THE BEAT: Former Voice contestant CammWess debuts new single, video for “Tired”

By Kyle Petersen

It’s been a few years since Columbia area native CammWess made somewhat of a splash on season 18 of NBC’s The Voice. The young, fresh-faced R&B singer got to work with one of his biggest inspirations and influences in John Legend at just 21 years old, and ultimately finished 4th on the show, just shy of the finals.

The reason he was on The Voice at all, of course, is his tremendous talent. Blessed with a deep, sultry voice capable of rattling the rafters as well as a crooning falsetto, CammWess also demonstrated some budding songwriting chops on the show and was allowed to premiere an original, “Save it for Tomorrow,” in addition to his covers of tunes The Weeknd’s “Earned It,” Prince’s “Purple Rain,” and “Say Something (I’m Giving Up On You),” A Great Big World song famously performed with Christina Aguilera.

While the peak of his fame on the show was unfortunately timed with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, CammWess has doubled down on his original material in recent years, including his most recent single “Tired.”

In addition to showcasing his consummate vocal talent and increasingly polished songcraft, the tune features fluttery background vocal processing that lends a contemporary edge and hints at a more adventurous production style in the artist’s future. But most compelling is the video from HoneyButter productions, a fully formed production that brings the song’s romantic heartbreak to life. View it below. CammWess is set to play the SolFest RollFest in Earlewood Park July 2.

Happy Hour Release Party for Jasper Magazine Spring 2022 - Thursday, June 9th at Black Rooster Rooftop Bar

Join us as we celebrate all the artists honored in the spring 2022 issue of Jasper Magazine for the official release event at 5:30 on Thursday, June 9th at the Black Rooster’s beautiful rooftop bar.

Among the artists we’ll be celebrating are cover artist Lindsay Radford (written by Kristine Hartvigsen) and centerfold Michael Krajewski (which was shot by Brad Martin in the Black Rooster itself!)

In a jam-packed 64 pages you’ll find another piece by Kristine Hartvigsen on Mike Miller’s new novel, The Hip Shot, as well as excerpts from Jane Zenger and Angelo Geter’s new books of poetry from Muddy Ford Press.

Music editor Kevin Oliver put together a detailed section of new music called “10 to Watch” featuring new work from Saul Seibert, Katera, Desiree Richardson, Tam the Vibe, Rex Darling, Space Force, Admiral Radio, Hillmouse, Candy Coffins, and Lang Owen, with contributing writing from Kyle Petersen and Emily Moffitt.

Tam the Vibe

Stephanie Allen writes about Josetra Baxter and Tamara Finkbeiner’s Walking on Water Productions and their new series Secrets in Plain Sight, with photography by Bree Burchfield.

And we highlight Columbia artist Quincy Pugh as well as feature Will South’s interview with Tyrone Geter all the way from Gambia.

The Three Graces by Quincy Pugh

USC filmmaker Carleen Maur helps us understand more about the art of experimental filmmaking.

Emily Moffitt profiles visual artists Rebecca Horne, Lucy Bailey, and designer Diko Pekdemir-Lewis.

Ed Madden curates poetry from Juan David Cruz-Duarte and Terri McCord.

Christina Xan details the incredible success of Cooper Rust and her non-profit organization, Artists for Africa.

Cindi Boiter profiles SC Arts Commission executive director David Platts, with photography by Brodie Porterfield, and writes about the new public art, Motherhood by Nora Valdez, with exquisite photography by Stephen Chesley.

Motherhood by Nora Valdez, phot by Stephen Chesley

And finally, we memorialize two pillars of the Columbia arts community, Mary Bentz Gilkerson and Wim Roefs, whose loss this spring we are still reeling from.

——

We look forward to seeing you Thursday night.

The event is free and Black Rooster’s regular rooftop bar will be serving drinks and food. Come by for happy hour and grab a drink, a magazine, and a hug from your favorite folks. Or plan on staying a while and grabbing dinner or snacks.

Thanks to restauranteur extraordinaire Kristian Niemi for hosting us.

We can’t wait to see you and show off these exceptional artists who call Columbia, SC home!

Jasper Welcomes Cindy Saad to the Tiny Gallery

By Emily Moffitt

Jasper is happy to announce the launch of Cindy Saad’s breathtaking jewelry art in our Tiny Gallery for the month of June.

Saad is an artisanal jewelry maker who draws inspiration and creativity from the natural world around her, soaking in the beauty and artistic value of anything from a beach scene to a beautiful sunset. Her creative process for many of her works, including those featured in Tiny Gallery, revolves around the subtle manipulation of the stones and thin wire in order to create undulating works of wearable art. Other pieces for Tiny Gallery include paperweights, cufflinks, and many of her pendant necklaces. 

Saad’s portfolio has been showcased in many art galleries, including the I. Pinckney Simons Gallery, the Columbia Museum of Art, and the City Art Gallery. Alongside these honors, Cindy also placed 2nd in the State Fair Open Media category and was selected to the American Craft Council Southeast Region Spotlight in 2003. 
Saad’s work will be available to peruse and purchase via Jasper’s online gallery until the end of June at https://the-jasper-project.square.site/tiny-gallery.

Film “Common as Red Hair” by Robbie Robertson Depicts Under-told Story of Intersex Birth

by Stephanie Allen

The “I” in LGBTQIA+ doesn’t stand for invisible. It stands for intersex.

This is the message that intersex activist Kimberly Zieselman wants people to know about upcoming short film, “Common as Red Hair.”

Until a year ago, Robbie Robertson wasn’t even aware of the issue that would become the subject of his screenplay. “Common As Red Hair” is a narrative film that covers the aftermath of a funeral where two parents are forced to reevaluate their decision to have gender “corrective” surgery on their intersex child.

Robertson had heard of intersex, but didn’t realize the frequency of intersex births and the regularity of medically unnecessary (and often harmful) surgeries performed on intersex infants for the sake of “normalization.” This film, more than an artistic endeavor, is meant to raise awareness about the damages of these operations.

Zieselman was brought on board to the project to give her expertise, not only as an activist, but as an intersex person herself. Now serving as the project’s executive producer, she distinguishes between intersexuality, gender identity, and sexual orientation. “It’s really talking more about the body and the physical sex traits or sex characteristics… like genitals, reproductive organs and hormone levels and chromosomes,” she says.

Essentially, intersex is a broad term used to describe people who have sex characteristics that fall outside of the male-female binary. Being intersex is different from being transgender, though both groups fight for bodily autonomy. Additionally, intersex people can have any gender identity— being intersex does not mean a person identifies as non-binary. The film’s title, “Common as Red Hair” contextualizes how frequently these kinds of births occur— nearly two percent of births are intersex.

Starring Days of Our Lives’ Kassie DePaiva and Wally Kurth as mother and father, the film has already garnered attention for its script. “I know good dialogue when I read it,” Kurth says. “Robbie’s always had a good ear for dialogue… it’s a really well-written story.”

Kurth and Robertson met about 14 years ago through UCLA’s online screenwriting program. From there, Kurth became a fan of Robertson’s writing. So, after reading the script, Kurth knew he wanted to be part of the project.

DePaiva describes her addition to the cast as a “God moment.” Kurth introduced DePaiva to Robertson at a soap opera event, and she was open to working on the project before even reading a script. “I had no idea he was going to come up with such a beautiful, powerful script about something that is so relevant and portent right now,” DePaiva says.

