Mark Pointer - undefined magazine Book 3

{substance}

undefined : Book Three : July - August - September 2008

features:

10 18 26 30 40 50 62

Brenton Sadreameli Hollis Brown Thorton Tom Poland Virginia Scotchie Gary Matson Lyon Forrest Hill

VerseWorks “Little Red” Lyon Forrest Hill

profiles:

essays: 14 : Frank Martin : ART, MONEY, and POWER

24 : Sahir “Dre” Lopez 46 : Adam Shiverdecker

dialogue: 48 : Columbia Art Studio Project CHARRETTE 58 : 701 Center for Contemporary Art

*

61 : Living with the Enemy: The Exhibition 75 : consumptional art

Subscribe now at: www.beundefined.com These pages are the labor of many talented hands, from writing, design and editing, to sales and marketing. We encourage you to contact us with any feedback or story ideas at our website. Please support the artists, your community leaders and advertisers. Subscription and distribution information, as well as our complete interactive calendar is online.

For advertising information please contact us at 803.233.3796 or email ads@beundefined.com undefined magazine is copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any manner, in whole or in part, without the publisher's written permission.

Write us at: undefined Magazine 709 Woodrow Street : 322 : Columbia, SC 29205 803.233.3796 ©2008 All Rights Reserved undefined : book three

4

ALL COMMERCE begins as a quiet dream inside the heart of an individual. Could I… do you think… what if we… and then it grows to have form and substance. And need.

Our bank, too, began in this way.

With a thought of meeting needs born of the dreamers, defined by the entrepreneurs.

Helping finance growing businesses since 1995 MEMBER FDIC

Beck Cole : Ice Storm Series IV : lotfortythree

ASSEMBLY

Question: where can i find the best selection of regional art?

Cotton Mill exchange at the SC museum

if Art Gallery

one eared cow glass

blossom

elmwood

vista studios gallery 80808

city art gallery

the gallery at nonnah’s

carol saunders gallery

The answer is always the Vista.

The Vista—Columbia’s Arts and Entertainment District

www.vistacolumbia.com.

the congaree river

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profile

Brenton Sadreameli

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uriosity may have killed the cat, but that’s probably place the neck on their finger. Born in Memphis, with a because it didn’t know how to play the slide guitar. love for the blues, Brenton was drawn to the bottleneck On an April evening in 2005, curiosity with an version. And while he is not the only one who makes empty jar of rubber cement them, he has developed a formuopened up a new world to la for producing unique sounds Brenton Sadreameli. Fascinated through his customized slides. with slide guitar, the unique For Brenton, a bottleneck slide sound the jar made as he slid it sparks more than a tune. “Slides along his guitar strings caused are more about feel than where him to try the same with a glass you are on the fret board,” he bottleneck. There was somesays. His love for the slide has thing magical about the sound fueled a true passion for someit produced, and the seed for thing he sees as more than a Mr. B’s Bottleneck Slides was business, evidenced by the 100planted. He had no clue that his hour weeks he devotes to his curiosity that night would lead craft. He also works part-time at to the creation of 2500 slides Sims Music, the first store which that have found homes on the displayed his slides. fingers of musicians across the “When I’m not sleeping or country and Europe. The cat working at Sims, I’m at the should have been so lucky. shop.”

Bottleneck style guitar refers At the age of 23, it would be to using finger slides on a guitar understandable if Brenton’s played in the upright position. nights and weekends were spent Brenton says that bottleneck out on the town with friends. slides aren’t new, dating back to But he’s chosen to bypass the the 1920’s. night life, and now glass bottles “People think I’ve come up and heavy doses of caffeine are with this great idea and that I’m his night time companions. a genius,” Brenton laughs. “But Brenton prides himself with Brenton in the shop with a selection of his what I’m doing is just presentthe custom detail he puts into hand-made slides ing an old idea in a new way.” every slide. He uses a ring-sizer Through the years musicians have used a variety of to ensure his slides are a custom fit. He carefully inspects items as slides: spoons, knives, lighters, brass cylinders... each bottle for the perfect blend of color and texture.

