read ONE piece of their work from the combined volumes.

As per the request of the Jasper Project, all attendees should be vaccinated.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.