Much like Robertson, Kurth and DePaiva were unfamiliar with the subject of intersex children. “If I am so uninformed,” DePaiva says, “I’m sure I’m not the only person out there that goes ‘what is this?’ So, it’s important to me to grow as an actress and as a human being doing a project… Hopefully people will have their eyes opened to the differences in all of us.”

As a narrative writer, Robertson wanted to tackle this lack of information from an accessible perspective. Because anyone can parent an intersex child, Robertson emphasized the need for a wide audience— this story isn’t just one for the queer community.

A father himself, Kurth says “All we really want is to protect our children and do right by them and make sure that they’re happy.” Though his onscreen character has similar objectives, the character— through no fault of his own— fails to make the right decision for his child. The weight of having to live with a parent’s choices is something, according to Kurth, that everyone has to grapple with— whether parent or child.

According to Zieselman, this shame and stigma surrounding intersex people originates from society and even medical practices that falsely assert that there is something wrong with intersex bodies. The vast majority of intersex births are healthy; only through awareness and acceptance can these discriminatory practices begin to be corrected. Films like “Common as Red Hair” can help start these important conversations.

To help the cause, you can donate to the project for the next three weeks. For additional resources about what it means to be intersex and to promote legal advocacy, check out nonprofits such as interact.

Laura Valtorta's Bermuda is the Dream Vacation You’ve Been Looking For: An Interview with the Filmmaker

By Emily Moffitt

If you’re looking for a brand-new comedy to watch and rave about this summer, you need not look any further than “Bermuda,” a brand-new film directed and written by Columbia’s own Laura P. Valtorta. Featuring an all-star cast of local actors and prominent thespians around the state, the film follows Mildred, played by Pat Yeary, who so desperately wants to take a vacation for herself that she steals her son’s disability benefits to fund a trip to Bermuda. Other notable actors within the cast include Peri S. Jackson, Kit Phillips, Rob Sprankle, Cris Griffin, and Ursula Robinson.  

Laura started her film career in 2011 and has plenty of experience filming documentaries and short films. Bermuda is her first narrative feature, but Laura is no stranger to the genre of comedy. “Everything that I write turns into a comedy,” Laura jokingly says.  

Laura’s documentary portfolio includes White Rock Boxing, Water Women, and Water Stories: the Pee Dee Indian Nation of South Carolina. The good humor of the cast of Bermuda and the resonance with the script made the filmmaking process a lot easier for Laura and revealed the amount of talent that the cast held with their craft. “For some reason, this cast just clicked. Everyone has a unique sense of humor. They sound natural with the most ridiculous lines.” 

Laura’s love for Columbia and the greater Midlands area shines with the involvement of local companies and producers. Much of the film was shot in both Columbia and Newberry, and Bermuda is not unlike Laura’s past projects as it focuses on the diverse, small-town communities of the Midlands and the problems they face every day. Laura’s mission statement for filming is clear; “My goal in filmmaking is to get an audience that is diverse in age and community,” Laura states. “I want the film to reflect the community in large and not one particular one or the other.”            

The filming of Bermuda was an extremely personal project for Laura; aside from being her first narrative feature, there was plenty of involvement from her family in the production of the movie. Laura, her husband, and her son all feature in small acting roles within the movie. Prior to the start of filming, the table readings of the movie at Tapp’s and local libraries really showed to Laura that she had an extremely special and impactful work on the table. The audience’s reactions to the humor of the movie’s script helped bolster that sentiment even further. If there’s one thing Laura wanted to highlight, it’s a sense of humor; “Sense of humor is very personal to me. I’m glad I find Bermuda very funny, and my family thought it was funny too.” While Laura has plenty of professional experience as a lawyer, her love for filmmaking has shifted from a side hustle to a serious business practice. Keeping in mind her father’s passion for side projects and achieving any goals he set his mind to, Laura decided to follow suit and put this mentality towards filmmaking.  

There’s a lot of multidimensionality within the movie's plot, which was part of Laura’s intention as she wrote the script. Despite the overt comedic tone and crazy hijinks that the characters get into, there’s a deeper commentary about the lifestyle choices women often find themselves having to make. “The film is a comedy, but the themes are serious. It’s about women’s rights, and sometimes their backs are up against the wall,” Laura states. “If they want to live the way they want to, sometimes they have to resort to crime. It’s about the fact that women need to be empowered more.” Mildred’s character represents the side of womanhood that aims to reject traditional gender standards for what a real mother looks like; rather, she lives for herself and makes decisions to make herself happy, all the while still making sure her children are secure and happy as well. As Mildred herself does not believe in marriage, Laura hopes that audience members who face criticism for their own life choices can see themselves reflected in a character on the screen. “Not every woman wants to be settled down and to live a very traditional life. There’s a conflict between Mildred and her daughters about this. Mildred wants to stay single and be a bit freer with her life choices.”  

Bermuda is available to stream on Tubi TV and Amazon Prime. Laura’s other films are also available on Tubi and Amazon Prime. Laura P. Valtorta is the director and writer of Bermuda, with Clifton Springs as the Cinematographer, John Collins as the Editor, and Genesis Studios of Cayce, SC working as the movie crew.  

WE DANCE - New Project by Wideman-Davis Dance Premieres at Tribeca Film Fest June 18th

By Christina Xan

Tanya Wideman Davis and Thaddeus Davis

Dancers, creators, professors, directors. Columbia couple Thaddeus Davis and Tanya Wideman-Davis have many titles. In their newest project, however, not only are they exploring a novel medium to them – film – but are stepping back from titles and stripping down to question what it means for them to inhabit the bodies they are in, where those bodies came from, and what those implications mean for all who migrate within America. 

“We've been really thinking about patterns of migration and thinking about our families…how the shaping of the way we eat is different than the way we may have grown up,” Wideman-Davis reflects, “How we can figure out new pathways to merge old and new ways of thinking about food and have those communal experiences still be nurturing. 

We Dance is a 12-minute experimental film that combines documentary, dialogue, imagery, and dance to share, less a narrative, and more a story—or perhaps more accurately, a series of stories. The film has three parts: in part 1, “Spin,” Wideman-Davis reflects on her grandmother’s home in Chicago; in part 2, “Rise,” Davis reflects on his grandmother’s home in Montgomery; and in part 3, “Hold,” the two reflect on their lives together. 

“A big part of this didn't start out as a love story, but in the end, it was that. But it wasn't just about the love between the two of us, but the love for these pivotal women—Tanya's grandmother and mother and my mother and grandmother” Davis intimates, “People in our families who sustained us like food and allowed us to have these careers that we've had in dance and beyond.” 

In the first two segments, each of the pair’s grandmothers are seen baking a staple in their history—pound cake and sweet potato pie. This focus on food is in many ways the hinge of the stories being told. Food is more than a substance for staying alive – it is life-defining. The process of sourcing and consuming food, the accessibility of food, and how food shifts across region and culture all define our bodies. For certain groups of people, like the black adults and elders featured in the video, food is a distinct way of finding, creating, and asserting identity. 

While the women bake in the background, Wideman-Davis and Davis narrate, speaking words related to the cooking process, themes of their life, and dialogue they recall from these inspirational women. Stitched within the cooking and the words are images from the cities and surrounding areas these families call home – houses, cityscapes, rivers – as well as extemporaneous dance from the married pair. 

Throughout the film, the two dance and speak their histories. And though this intimate portrait allows you to know the duo better, it is not only their story. “It's not just the black migratory patterns. That's what it references, but this is a part of the migratory patterns of people around the world,” Davis emphasizes. 