Blues guitarists were known to break a glass bottle and He says blue bottlenecks are the best sellers, but aren’t

text: Chuck Walsh photography: Kasi Koshollek

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always easy to find. ended up leaving them in the car because I was too Searching for empty bottles requires not only the abiliembarrassed because they looked all scratched and lopty to rummage through trash bags and bins, but a dose of sided.” Brenton later met Johnson at a blues festival in humility while doing so. “It can be pretty demoralizing,” Wilmington, NC and Johnson had nothing but praises for he says in humble jest. “One Friday night I was fishing the slides. bottles outside of [a local, prestigious restaurant], and Brenton puts his profits back into the business, so feedthese girls were inside drinking wine, all dressed up, lookback from musicians who use his slides make up for the ing strangely at me in my apron as I waded through lack of pocket change and the tireless schedule. “This guy mounds of empty bottles.” Even friends aren’t ones to let who came in to the studio next door played for the band his treasure hunting go by withAnalog Moon. He asked if I was out comment. “One night I was the guy who made Mr. B’s digging through some bags, and Slides, and when I said yes, he some friends drove by. One pulls out a slide and said ‘I love yelled ‘Brenton, just wait ‘til this thing.’ It was slide number you’re 21. There’s not going to be 117 and my signature looked much alcohol in those bottles like a five year old signed it” anyway.’”

(Brenton’s method for signing Brenton creates his slides in has since been greatly stages. “I’ll cut fifty or so, then enhanced.) He also admits getI’ll go through and analyze them ting a rush when he sees people to see which category of slide playing on stage with his bottlethey will be.” The smoother the necks. “That’s what drives me, texture, the more detailed the not the money.” process, and thus, the more Mr. B’s slides are now featured expensive the slide. With some in stores as far away as Los bottles he won’t know until they Angeles and New York. Other are cut. His method has evolved major towns like Nashville and through trial and error.

Austin are home to the slides, Currently, Brenton uses a though Brenton says that the grinder with one of the wheels goal is to broaden the number of removed, and a drill press chuck stores. As Mr. B’s Bottleneck which is pressed onto the shaft to Slides grow, Brenton refuses to hold the bottleneck. With a boltcultivate it with a “sticks-andtype rubber bushing device and a mud” method. His foundation hose which runs water on the is pure stone-and-mortar, Each type of glass has a different feel and sound glass to keep it cool, he smoothes thanks to his relentless dedicathe bottleneck with diamond tion. He hopes to expand sometools, sandpaper, and pig skin. He performs the process day so he can not only oversee the process, but can delve inside a heavy duty plastic case that looks similar to an into other interests such as designing guitars. incubator, rolling through a 38 step process which conNow, before anyone conjures up ideas that life is nothcludes with a unique number and his signature. The evoing but work, work, work at the shop, Brenton is known lution of the process has progressed in leaps and bounds. to walk into the studio next door, crank up the amp, strap “When I first began, I used a hacksaw and a vice grip. I on the guitar, and try out his finished products. Whether was breathing in silicone dust, and used a garden pump coaxing the bluesy sounds from his electric guitar, riffing and a water tub.” Initially, it took ninety minutes to make a little of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” or ZZ Top’s “Tush,” a slide. Now, less than ten minutes.

Brenton blends his love for music with perfection of his When musicians first began using Mr. B’s slides, craft. So, on any given Friday night, when Five Points is Brenton wondered if they were aesthetically pleasing to rocking, chances are Brenton Sadreameli is in his shop, the eye. He went to watch Mark Johnson and Delta Moon rocking away at his craft. play at Mac’s on Main, taking some of his wares to the Wonder if the cat knows that? show. “I thought about taking them in,” Brenton says. “I

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The slides Brenton makes in his shop are featured in stores all over the country, from Nashville to Los Angeles and New York

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MONEY {ART, and POWER The Impact and Community Benefits of Fine Arts Commodification

by Frank Martin Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art

An Undefined Essay

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some form of extraordinary “blanket stupidity”, however, I am taking steps to address this peculiar oblivion to economic reality, and it is now a past pathology which I am quite consciously seeking to correct). Having discovered, indeed, that, art, culture, and economics are inextricably intertwined, I have reasoned that it may be difficult to understand the one without some attention to the affiliated components.

From the undocumented inception of the creation of an art market, perhaps predicated on some ancient barter of a beautifully carved (or more likely maybe a pretty crudely made) object, exchanged possibly for food or given as a gift, or shaped to please an invisible, unresponsive deity, to our contemporary invocation of the credit card to cart away the most complex, digitally configured, liquid plasma image that may engender changes in accordance with the temperature of the room or the capricious mood swings of its occupants (yes “A/art” can now conform itself to our fleeting moodiness of its patrons), we are looking at an exchange based upon the art=value=economic-opportunity equation.

Of course “A/art”s most potent values, such as its representative externalization of philosophy, its outward incarnation of inner expression, or the visible symbolism of spirituality, are the essential questions to be considered in our human relationships to the arts, but, in this time of economic down-turn (well, okay, again, “Recession” …maybe even a “Depression”), it is important to remind ourselves of what the arts do for society and of the “why”

he fine arts, crafts, design related professions, and their associated cultural and commercial eventualities, contributed an estimated $2.4 billion, ...yes, you did read that correctly, ... that was (an estimated) $2.4 BILLON [with a “B”!] dollars to South Carolina’s economy in 2006-2007 alone! The impact of the stakes of this discussion has been established at the outset as being substantive and significant to validate looking at the quality of life contributions inspired by artists in our communities, and to also consider, specifically, the broader economic impact of the arts in our state.

In the series of Undefined articles presented thus far, we looked first at an approach to how our local society’s contemporary re-conceptualization of “A/art” may move forward; then, in the second article, we interrogated aspects of the evolution of the local arts community and considered how different individuals and institutions assumed certain necessary responsibilities for the health of the arts community as a whole. Now, in this third consideration of “A/art” and society, as we confront the daunting realities of an economic Recession, perhaps some questioning of what “A/art” does for us beyond the expressive, qualitative, and spiritual realms may be of benefit to our readers.

In response to your as yet unvoiced question, the answer is “no”. In general, I am not a person even remotely concerned with the financial impact of, or even the essential realities of sustaining a livelihood in the “A/arts” (and yes, I realize that last statement sounds like undefined : book three

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text: Frank Martin

and the “how” of the logistics appropriate to their support. Investments in the “A/arts” are investments in our collective, human culture; in the stability of our society; and, in the evolution of social values and ideals. So, all of you people, out there in the real world, who are blessed with the benefit of money, well… you must get to work!

Go out into the general social bedlam and invest in the arts! Ah…, okay, it is at this juncture now that we have probably arrived at a few new and troubling questions.

These might be: What is to be invested in, and why? In fact, how and why does art accrue value? What is passing for “taste” these days (especially now, in the widely variable world of the contemporary art market)? And why become involved at all in this talk about “art/Art” and economic impact?

Well, in all honesty, we won’t be able to address all of these issues yet. In fact, this article was actually inspired by a relatively innocuous and spontaneous conversation with an unsuspecting and completely “innocent” arts administrator. By accident, I ran into Suzie Surkeimer, Director of the South Carolina Arts Commission, in a Publix as she was just making an evening run for groceries after returning from a conference related to the Arts Commission’s initiative with a group called Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC). While she tried to quietly shop for her dinner, probably hoping to get some rest and mind her own business, I barraged her with a thousand questions about the idea of capital investments in art and the resulting profits to the general community, and the importance of sustaining arts programs to enhance quality of life in communities… etc., etc., etc.

In part, my own dreadful harping was because I had attended a planning conference held earlier in the year chaired by Suzie and the Deputy Director of the Arts Commission, Ken May, with the participation of various members of the staff, and poor Suzie, probably exhausted and exasperated with my incessant questions, but remaining perfectly polite, upbeat, and pleasant, referred me to Ken as a source for some facts and figures on this topic of “Art, Community, and Money”.

Fortuitously, I was to see Ken later in the week at the Columbia Art Studio Project Charrette, a far-sighted collaborative endeavor (which I think is discussed elsewhere in this volume of Undefined) to develop spaces for the creative arts in the Vista area, which is being championed largely by Fred Delk and the Columbia Development Corporation. Ken, who happens to have his hand squarely on the pulse of this kind of data, adroitly referred me to a study undertaken at the behest of the Arts Commission

by Economist, Prof. Ann Markusen (whose articles and analyses are available at the website of the Hubert H.

Humphrey Institute for Public Policy at the University of Minnesota, a program coincidentally ranked 14th in the United States among schools of public policy). The Markusen study, one of several undertaken by Prof.

Markusen and her research associates, examines the arts as sources of economic initiative and makes available data collected over more than the last 10 years substantiating artists’ economic contributions to regional and local communities.

The data takes an appropriately broad-based interpretation of the arts professions, and in the South Carolina study alone, which spans a period from approximately 2001-2006, data was compiled by survey from visual artists, performing artists, musicians and composers, writers and authors, cultural workers, architects, curators and archivists, designers, media and communications workers, and media equipment operators for earnings, jobs, and income generated by and for the state’s economy. With allowances for the currency of the available data for cost of living increases and general inflationary considerations, Prof. Markusen and her research group (the calculations were completed by Prof. Ann Markusen, Greg Schrock, Sara Thompson, and Anne Gadwa, with updated information by Paulo Guimaraes) suggest that the economic impact of the arts in South Carolina for 2006-2007 is approximately $2,408,081,839 In Markusen’s earlier studies external to South Carolina entitled “The Artistic Dividend” (2003) and the “Artistic Dividend Revisited” (2004), she suggests that much of the economic contribution of artists in communities is partially “hidden” due to activities which may enhance the productivity of non-arts related businesses which remain unacknowledged, through artists enhancing work environments, inducing innovations in communities, and shoring up competitive possibilities and productivity.