One of their hopes in creating this film is that the viewer will be able to understand more about where they come from, their own migrations, and how each individual history is in some way interlaced with collective histories. What foods do you eat? How did what you ate shift as you moved from place to place? What did you take with you or leave behind? How does your body express what you consume? How do you dance? 

For if food represents a part of our identity in which we take within us what is part of our culture and selves then dance is how we reveal outwards what is part of our culture and selves. In the migration process, wherever and whatever the reason in moving, we are doing just that—moving. Sometimes the world moves around us while sometimes we move around the world, but this film asks us to acknowledge and embrace the movement, learn how and when flow versus resist, all the while being grounded by what always moves with, in, and out of us—food.  

This is exemplified in a scene towards the end of the short film where Wideman-Davis and Davis stand, completely still, hands clasped around each other’s, in white garb, as an Alabama river rushes fast and hard around them.  

“There’s something about being in that water, at that specific space that was a segregated space,” Wideman-Davis ruminates, “To come back to it and to have to anchor yourself in the water with this current, knowing that it has all the racialized history and the deadly components that it could have had 20 years ago, us being there.” 

It is this stunning tension that has gotten the attention of film festivals nationwide, with We Dance being accepted to the Oxford Film Festival, the Fort Myers Beach International Film Festival, the Experimental, Dance & Film Festival, the WorldFest Houston International Film Festival, the Ouray International Film Festival, and, most excitingly, the Tribeca Film Festival, where it will premiere Saturday, June 18th.  

The two’s hard work could not have been possible without director and cinematographer Ethan Payne and director and writer Brian Foster, all of whom met when Wideman-Davis and Davis were sanctioned by the Southern Foodways Alliance. 

If you’d like to see the culmination of all their efforts and dive into a world that not only teaches you about the vulnerable movement of others but of yourself, starting June 8th, you can purchase a $25 ticket to all Tribeca shorts here: https://www.tribecafilm.com/films/we-dance-2022

COLUMBIA REPERTORY DANCE COMPANY MAKES CHARLESTON DEBUT AT CANNON PARK AS PICCOLO SPOLETO POP-UP SELECTION

The Columbia Repertory Dance Company will make its Charleston debut at Cannon Park on May 29, 2022 as an official selection of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival.

This dance concert is presented as part of Piccolo Spoleto’s new Pop-Up program which transforms neighborhood parks and public places around Charleston into pop-up performance spaces.

This performance will also feature performances by Columbia pop band Say Femme with Charleston dancer and choreographer Jenny Broe opening.

The concert will begin at 7:00 PM at Cannon Park, and admission is free to the public.

In the company’s third season, Columbia Repertory Dance Company will be premiering new pieces from their 2022 season featuring works by Artistic Director Stephanie Wilkins. Attendees will experience athleticism and emotionally evocative performances that have become a trademark for the group over the last three years.

In 2018, co-founders Bonnie Boiter-Jolley and Stephanie Wilkins founded the Columbia Summer Repertory Dance Company with a desire to offer dancers more options in a city focused heavily on ballet. They started with the financial backing of a local arts organization, a plan focused on summer performances (Columbia’s dance offseason) and a sold out debut performance in 2019 which was followed by a sold out concert in 2020. In the past year, the company has extended their season length and become a 501c3 non-profit organization. The group’s popularity among Columbia natives comes from their commitment to exploring refreshing narratives and styles of dance in their work. The Columbia Repertory Dance Company will perform on Sunday, May 29, 2022 at 7:00 PM at Cannon Park (131 Rutledge Ave, Charleston, SC 29401). Admission is free for this public event, and more info can be found at http://www.piccolospoleto.com/ or at www.coladance.com.

Jasper Talks with Tiny Gallery Artist Lucy Bailey on Her Molding of Nature and Whimsy

We’re in the final week of our Tiny Gallery show with Lucy Bailey, a collection of dreamscapes in both 2D and 3D. Learn more about Bailey and her process below!

JASPER: Tell me a bit about where you’re from and how you came to art.  

BAILEY: I grew up on Lake Murray in an idyllic setting, back when the lake was quiet and there were few residents. My parents weren’t artists, but both were creative craftsmen in their own right. As a teenager I spent every nickel at The Dutch Door craft supply store at Boozer Shopping Center and would decoupage Holly Hobbie wrapping paper and bits of wallpaper onto anything that couldn’t outrun me. 

JASPER: Did you ever go to school for art? 

BAILEY: My degrees are in theatre, clinical counseling, and school psychology. Anything I know about making art has been from a few master classes or through trial and error. I tend to learn what I need to know to do a particular thing. 

JASPER: I know you enjoy a few different mediums, particularly clay – how did you find it? 

BAILEY: Before beginning in clay, I was an admirer of all things ceramic and collected on a shoestring. In my mid-40’s I bought a bag of porcelain to try hand-building masks, unaware that porcelain was akin to marshmallow fluff. Someone at Southern Pottery set me up with a decent low-grog earthenware and building became much easier! 

JASPER: Why do you keep coming back to clay?

BAILEY: There’s something viscerally satisfying about working with clay and there are endless possibilities. Yet, there are significant limitations: it’s fragile and heavy and often big and bulky. Those limitations are exasperating and, simultaneously, challenging. In my next life I hope to fall in love with creating small plastic jewelry or satin bow ties: anything small, light, and easy to ship.

JASPER: Well, I know you do some 2D work as well and recently started experimenting with scratchboards, right? 

BAILEY: While clay is my go-to, drawing and making scratchboards has been a productive detour for me. My drawings are small scale and done with colored pencils and ink. The scratchboards are a thin layer of white clay covered by black ink. Compared to ceramics, which requires building time, drying time, multiple firings, etc., drawing and scratchboards are more immediately satisfying, and I can pivot to them while ceramic pieces are in one of those various stages.

JASPER: In 2 and 3D you make a lot of fun, expressive faces. Have you always been drawn to faces?  

BAILEY: We are hard-wired visually to seek out and identify faces. Figurative work is definitely what I’m most drawn to, with a focus on busts and faces/masks. In terms of sculpting, faces are fickle. Early on a face will have a particular look and later in the process it has adopted a different quality. 

JASPER: Do you find that some images repeat themselves? 

BAILEY: There are certain ideas or imagery I’ll play with for a while then move on to another, and usually circle back to an earlier idea again later. A small skull stamp is commonly found lurking somewhere in my work as a memento mori. There’s a series of what I think of as coins from doodles back in college used in many pieces. Lately I’ve been in a moon phase (pun intended) crossing over from mixed-media-plus-ceramic wall pieces to pendants. For me it’s not about striving to conceive of an image because the images are finding me.

JASPER: How long does it usually take you to feel “finished” with a piece? 

BAILEY: Mary Ann Haven recently told me that older work should just be considered raw material and I love this conceptualization. With ceramics there’s only so much you can do once a piece is fired, but there are still many post-firing possibilities. I have a couple of larger (for me) pieces from a show at Stormwater Studios with K. Wayne Thornley last May and those will be reworked soon by adding wire and photographs.

JASPER: Tell me about this show specifically. What kind of pieces have you decided to show, and why? 