Markusen’s various studies go on to analyze what types of environments best attract artists and cultural workers, the impact artists have in improving value and quality in neighborhoods, and in lifting real estate values among various other considerations largely taken for granted, exploited, or simply ignored by the larger general society.

Author Rachel Breen, in an article entitled “Art in the Contested City,” discusses the often tense interaction between artists and community development companies in communities when the enhanced values for real estate created by artists’ participation propagate an increase in rental fees for space and generate “trendy” desirable environments, which then drive out the very artists who initially moved into the challenged areas seeking inexpensive studio and creative spaces. Breen cites important considerations of the roles of artists in helping to estab-

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lish common community spaces that determine cultural growth and civic identity, neighborhood by neighborhood. Breen’s article cites a variety of programs around the country that exemplify powerful collaborative or cooperative efforts between artists and communities.

Fundamental to any consideration of Art, Money, and Power is the important issue of how a society chooses to “value” both formal culture and innovative, sometimes marginalized cultural groups, and the cross-fertilizing cultural transformations that create a dynamic society.

Social challenges must be understood both on a conceptual and an intellectual basis in addition to addressing the manifestations of objectionable symptomatic indicators in order to create effective and appropriate humanitiesbased solutions that address actual social problems rather than mere social symptoms. Such resolutions could most easily be achieved through sensitive applications of the fine and expressive arts.

Our society tends to associate its free-market economy as equated with “democracy,” but other potential economic models exist which may better help sustain the vitality of the arts rather than simple market-based competitive concepts. In the instance of the institutions supporting the arts and the inexact social science of educations, the collaborative or cooperative model, based on the sharing of resources and information, actually may offer greater long-term social and cultural benefits instead of the often cited competitive-market formula. If we as an American culture were to re-conceptualize the relationship between economic support and intellectual and expressive outcomes for communities resulting from the adequate, insightful support of arts and arts-humanities associated education activities, many other kinds of significant capital investments, particularly the building of prisons and institutionalized coercive measures for behavioral controls, could certainly be greatly mitigated.

In the globally interactive cultural model, initiated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which quite early on generated a profoundly significant impact in the creative and expressive realms of Western society and in the corresponding cultures that formed interactive relationships with the West, we established an anticipatory paradigm for contemporary global economic interdependence. We are now beginning to discover a number of “power-” and interpretation-related issues pertaining to identity construction and future cultural sustainability that are a consequence of the integration of a culturally pluralistic model. Globalist art and cultural influences have, in many ways, served to undermine the presence of nationalist narrative cultures here and abroad, and slowly we are witnessing the erosion of certain arcane concepts

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of an oppositional, xenophobic, “us” versus “them” approach to material reality, which is very gradually being displaced by an almost inevitable awareness of the necessity for addressing how we are to structure a collaborative, inclusive “us” versus “oblivion” model for cultural interaction. Our planetary woes, shrinking resources and universal environmental concerns have now begun to displace site- or place-specific preoccupations, much as local aesthetics have begun to succumb to awareness and infiltration of non-Western influences (particularly thanks to broadcast media and the flowering of digital communication). So, the varied incarnations of beauty and ugliness flow into our shared human cultures from around the globe. The powerful social hierarchies of the past will have to be reconsidered not merely in our future, but now, and the essential nature of power in art and its innovation through economic investment in aesthetic reformulations of a collective cultural self have taken on new immediacy.

In this discussion of Art, Money, and Power, the question of expertise is essential in supporting a determination of value–we had relied upon experts in so many aspects of our lives, but the digital age is reshaping even that convention. While we may type our symptoms into an online “doctor” program, we would not think of performing a complex surgical operation on our individual selves when ill, or arguing our own cases before the law courts if the stakes are high. Therefore, in science, accounting, law and other areas of complexity, expertise is highly valued, yet now, increasingly, areas such as education and especially in a largely subjective realm such as “A/art,” often experts have become victims of suspicion.