BAILEY: The Tiny Gallery grouping is all connected to clay, even the scratchboards. It felt important to have a couple options for small-scale figures, so I made the three moon cap figures and the three pieces with glaze bands around the base. While glazes don’t feature heavily in my work, this color is really perfect for the sea tides motif.  I wanted to include wall-mounted figurative works, so I created several new masks and included two older ones as well. The (imagined) Lover’s Eye pendants (which are graphite drawings on earthenware) and scratchboards are included to pull 2D into the mix.

JASPER: What’s in the future for you? 

BAILEY: A big change for me is coming up at the end of June when I retire from my day job! I have just started working on a series combining vintage (think late 1800s-mid 1900s) children’s clothing with photographs and other mixed medium—no ceramics involved. There’s also a nascent project integrating larger pieces of wood into the design. And I want to return to some very early ideas and explore them in more depth. 

Some of the new work will be ready this November when K. Wayne Thornley and I host our second annual Art on the Pond open studio, so we hope everyone will come see us then. 

JASPER: Finally, where can we find your work? 

BAILEY: Newer work is on Instagram and Facebook (both @lucybaileyclay). At this point my website (http://www.lucybaileyclay.com) is an archive but it may get revived soon. My business name is officially Lucy Bailey Studio.

To see Bailey’s effervescent scratchboards dancing with figures and faces and her delicate yet striking sculptures each with their own expressive quirks, go to Jasper’s virtual gallery: https://the-jasper-project.square.site/tiny-gallery

What's up with Lee?

? ? ?

We’ve had so many people ask us, “Where’s Lee? and “What’s up with Lee?” that we thought it might be best to go straight to the horse’s mouth and ask Lee Snelgrove, the former executive director of One Columbia for Arts and Culture, exactly what he’s up to so he can make sure everyone has the details straight.

So, without further ado, here’s What’s Up with Lee?

Lee Snelgrove, What exactly is your new job?

I'm the Arts and Culture Manager at Richland Library. 

What kind of things will you be doing?

This is a newly created position that was part of the development of an Events and Experience department of the Library, so I have the opportunity to figure out what exactly the role will be. I expect to focus on developing the arts and cultural programming the library presents, but I'll also be handling some other non-arts programming for adults. I plan to work with each of the 13 library locations to identify ways to tailor programming for adults by identifying the types of activities in which the community is interested and working directly with area residents to create new programming that best serves them. I also plan to foster new partnerships with artists and arts organizations. And, just as I have been for the last several years, I'll be focused on ensuring increased access to arts and cultural opportunities for all residents across the City of Columbia and Richland County. 

Are you still connected to One Columbia?

For a short time, I'll be serving One Columbia as an interim Public Art Administrator to ensure that the public art projects that were already in the works will continue and to help transfer knowledge to other staff that will be responsible for carrying on the organization's efforts in regards to public art. 

Who will be the new Lee?

No one is expected to be a "new Lee." The OC board will be working over the next few months to identify the organization's needs and hone a job description for a new Executive Director before they start a broad search for someone to fill the position. The organization has changed tremendously since its inception and the growth of One Columbia's role will require someone with different experience and training than I had when I started. 

And, how do you like it so far?

I'm really enjoying being part of such a great team. As most people know, Richland Library staff are smart, passionate folks that care deeply about providing services and programming to everyone in Richland County. I'm excited to learn from them and to work with library staff and customers to figure out new ways for every Richland County resident to engage with arts and culture. Already I'm getting to work on some very fun things, like helping to coordinate the Small Talk with George Clinton on June 8 at the Township Auditorium and an event organized by Jasper's own Al Black called Ukweli: Midlands Writers and Poets Explore Racism on June 25.  

THE BEAT: 48 Fables - Here Ya' Go

This is the sound of a band so sure of themselves that they are comfortable trying on all kinds of different sounds and styles from country and blues to Celtic and rock ‘n’ roll.  

48 Fables

Here Ya Go

Self-released 

After a few years of trying out different configurations and lineups, Columbia’s 48 Fables have settled into a three-piece arrangement; ironically resulting in the fullest, most complete sound the band has produced to date. 

The biggest change in the transition was adding lead vocals to drummer Kevin Brewer’s responsibilities, and he’s a natural–his slightly weathered, lived-in voice on songs such as the cautionary tale “Drink It Away,” is a raspier counterpart to bassist Kevin Pettit’s rousing shout on other tracks, such as the Cowboy Mouth-esque “The Fine Details.”  

A trio can be a tough musical vehicle to create a diverse sound within (Think the singular, monolithic sound of ZZ Top), but with the variety of Chris Howard’s guitar tones and styles, there’s no danger of such sameness. There’s even an almost-Irish tune, sung by Kevin Pettit (whose tenure in the local Celtic rock act Loch Ness Johnny means he’s well suited for this assignment) and featuring some seriously frenetic drumming by Brewer. This is the sound of a band so sure of themselves that they are comfortable trying on all kinds of different sounds and styles from country and blues to Celtic and rock ‘n’ roll.  

The other improvement may be the songwriting; there are plenty of bands that can produce a twangy hook, but to hang a decent lyric on it that tells a story is another thing entirely. “Girls Like Her,” lopes along like a lost John Prine tune with lines such as, “He met her on a Friday after the ball game, smoking a Spirit and laughing at hope / Found her a lighter, and sat down beside her, said I got something stronger if you’re not opposed.” By the end of the song, the titular girl is 80 years old, and the lyric, like her life, circles back around to the beginning lines. 

If this had come out in 1997, 48 Fables would have been playing shows with Whiskeytown, The Bottle Rockets, and 6 String Drag. Rather than feeling dated or tied down to the late-90s “Great Alt-Country Scare” that made critical darlings out of those and myriad other twang-leaning acts of the day, the passage of 25 years means that the high-octane Americana of 48 Fables sounds fresh, fun, and meaningful again, and it stretches the definition of what’s possible within the genre.

by Kevin Oliver

Punk Shakespeare Troupe “Elsewhere” Takes Twelfth Night on Tour

“We all believe Shakespeare has been handled with kid gloves when it wasn't intended that way.”

Shortly before the pandemic, three performers and Shakespeare lovers from the East Coast came together to put their twist on Shakespeare. Now, for the first time ever, actors and managers Katie Mixon (Columbia native), Mac MacDaniel, and Hilary Dennis are taking their troupe on tour. Jasper recently sat down with them to learn all about Elsewhere.

JASPER: For those who aren’t familiar, can you say a little about where Elsewhere started? 

ELSEWHERE: Elsewhere began as an attempt to apply the production principles of the punk scene to Shakespearean theatre. Mac (from VA) grew up going to punk shows, Hilary (from MA) was trained in modern style theatre, and I (Katie, from SC) have a classical background. We met at a Shakespeare acting workshop in NYC and it was — what's the platonic artistic version of love at first sight? We went from total strangers to best friends starting a theatre company together in about a week. We all believe Shakespeare has been handled with kid gloves when it wasn't intended that way. 

JASPER: How exactly is Elsewhere different? 

ELSEWHERE: We cut the plays down to 90 minutes. We keep all the lights on and perform with a small cast and try to drag the audience into the show as much as possible. Fast, minimalist, interactive. We believe that all the things that make Shakespeare easier and cheaper to produce also make Shakespeare more fun and engaging.

JASPER: You have to tell me about the name. 

ELSEWHERE: When the title character in Coriolanus is banished from Rome, he says "there is a world elsewhere." As artists who felt like our artistic ambitions and goals weren't being realized in "traditional" theatre spaces, we decided to go outside and find a new world to work in. It's usual for theatre companies to have names like "[Location] Shakespeare," and we thought it was clever to just say that wherever "normal" theatre is happening, we're somewhere else.

JASPER: Y’all usually perform in Richmond, right? Any specific places there? 

ELSEWHERE: Because we don't need a stage or lights, we can perform anywhere there's an open space and room to set up a coat rack. Our usual spiel is to reach out to a few of our friends, organize a very limited rehearsal period (somewhere between a day and a week) and then do a single 90-minute performance with no intermission, and then the show is over. We like the urgency of a single show; either you're there and you see it, or you're not and you've missed it.

JASPER: Have you toured before? 

ELSEWHERE: This is Elsewhere's first time touring, but it definitely won't be our last. Mac was already planning a road trip with his wife Leah, (who is also the Marketing Director and Graphic Artist for Elsewhere), so he pitched this idea of a tour with a core cast of us three and a rotating local cast that would enable each of us to cast our friends in our hometowns and see how the show changes when more than half the cast will turn over between each show.

JASPER: What made you choose Twelfth Night? 

ELSEWHERE: We wanted to do a comedy after doing two tragedies back-to-back. Artistically it has all of the things we love about Shakespeare — poetry, wit, brilliant characters, music, humor. It is deep without being dour. It is an ensemble show rather than a solo star vehicle like a Hamlet or an As You Like It. Logistically it is an audience favorite that requires very little in the way of fight choreo or intimacy work, which makes it easier to put together really fast.

JASPER: How did you cut and change the play for the tour? 

ELSEWHERE: Mac does all our cuts, and what he does with the text would probably horrify a lot of scholars and purists. Mac’s goals with any cut are that the text can be played by a small cast and that the basic throughline of the story is preserved. He is both a Shakespeare educator and someone who is always dragging non-Shakespeare friends out to see plays. It is possible Shakespeare to be staged in a way that is beginner-friendly without being dumbed-down.

JASPER: How structured are your shows usually? I know you don’t have a “director.” 

ELSEWHERE: We just run with the vibes. Part of the fun of this tour is seeing how the vibe changes between cities/venues/casts. Mac, Hilary, and Katie are all the same actors playing the same parts, but not only will our characters' relationships evolve as we go, we will be creating new relationships with the other characters. We try to be very clear that even though Elsewhere is our company, we are not "in charge" of the show or the rehearsal room. Anyone we invite to be a part of the show process is an equal partner. They didn't have a director when Shakespeare's company was performing in the 1600's, so we can do that too.

JASPER: You already had one show in Columbia. Anything you’d keep or change moving to the next two shows?  

ELSEWHERE: There are usually small edits made to the cut during rehearsal, things you don't notice until you get the cast in the room — for example, Mac cut all of Maria's lines from a scene but forgot to cut the stage direction "enter Maria," so poor Lonetta was just wandering around in the scene with nothing to say. Katie chose to wear a huge hat and sunglasses for Olivia, but Joseph Eisenrich (who played our Toby) marched on to stage and put them on himself and I fell out laughing.

JASPER: What are some of your goals with this tour specifically? 

ELSEWHERE: We have been working together in Richmond for a while now, but this is our first opportunity to work in each other's hometowns. Usually, Mac is the one in charge of finding a venue and a cast and hosting everyone in Richmond, so it's nice to come to Columbia and for him to be a guest.  

A perhaps bigger goal is to demonstrate for theatre folks just how easy it is to produce Shakespeare shows. The thing that would make us most happy would be for someone to see one of our shows and think "I can do that!" and then take our resources and start producing their own fast popup Shakespeare plays.

JASPER: What’s after this for Elsewhere? 

ELSEWHERE: We haven't the foggiest idea. Maybe we'll start a podcast? Oh! And we have been talking about a longer version of a tour, with a different show.  Maybe Much Ado About Nothing.  Comedies have been fun after two tragedies.

JASPER: Last but definitely not least, how can people support you in the future? 

ELSEWHERE: You can donate to cover tour costs by Venoming me @Mac-MacDaniel (make a note that it's for Elsewhere), or you can make a tax-deductible donation on our website www.elsewhereshakespeare.com  

Elsewhere’s performance of Twelfth Night premiered in Columbia on May 1st, and its next stop is Richmond, Virginia on the 29th of this month. The troupe’s final performance will be in Northampton, Massachusetts on July 3rd.

Launch Announced for Jane Zenger's New Book of Poetry - Night Bloomer from Muddy Ford Press

Saturday, May 21st

5:30 - 8 pm

Stormwater Studios

Muddy Ford Press is pleased to announce the publication of the latest book in the Laureate Series, Night Bloomer by Jane Zenger.

Zinger will welcome guests to Stormwater Studios on Saturday May 21st from 5:30 - 8 pm for readings from her debut poetry collection. Included among the guests will be city of Columbia poet laureate (and Jasper Poetry Editor) Ed Madden, who edited Night Bloomer, working closely with Zenger on the composition and structure of the book. Night Bloomer is the third book in the Laureate Series following works by Tim Conroy and Ann-Chadwell Humphries. Angelo Geter’s More God Than Dead, the fourth in the series, will be published in June.

“It is a delight to see Jane's work coming into print,” Madden says. “I love the way that her voice ranges through memory, from tragic loss to humor and anger (sometimes both at once). The loss of her husband grounds this book, the poems range widely through a lifetime of experience.”

Of Night Bloomer Zenger says, “This book is a compilation of poems written during several distinct periods in my life. Several poems chronicle my early days as a rambunctious student and traveler, others are based on people or events that influenced or upended my life. The book celebrates and reflects both my real life and my imagination. Having a book published is a dream come true for me.”

Night Bloomer is available at Amazon, WOB, Walmart. Books-a-million, and a number of additional outlets. Zenger will be offering the book for sale and signing at the event on Saturday afternoon.

In Memoriam: Wim Roefs 1959-2022

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In Memoriam – Wim Roefs

This has been a particularly difficult week for the Columbia Arts Community. On Monday May 9th, Wim Roefs, founder and owner of If Art Gallery and one of the founders of 701 Center for Contemporary Art, suffered a crashing heart attack at his gallery on Lincoln Street. On Thursday, the 12th, Wim passed away, leaving his wife Eileen Waddell and hundreds, if not thousands, of international friends and colleagues behind.

The pain of the loss of Wim Roefs from our arts community cannot be overestimated. Wim brought a sense of gravitas to us that many people didn’t know was missing. He reminded us that while art is in no way an endeavor of the elite, it should be taken seriously and respected for the vital role it plays in daily life. Wim made contemporary art accessible to all of us and, thankfully, his legacy will live on as long as art in Columbia does.

When I first realized we would be losing Wim I felt certain that he had done his job well and that the cultural legacy he leaves behind would continue to thrive and inform us.

But I worried a bit about his social legacy. Social media being what it is,  there has been no shortage of folks chiming in about how “sweet” Wim was—that he was “nice” and “pleasant.” This disturbs me. I’m not saying Wim couldn’t be sweet or nice, but congratulations to those who had the unique experience of being around Wim when he was in such a mood.

For the most part, Wim did not indulge in the subterfuge of Southern hospitality or the artifice of American social politics. I don’t know if it was because he was Dutch or because he was Wim, but he and his personality defied any number of platitudes about how we are meant to interact with one another. Instead, he behaved with complete and transparent honesty. Wim was my favorite kind of person in that there was no second-guessing when it came to how he felt about you and your work. His honest and straightforward demeanor required a tough skin and a healthy sense of self. If you didn’t have both when you entered into a relationship with Wim, it was imperative that you develop them for your relationship to continue. I appreciated that.