Or, worse, we may begin to think that we really don’t need the benefits of a trained, subjective expertise. And while we won’t necessarily interpret the peculiarly subjective convolutions of the law as unprepared representatives of our legal interests, we may readily misunderstand or ignore the intentions of the expressive communications of artists. In doing so, we become complicit in ignoring the most significant indicators of cultural transformation. How, and through what process, can we assign works of art an appropriate cultural, social, or economic value? This is at least in part an “education” question, and one of some seriousness. The economics of art-works relates to concepts of value theory, ethics, aesthetics, and cultural mores. In Western culture all of this has something to do with correlations between “truth” and “beauty.”

Art may be reasonably conceptualized as a form of externalized “morality.” However, if we as a society do not question among ourselves what that morality truly is or what it constitutes, then we will impede our ability to

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recognize artworks of value to the detriment of our long term cultural and social edification In American culture, a suspicion of art criticism is, however, entirely natural, perhaps even expected, because its presence tacitly implies a coercion of our democratic, ruggedly individualistic independence. Why should we concede any importance to expert opinions in art? We would rarely ask such a ridiculously skeptical question pertaining to the area of medicine or law, but in “A/art” we often take solace in the old adage “I don’t know ANYTHING about Art… but I KNOW what I LIKE!” This sounds so very reassuring, but…is the simple truth underlying this proposition actually only present in its initial proposal–the portion that admits to a willful ignorance? Is it that we do actually know what we collectively “like”? Or is the fact indeed that we tend to “like” primarily those things that we already “know”? What cultural, intellectual, or creative growth is entailed in simply maintaining a status quo level of awareness, evading aesthetic adventure? The defensive posture of this isolationist, insular little phrase may appear to be a harbinger of self-satisfied self-congratulatory arrogance, but the solution to the cultural problem it indicates lies almost exclusively in discussion, exchange, and exposure. The Undefined challenge to our readers is to examine and discuss what we think we may like and what we may think we dislike as well. What we think we may like may not always bear up under scrutiny, and what we initially perceive as negative may indeed become highly intriguing. It’s the thinking, the consideration itself that is our “human” duty.

Among the conceptual landmines of this subjective realm filled with “likes” and “dislikes,” how can art achieve significance and power? What makes art achieve expressive, cultural, social, and economic worth? Art, markets, money, social transformation, enlightenment, politicians, and bankers have a long rich history from long before the 15th century’s Lorenzo de’ Medici, and late 19th/early 20th century’s Gertrude Stein, the Cones of Baltimore, the 20th century’s Lila Acheson Wallace, David Rockefeller, and the 21st century’s McColls of Charlotte, patrons have been immortalized by their ability to find ways of associating money and art. If one’s genius is for making money, then altruistic collaborations with creative artists were often seen as a road to immortality. How can we as audience know what artworks will provide a long term cultural benefit? The “secret” is developing rigorous approaches to interpretation, sustaining a society of intellectual “openness,” and providing support for the meditative, thoughtful culture of inquiry.

Artworks that are merely imitative tend to open no meaningful cultural dialogue, and “good” art, whether full of whimsy or burdened with a politically activist agenda, almost invariably questions the status quo even if it simultaneously sustains and supports its ideas and ideals.

ART, MONEY, and POWER are all essentially intangible concepts as much as each is also manifested through particular tangible acts or material things.

Like the three Fates, the three Gorgon Sisters, or the three Graces, this triumvirate may serve the purposes of indifference and opportunism, may be intentionally malevolent or volatile social elements, or may provide untold benefits and an overall general enhancement of the greater social order. Art, Money, and Power only hold the social sway we permit them, for the decisions concerning their impact are ours, since ultimately We – as the audience – have the ultimate power of choice. Our challenge is, as always, exactly how are we to use this tremendous gift?

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photograph: Kasi Koshollek

artist

Hollis Brown Thorton

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The show-and-tell warehouse is where Brown’s raw, abstract, question-posing-paintings originate and come to life. He’s shown his work in four states, and he anticipates “The Earth on the Back of the Giant Turtle,” slated for exhibition in Columbia and Chicago, will make the biggest impact yet.

“I’m interested to see what will happen with the show,” Brown says. “Art is all about networking and having people see your work. I’m curious to see where it takes me.”

Brown, born in Aiken in 1976 and raised there at his grandfather’s farm house, says making art was always a part of his life. His first specialties were intricate drawings, and while his talents were evident, Brown assumed his career would involve working for his family’s insurance company. He entered the University of South Carolina as a business major, but would change his mind after an unexpected wake up call from his father.

“I was standing outside of the [family insurance company’s] office and saw this woman who was always out there smoking,” Brown explains. “She has this really raspy voice – she’s the kind of person I’m afraid of. She said to me, ‘It’s a shame you’ll be working here at the office, because your Dad said he always thought you’d do something with your art.’”