Sweet? Sure, at times. Sincere? Always.

To that end, we turn this editorial over to some of the folks who knew Wim best and will miss him most. I asked them to share, with sincerity, their thoughts and feelings on the loss and legacy of Wim Roefs.

Condolences to all as we mourn the passing of one of our most respected—and beloved—community members.

And thank you, Wim, for everything you taught us.

-Cindi Boiter

Coming out of teaching at Benedict College Wim was well versed in Delta Americana and its accompanying political and social American commentary. I recall first meetings at his home where he and his wife Eileen would host cutting edge artist showings complete with an impressive euro cuisine and assemblage of artists that rarely ventured from their studios, which in turn led to incredible gatherings that ignited discourse on art and culture and cultivated  new friendships and ideas.

The  founding of if Art marked the debut of a New York standard gallery presence in Columbia. Early on, Wim populated the gallery with a cutting-edge stable of artists, local and international, all with a common thread of Art Spirit; art being who they are, not what they did, this often manifested itself by continuous exhibitions of work challenging patrons and the general public. This if Art gallery model presented a thoroughness which included artist cataloging, lectures, and talks with showings, and meticulous hanging and presentation, this would shortly expand to include poetry readings and exploratory music concerts as well.

Wim was quick to recognize the art spirit in young artists and go to lengths to encourage and supply support and materials to further their unique callings, he was also quick to herald  iconic artists such as Laura Spong and showcase their work as assets to the rich fabric of urban culture. He constantly pushed to highlight The Vista and its rightly achieved formal status as Cultural District in Columbia,  and knowingly worked consistently toward an ongoing goal of Columbia as a cultural destination for future citizens not  fixated on collegian over emphasis.      

Wim's youthful background as a former band drummer, and a political reactionary

surreptitiously pasting political bills at night served him well to establish his distinct curatorial criticism concerning art and culture. He united Columbia artist with our German sister city Kaiserslautern to produce an ongoing relationship of international exchange exhibitions and public sculpture. This in turn established the Lady Street Sculptural Corridor as a hallmark of urban design and international influence raising the bar for future architectural and green space concepts.

And, he loved his cats. 

-Stephen Chesley

It is difficult to express in words the void that's left by Wim Roefs departure. he set the standard for Contemporary Art in Columbia both through his gallery, and his advocacy work in civic organizations including 701 CCA.

His work throughout the state and southeast region as an independent curator was important in laying the path for new voices. He had exacting standards, he believed in risk taking and  championed challenging art and conversations. He made space for emerging talent. His interests were broad. Music, film, theatre, visual art, and dance. His politics were clear. he believed in and practiced inclusion, not as an exercise in political correctness, but as a way of living, a way of being. He brought lots of different kinds of people into shared orbits. He called bullshit when he saw it. He was sincere.

-Michaela Pilar Brown

Wim’s passing is a staggering loss. His passion, intellect, and commitment to the arts in this region are gigantic. We all loved to participate in his presentations of local and international talent. His carefully curated exhibits at If Art, 701CCA, and Art Fields have become a part of our cultural psyche. The wealth of talent here and abroad Wim found and represented is vast and diverse. His boundless energy has raised our cultural consciousness and will continue to elevate the visual arts throughout our community. Wim, Thank you. You are forever in our hearts and minds…

-Clark Ellefson  

Wim with the late Laura Spong

During the 11 plus years my office has been two doors down from if Art there were many days and nights where I was able to stop in and just enjoy a talk with Wim about any number of interests we shared. 

We both parked our cars in a garage a block away from our shops. For me, I walked past the large window at the entrance of If Art on my way to my car every day. This was the showcase window. It allowed anyone walking down Lincoln St., one of the busier pedestrian streets in Columbia, to walk past if Art and view what Wim had to showcase that day, week, or month. 

My thoughts in the past few days, walking past that large window, have turned to the fact that for the past 11 years I have seen every artist that Wim has hung in that window. There have been local, upcoming artists in that window. There have been nationally recognized and established artists in that window. I’ve seen beautiful small painting of flowers, and large painting that served as a bit of a middle finger to whoever walked by. Wim brought us the art he liked to champion and make no mistake, want you to buy so you could show it off to your friends. I was lucky enough to see it all. 

-Wade Sellers

Wim changed the landscape of visual arts in Columbia. He was a powerhouse of knowledge and his demand of excellence and passion helped to create an environment that thrust local artists to a whole new level. As a founder of 701 Center for Contemporary Art his vision helped to shape what has become a leading institution for contemporary art in the region. The team at 701 is saddened by his sudden departure and he will be greatly missed. But we are so grateful for all he has done to raise the bar for cultural arts in this town. 

-Lee Ann Kornegay 

Since I met Wim thirty years ago, he has been a constant force in the South Carolina arts scene, and it won’t be the same without him. He cultivated friendships and fostered collaborations among artists. His knowledge, enthusiasm, and passion for the arts and making things happen was unmatched in our arts community. Wim will not be forgotten and was a hell of a friend.

-Mike Williams

This is a devastating and sudden loss for our community, within which Wim was such a force at 701, at if Art, and beyond. Such a presence. Deep condolences to Eileen and to Wim’s family. I thought of him as the “old fashioned” type of gallerist: if Art is no pristine white cube with an intimidating attendant, but a jumble of walls and levels all filled with art and with books, open and inviting to all, presided over by Wim from his perch in the loft. There is no prevailing style or medium among the artists represented. Simply those Wim thought were good and to whom he was deeply committed. Wim ran if Art more as an art center than gallery, hosting musical events, performances, and book launches—including mine. When I asked Wim if we could do a launch in the gallery the answer was simply: “Sure, when do you want to do it?” No red tape to cut, no waivers to sign. Just set up the table, put out the books and the chairs and do it. He was always open to conversations and to events that would stimulate them. The first public event we attended during the depths of pre-vaccine COVID was at the gallery: Michaela Pilar Brown’s moving sculptural performance mourning her mother’s passing, compellingly enacted by her and Terrance Henderson. The set and the performances were extraordinary; but just sharing a live experience with other people was cathartic for us, as I hope it was for Michaela. Wim created a space in which you felt safe to have deep and perhaps unsettling aesthetic and emotional experiences like this, even during a pandemic. I hope that as a community we can find ways to honor Wim’s life and extend his legacy and commitment to creating spaces for art and experience.

-Peter Chametzky

Wim with Diane Gilbert, Kirkland Smith and James Smith

Wim was a giant in the art community and his passing  is such a loss for his family and friends! 

He made a lasting impact through his work with 701 CCA and his gallery if Art, as well as facilitating the artist exchange with our sister city Kaiserslautern, Germany. He  was passionate about the value of art and passionate about the artists he valued. He will be dearly missed. 

-Kirkland Smith

“I feel heartache for having lost a friend, but also for the wider loss to our art community and the direction of local art. His honesty, drive, and support are irreplaceable. Wim is irreplaceable.”

-Scotty Peak

We were introduced to Wim when we first arrived in Columbia. He and Eileen opened their home and hearts and welcomed us from the beginning. His smile, dry sense of humor, and strong opinion made him the kind of friend we valued and appreciated. We truly loved him. Wim will be missed, and we will miss his voice floating from the loft of If Art Gallery as he greeted us when we arrived.

-Thaddeus and Tanya Wideman-Davis

Wim did so much for Columbia arts and music. But for me personally, during my days at Free Times, his presence offered reassurance that approaching our small but determined creative community with honest criticism (and some well-intentioned snark) was not just OK but necessary for its continued growth. 

-Jordan Lawrence

Wim could be disagreeable and cantankerous and have a need to be right at the exact same moment he was incredibly kind and accepting. A person of great integrity who wasn’t above fucking with you in a good-natured way. Fun and sneaky funny. He was a fierce champion not only of the arts but of people. Mostly people. There was only one Wim. We were so lucky to know him. Zaire and Michaela myself will always remember the One Woman show he gave the Bird at If Art when she  was five(I think). Or how we used to talk about “real football “ , soccer. And how he was helpful . Always helping. Miss you man. Love you Wim. A singular presence in Columbia. 

-Darion McCloud

Wim Roefs was a gift pure and simple. 

-David Yaghjian

The Tarot - Alejandro Garcia-Lemos at Stormwater Studios May 17 - 22, 2022

Jasper is delighted to learn that Columbia-based artist Alejandro Garcia-Lemos will be showing his new project, The Tarot, May 17 - 22 at Stormwater Studios, 413 Pendleton Street in Columbia’s Vista. An opening reception will be held Thursday, May 19 from 5:30-8:30 pm.

“The Tarot García-Lemos was entirely conceived and drawn in 2020 during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Columbia, South Carolina,” Garcia-Lemos says. “I eventually added the four suits to the major arcana to provide additional texture, resulting in a unique 26 card deck. In 2021, the collection was selected to be shown at the pandemic-themed ‘1593’ art exhibit at the Koger Center for the Arts in Columbia, SC. Recently, the deck was presented in the mystic city of New Orleans which provided the perfect environment for the final version. It consists of 27 gouache paintings on panel.”

There will be a limited edition of 100 printed decks for sale and probably a very special Tarot reader at the opening reception on Thursday, May 19th from 5:30 to 8:30 pm

For more on the creation of the Tarot Garcia-Lemos check out the artist’s narrative and reading instructions here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can you talk about your technique?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks, Alex!

Announcing the DRAW JASPER Contest - Deadline August 15, 2022

Win YOUR SPOT on the Cover of Jasper Magazine!

Have you always wondered what Jasper would look like if Jasper was a real living and breathing entity? Would they have purple hair and sexy eyes or be bald and bodacious? Would they have a big nose and bigger ears, bowed legs or knocked knees? Hairy arms? A shiny grill?

Now you can let your imagination run wild as you create an image of Jasper as you see them!

The winning entry will score the coveted spot as the Cover Artist for the Fall 2022 issue of Jasper Magazine as well as a $250 cash prize.

All accepted images will be included in the Draw Jasper Art Show and available for purchase at the artist-designated price, with the artists receiving 75% of the sale price and 25% going toward the publication of Jasper Magazine.

 

small print:

• All entries must be submitted as an image of the original art (the original art will be exhibited in the Draw Jasper Art Show) and should be 8.5x11”, CYMK and at least 300 dpi.

• The original art should not exceed 8.5 x 11 inches and there should be space allowed for the masthead along the top or bottom of the image.

• Any medium is allowed as long as the original is 2-D.

• Jasper may be depicted full-length, as a portrait, or anything in between.

• Images should be emailed to JasperProjectColumbia@gmail.com no later than August 15, 2022 and should include your name, contact info, and the price point for your original art. PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT ORIGINAL ART.

• Finalists will be notified by September 1, 2022 and details of the Draw Jasper Art Show will be announced then.

Columbia Operatic Laboratory presents original production of Mozart’s The Impresario 5/12

Columbia Operatic Laboratory (COLab) is presenting the opera The Impresario, which features music by Mozart and a new libretto and book by Evelyn Clary at 6:00 pm on Thursday, May 12 at Jubilee! Circle.

Originally created in 1786 for a private performance for Emperor Joseph II and eighty of his besties, the story tells the tale of two sopranos vying to be prima donna of an opera company.  In this new English adaptation of the libretto, Frances Honda Coppola, sung by Maria Beery, and her assistant Bradley Pittman, played by Bradley Fuller who also serves as the accompanist, are leading a financially struggling small opera company. Bitcoin investor Gil Bates, played by Austin Means, offers to fund their entire season if they employ his…er…mature girlfriend Goldie Dawn, played by Clary, and his new young fling, Alicia Silverstone, played by Sara Jackson. Of course, all manner of hilarity ensues. Michael T. Brown is directing the performance.

True to COLab fashion, the show has gotten a makeover.  The show is set in modern day Columbia with spoken words and dialogue in contemporary English.  Gone are the sexist overtones of women tearing each other down rather than working together, and clunky dialogue that plagued the original.  “Impresario is arguably the world’s first musical comedy. Its spoken dialogue, arias that can be taken out of context, social commentary, everyday characters and happy ending put it more in line with musical comedy than the operas of its day,” says Clary. 

“The enduring legacy of this show lies in its larger commentary on the business of making art” says Brown.  “The issues that were tackled in the original of how an arts organization can stay ‘true’ to the spirit of their work and maintain financial viability, all while handling plenty of off-stage drama has captured the imagination of performers and audiences for over two hundred years.  And as is often the case, presenting this as satire prompts us to reflect on serious issues with some levity and fun.”

 This is a comic one act opera for everyone – not just for the opera aficionados. This is not something you will hear every day!

CoLab is hoping to extend this run and is hoping to book gigs at other venues for this piece as well as others from their expanding repertoire.

Jubilee! Circle is located at 6729 Two Notch Rd right next to Very’s Restaurant in Columbia. Admission is $10 by cash or check at the door. Jubilee! Circle will have snacks and drinks available for purchase.

Columbia Operatic Laboratory is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. For booking, please email ColumbiaOperaticLaboratory@gmail.com. For more information on the production, or to make a donation, go to Columbia Operatic Laboratory on Facebook.

Book Presentation/Discussion--The Verdict: The Christina Boyer Case by Jan Banning @ 701 CCA

Book Presentation & Discussion:

JAN BANNING:

The Verdict: The Christina Boyer Case

Featuring Richland County Chief Public Defender Fielding Pringle

701 Center for Contemporary Art director Michaela Pilar Brown and

world-famous Dutch photographer Jan Banning

Monday, May 16, 2022

7:30 pm

Admission Free

Richland County Chief Public Defender Fielding Pringle and 701 Center for Contemporary Art director Michaela Pilar Brown will lead a conversation at 701 CCA with world-famous Dutch photographer Jan Banning during the first American presentation of his new book, The Verdict: The Christina Boyer Case. The conversation and book presentation will take place Monday, May 16, at 701 CCA.

Banning, a former 701 CCA artist in residence who has had two solo exhibitions at the center, makes the case for Boyer’s innocence in the death of her three-year-old daughter Amber in Carrollton, GA, in 1992. Boyer has been incarcerated for three decades after she accepted – under duress and after receiving poor legal representation – a prison sentence without pleading guilty to avoid a death penalty trial.

“For decades I have admired Jan Banning’s socially focused and engaging portrait projects on menial professions and human conditions otherwise ignored,” said Anne Wilkes Tucker, curator emerita of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, one of many museums that has Banning’s work in its collection. “This moving book calls for what should be and could be done for Christina.”