Knowing he had the support of his father behind him, Brown decided to study painting at USC (painting then “broke” his ability to create tight, realistic drawings, Brown says). Studying with art professor Philip Mullen (now retired), Brown says he received C’s on his first painting assignments.

ff a gravel road just east of Aiken, residents enjoy a quiet, simple life. No evidence of traffic can be heard from the secluded neighborhood where goats graze spacious yards for plants to munch on and vegetables grow abundantly. Christianity seems to play a key role in the lives of the residents, as churches are not hard to find. One house even has the Ten Commandments posted outside its front door.

It’s hardly the kind of place you’d expect to find people creating progressive works of art. But off that very gravel road is the home of emerging artist Hollis Brown Thornton, who spends 40 hours a week painting away in his open air studio, plus an additional 20 to 40 hours a week at his computer working on digital art.

His latest collection, titled “The Earth on the Back of the Giant Turtle,” addresses big questions such as, “Who am I? Where did I come from? What happens when I die?” Suddenly, rural Aiken doesn’t seem so conservative after all.

In his June interview, Brown (as he prefers to be called) welcomed Undefined staff members into his studio, where finished and in-progress paintings sit on display.

That day, his in-progress work was a “drip” painting – a large canvas with thick orange and red paint piled on top and pulled down by gravity into long, thin lines.

A second open air room adjacent to Brown’s studio holds family-owned boats and luxury cars and a variety of street signs (Brown says the old signs were not swiped from the road – his uncle, an engineer, acquired them through his work).

text: Natasha Chilingerian photography: Melinda Register

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“I was infuriated,” Brown says. “But later, he and I Vista Studios and Fresh Pastabilities. became friends.”

In 2001, Brown decided it was time to take his work out After graduating with a BFA in 1999, Brown began of South Carolina and try his hand at success in a big city. working in a studio space in Columbia’s Gallery 701.

One night following his show at 80808 Vista Studios, a There, he presented his first solo show and exhibited in friend convinced Brown to move to Chicago. He moved two group shows: “Foundation” and “The Muse.” Inspired there with $5,000, which he lived off of for nine months by the worn walls of Gallery 701 (“they had a romantic before taking a job as the gallery director of Mongerson quality to them,” Brown says), he painted gritty, Galleries. Brown found his talents could indeed be recoghighly textured works on 10” x 10” canvas squares that nized outside of South Carolina – his Chicago exhibition enveloped faded colors and scratch-like lines. The credits include the Thirteenth Floor Gallery, Linda fatigued look is Warren Gallery, something Brown and Verdir. says symbolizes Brown says much what happens to of his Chicago all matter over work centered on time. flowers and nature “The worn – something he down look repremissed dearly sents the fact that while surwhat I’m creating rounded by pavewill become worn ment. down, just like “I did a lot of everything else,” floral paintings he says. “The because there wasmetaphor also n’t any of that relates to people. around me,” Brown We go through says. “I had a sense the same changes of angst. The outthe paintings do.” doorsy, nature stuff One figure he is a big psychologiintroduced early cal thing for me.

“The Earth on the Back of the Giant Turtle” 2008, 8.25 x 10.25 on was a whale I’m in tune with acrylic, pigment transfer on canvas skeleton, whose nature.” teeth later inspired the jagged mountains that appear in Working as a gallery director proved to be a valuable his work as recently as today. learning experience for Brown – he says he was taught “Whales are very big animals, living in the ocean, repthe ins and outs of the gallery business, including all the resenting something we understand from a distance, financial aspects. However, big city burnout eventually through observation or scientific analysis,” Brown led Brown to return to Aiken in 2005. He says brutal winexplains on his website of his whale skeleton figure. “The ters, inconvenient methods of transportation, homesickskeleton is a product of our desire to understand an interness, as well as an imperfect living situation contributed nal structure. The skeleton defines the physical limitato his decision to leave Chicago. He lived in a loft-style tions of the animal, in both size and mortality. The desire apartment with a roommate, but the relationship turned to understand an internal structure is a means of undersour when a lack of privacy got to them (both had girlstanding our surroundings.” friends at the time, so sharing one large room eventually Although raised a Catholic, Brown now holds more of drove them crazy). an Agnostic viewpoint, constantly questioning the meanAdditionally, being lost in a sea of artists ultimately ing of life without having an opinion one way or the other. made Brown realize Chicago was not the best place for He continued to question through his artwork after leavhim to thrive. ing Gallery 701 in 2000 for a private studio in a family “In a big city, you get burnt out on artists,” Brown says. home in Modoc. New creations led him to exhibit in “You become over-saturated and your work doesn’t seem 2000’s Artista Vista, the Aiken Center for the Arts, 80808 unique anymore. That’s heartbreaking, because all along

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you thought you were doing something unique, but then theory, Brown explains, it’s likely they would have you’re just one of the artists.” believed the world balanced on the back of an alligator Back home in Aiken, Brown’s father allowed him to live snapping turtle, which is native to the Southeast and posand work in a warehouse studio he had purchased, where sesses a shell covered in sharp spikes.