Boyer’s “heartbreaking case infuriates me,” Tucker wrote, “but came as no surprise. Bullied and abused as a child, she is one of thousands of women without resources who weren’t believed, and had inadequate defense.”

The plight of especially poor defendants in the United States’ judicial system, in which 95 percent of cases never go to trial, will be part of the conversation with Banning. Public attorney Pringle has decades of experience representing indigent defendants.

Banning’s book presents a complex and multi-layered approach to the Boyer case. Two chapters, by Banning and Georgetown University law professor Marc M. Howard, discuss the case and the American judicial system. Photographed pages from the local newspaper provide media context and show the papers’ biased reporting on the case. “The Family Album” shows family photos of Boyer and her daughter, while another section shows hand-written pages from Boyer’s prison diaries. In “Imaginations,” Banning presents interpretive and conceptual photographs, mixing photojournalism and staged art photography, to illustrate aspects of the case, though not literally. “Christina’s Associations” presents Boyer’s written responses to Banning’s photos of the Southern environment, an environment that Boyer has not seen in person in decades.

Banning came across Boyer’s case when he was making portraits of inmates at Georgia’s Pulaski Women’s Prison for his 2016 book Law & Order: The World of Criminal Justice, which examines crime and punishment in five different countries through photos and text. Since then, Banning – by training a historian, with decades of experience as a photojournalist – has spent years researching the Boyer case, spending more than six months in the small town of Carrollton, Carroll County, and elsewhere in Georgia.

New York Emmy-winning production company Latchkey Films, contributors to the Netflix series The Innocence Files, is making a documentary about the Boyer case and Banning. Banning’s and Boyer’s exhibition about the case, The Verdict: Beyond A Reasonable Doubt?, opened in February at the Nederlands Fotomuseum, the national Dutch Photo Museum, in Rotterdam.

Banning was born in 1953, in Almelo, The Netherlands. His work has been exhibited in some 30 countries and is in the collections of many museum, including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Atlanta’s High Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Banning has published more than a dozen books of photography. Among his books and exhibitions are Bureaucratics, about government officials in several countries, including the United States; Comfort Women, about Indonesian women forced into sexual slavery by Japan during World War II; Traces of War, about forced laborers who survived the Japanese Burma and Sumatra Railways building project during the same war; and Down and Out in the South, about homeless people in Columbia, SC, Atlanta and the Mississippi Delta. Both Bureaucratics and Down and Out were exhibited at 701 CCA, where a residency for Banning provided the impetus for and beginning of the Southern homeless project.

701 CCA is a non-profit visual arts center that promotes understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of contemporary art, the creative process and the role of art and artists in the community. The center also encourages interaction between visual and other art forms. 701 CCA is located at 701 Whaley Street, 2nd Floor, Columbia, SC 29201.

THE BEAT: Kevin Oliver Reviews Sean Thomson's Self-Released Jank Volta

Columbia musician Sean Thomson first came to local music fans attention as half of the indie folk duo Post-Timey String Band, and he’s played in The Restoration, Marshall Brown, and the Rare Birds, and more including the upcoming “Zion” project from Saul Seibert. Then there’s the simultaneous stream of lo-fi mostly instrumental albums full of odd instrumentation and sounds, including several where he managed to acquit himself quite well on sitar, even. On this new collection of instrumental compositions, Thomson incorporates traces of all of those prior endeavors while crafting something meditative, intricate, and inventive. 

Even the song titles are creative and fun–with no lyrics, one can presumably name a tune anything, and Thomson manages to come up with delightfully playful names for all eight compositions here, some of which even have at least a tangential relationship to how they sound. “Large Indian Beer,” for example, incorporates some heavy sitar into its stomp-and-drone, while “Never Take a Sitar to Maxwell Street” answers the question of what Jimi Hendrix might have sounded like playing sitar.  

Occasionally Thomson gets serious, as on his version of Blind Blake’s “Sweet Papa Lowdown,” or on a nasty, fuzzed out guitar, or the sunny, island-vibe gone Ventures surf rock of the title track (featuring Jeff Gregory of The Runout on manic congas). More often, he’s enjoying creating brief musical worlds that manage to collide wholly different eras of music in under a couple of minutes. “Fungus,” for example, vacillates between Beatlesque chording and some unsettling electronica.  

The closing track has both the silliest title and the funkiest, slinky feel. “Yanni (heart) NASCAR” doesn’t seem to have anything to do with either cultural phenomenon, but the funk bassline and disco gone wrong atmosphere are undeniably catchy. As the tune slowly grinds to a stop like it just ran out of gas, all I want is to take it back out on the dance floor for another lap or two, along with the rest of this thoroughly entertaining album.

Jasper Project Intern Stephanie Allen Opens Honors Show at McMaster

By Emily Moffitt

One of our interns with the Jasper Project, Stephanie Allen, has put together her undergraduate honors solo exhibition on UofSC campus!  

Her exhibition, titled “In My Skin, Her Skin” is a culmination of works and themes from her undergraduate years in combination with her experiences and the experiences of other women and nonbinary individuals. The works called for plenty of experimentation, incorporating new surfaces to work on like acetate and media like graphite powder. Experimentation was crucial for the large-scale pieces to work as the use of acetate added the layering effect that Allen needed for her messages to shine through the portraits.  

“I wanted two separate spaces for different facets of identity,” Allen states. “I finger painted, used India ink, and had a lot of flexibility with materials. It was also my first time working on such a large scale and working on each corner of the page was definitely a challenge.”

 The exhibition calls back and converses with previous works by Allen as the perception of the body-most often female-through the lens of the church or more conservative ideations has always been something Allen critiqued. Now, “In My Skin, Her Skin” highlights the feelings of others through layering of abstracted mark making and fine-tuned, anonymized representations of the interviewees.  

For this particular series, the interview process was completely integral to the work,” Allen states. “The work was wholly dependent on how that person expressed their relationship with their body.” Each of the larger-than-life portraits have two layers; the first graphite layer is based on a photograph provided by each of the interviewees, with the freedom of posing and positioning completely in their hands. The project captures not only the freedom that these interviewees feel in regard to their bodies but is indicative of how they wish to present themselves to the world. The interview process takes on a grander meaning with the second, abstracted layer as Allen listened carefully to the answers of her subjects in order to provide inspiration for color palettes and the style of mark making that she would opt for on that particular person’s portrait.  

Allen’s mission for her exhibition lies within creating and portraying a wider visual vocabulary of what can be considered feminine. “The point of the show is to show that a body does not dictate identity. The pieces share commonalities of queerness and femininity, and those things don’t have a specific aesthetic.”  

By creating works of art with a variety of body shapes and posing, they force us to question what our predilections of femininity include, questioning the heteronormativity of gender roles. Allen notes that we as humans are often predisposed to associating looks with the character of an individual, causing our perception of femininity to often lie within physical attributes rather than mentality or emotion. Through the grand scale of the models and universal theme of questioning what we perceive as a feminine individual, Allen hopes to evoke self-reflection in the audiences as we view her work, letting ourselves reevaluate how we see femininity out of the liminal scheme of exclusively womanhood.  

Viewers of Allen’s past work definitely see that the connecting threads between her existing body of work, and the passion she harbors for this exhibition is clear.

“In My Skin, Her Skin” is on display in McMaster College’s Passage Gallery on the first floor through May 14th. A reception will be hosted at 6 PM on May 5, and some of Allen’s earlier but relevant work is also still up on display in Cool Beans! across from Wardlaw College.