Brown has been creating new pieces for the past three Another piece depicts even lines of small, white Space years. He feels that since he’s been back, his works truly Invaders (as in the 1980s arcade game) against an orange reflect who he is. background.

“Compared to Chicago, the stuff I do here is more in “Space Invaders was one of the first video games that tune with me,” Brown says. “It’s more personal, and here existed,” Brown says. “It’s like a virtual reality. Video I have more resources.” games are a way for people to go on epic adventures, and Since his 2005 return, Brown has shown his work at a in the past, people did that by reading mythology.” variety of galleries in Columbia, Sumter, Aiken, Pickens, Continuing the technology theme, another large piece and Charleston, as well as in Georgia and Kansas. Brown displays the HTML code of the home page of Brown’s Web says he’s been fortunate enough to sell a reasonable site in white against a black background. amount of paintings, which “That’s my virtual identicovers all of his material ty,” he says. costs and leaves him with a 15 small pieces join the 12 small profit. As someone large ones in “The Earth on who has routinely picked up the Back of the Giant freelance work and has neiTurtle,” most of which are ther expensive habits nor a scanned family photofamily to support, Brown graphs combined with feels he’s done well. white shapes that “white “It’s a tricky career, but it’s out” the personal elements manageable,” he says. in the photos, such as faces.

“The Earth on the Back of Brown printed his small the Giant Turtle” is schedworks on off-white colored uled for exhibition at pages taken from moleskin Columbia’s if ART Gallery journals to give the pieces and Chicago’s Linda Warren an “ancient” feel.

“The Earth on the Back of the Giant Turtle” 2008, 36 x 48 Gallery this year. The show’s “The drawings destabilize acrylic, pigment transfer on canvas title stems from a Native the photographs and create American myth stating that the earth sits on the back of a a sense of flux,” Brown says of his “whited-out” photogiant turtle, which sets the stage for the themes explored graphs, adding that by eliminating the identities in the in the pieces – humans’ perceptions of reality photographs, everyone can relate to them. throughout time and how they change and differ.

Some of his works involve a complicated photocopy The show’s 12 large works include several “drip” pieces transfer process. Brown executes the process by stapling a and paintings of jagged mountain ranges. The mountains photocopy of an image to a flat surface, painting two or were originally inspired by the whale skeleton’s teeth, but three layers of acrylic medium to the printed surface and in this show, Brown says they represent the shell of the allowing it to dry. Then, he dampens the painted image turtle once believed to carry the earth. If Native with water and paints a layer of acrylic medium on the Americans living in South Carolina believed the turtle transfer surface, onto which he places the photocopy face

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The indoor studio and computer workspace

down. He then allows the paint to dry for up to 24 hours, re-wets the paper and scrubs off the layers with a stiffbristled brush, revealing a complete transfer of the original image.

But the complexity doesn’t stop there: For his Space Invaders painting, Brown cut out each character individually with a utility knife.

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“I’m very meticulous and process oriented, and [the Space Invaders painting] is an extreme of that,” Brown says.

All together, Brown hopes the show’s pieces will pose some big questions.

“Why are people so dead set that what they believe is the truth?” he asks while pondering the meaning of the show.

“The reason why you believe what you believe is the same reason why others believe what they believe, even though the two beliefs are different.”

While Brown says he won’t live in Aiken forever, he feels very comfortable making art in a peaceful setting, with plenty of friends around and his family only five miles away in downtown Aiken. Beyond exhibiting “The Earth on the Back of the Giant Turtle,” Brown plans to continue expressing the show’s theme in his work, teach himself photographic screen printing and master the photocopy transfer processes on very large pieces.

Considering the controversial subject matter in his works as well as his young age, Brown says he does not

expect a social impact to be made as a result of the show. He may not change the minds of those who believe their reality is the only reality, but it may perhaps be a start.

“I think most people who are interested in this show are not conservative or religious, so I’m pretty much preaching to the choir,” he says. “I may not make social change happen, but planting the seeds is important.”

Brown works on a new piece

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profile

Sahir “Dre” Lopez

A

best professional route to take.

“Focusing so much on comic books slowed me down as an artist,” Dré says. “So I got into graphic design and freelance illustration.”

All while holding a part-time job at Devine Eyes, Dré began designing CD covers, publication covers, tattoos, ads, logos and T-shirts for local and regional clients. He also landed a gig creating an ongoing comic strip, “Blutopia,” a cultural commentary from a hip-hop perspective that runs in the South Carolina Black News. His entire works blossom out of The Piensa: Art Company, the homegrown studio he operates with his brother Sammy, who is also an artist.

While “Right Foot, Left Foot” may evoke some serious thoughts, much of Dré’s body of work causes reactions that are no more intense than a chuckle. He designs ads for Devine Eyes, which feature a pink Speedo-clad man wearing stylish shades and classic art figures such as Mona Lisa in funky glasses. In “Blutopia,” a flashy kid rides by on a bicycle equipped with 24’s. Light-hearted themes such as these prove that not all of Dré’s thoughts are weighed down.

“I have a goofy sense of humor,” Dré says. “I do have serious things to say, but I don’t take myself too seriously.

I want to say what I need to say while having fun.”

Self-described as a sort of artistic chameleon, Dré is now focusing on a new endeavor: a fine arts show, which he hopes to exhibit in a local gallery for the purpose of exposure. He’s planning a mixed media show, including works in charcoal, watercolors, and oil which explore the themes of human expression and emotion.

As a graphic artist and illustrator, Dré is beginning to see that the world is his oyster. He recently snagged the attention of clients from outside the Southeast, including a DJ and a clothing company in New York City and two rappers in France, and he’s finding that while his work may travel far, he can do it all from the comforts of his studio in Columbia.

“I’ve been working hard enough here that I’d like to stay and see what comes of it,” Dré says. “No matter what I’ve gone through and no matter what’s happened on a personal level, I’ve always known I’m an artist,” he says.

“It’s the only constant thing. I can go as far as my mind will take me.”

nyone who saw one of the newest graphic designs

by Sahir “Dré” Lopez knows his work can cause viewers to stop and stare. On his recent two-page spread, neon-colored, bomb-shaped blocks displaying alarming images such as cocaine, ecstasy, firearms, and Osama bin Laden float above a decrepit old man marching forward with a vulgarly-gesturing staff. It’s hard not to sit and wonder what the design could possibly mean.

Thirty-year-old Dré, a Columbia-based illustrator, graphic artist, painter and sculptor, says his fearless, outside the box approach to design is what’s gotten him noticed.”

“I don’t mind pushing the envelope,” Dré says. “I like getting attention. I like to make you laugh, and if you get offended – it’s nothing personal.”

As for an explanation of the recently published twopage illustration (titled “Right Foot, Left Foot”), Dré says he wanted to depict the journey of a man continuing to walk forward despite many rough patches in life. By carrying a staff with a pointed middle-finger carved into it, the man is essentially flipping-off life’s negative experiences, he explains.

“The old dude is a representation of perseverance,” Dré says.

The risk-taking artist – half Puerto Rican, half Colombian, outfitted in skater/hip-hop style from head to toe – moved to Columbia from Miami when he was in high school, but he found that academics would take a back seat to art from day one. Dré says he realized his artistic talent while sitting in in-school suspension, where he sketched a Bugs Bunny dressed in modern clothing and discovered it was much more impressive than a notepad doodle.

“That’s when people started paying attention to [my art],” Dré says. “Once I realized I could do art, it became my main passion.”

Taking the advice of his father, Dré enrolled in college, but after a few semesters of uninspiring computer science classes, he quit to pursue his passion full-time. He zeroedin on comic book illustration and became involved with Columbia’s 803 Studios, where he provided the penciling for “American Empire,” a politically-toned science-fiction story featured in the first volume of “803,” the studio’s publication. However, sparse work opportunities made Dré realize that comic book illustration may not be the

text: Chilingerian photography: Kebert Xela text: Natasha Jenny Reese photography: Kasi Koshollek

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literature

The Midnight Disease: Freelance Writing’s Joy and Terror To the freelance writers who labor in the shadows.

I know you are out there: unknown, unappreciated, underpaid, unfazed.

W

Growing up, I worked in dad’s hen I was in the throes of saw shop, a tin building set on finishing a novel, if I woke concrete. It had no insulation, no up in the dead of night heating, no cooling system. In say 3:12 a.m. - and couldn’t fall summer, fans welded to truck asleep in 20 minutes, I’d put on rims swirled the sweltering air coffee and write. By night I chased about, and sweat made dark dreams. By day I chased money. I spots in the armpits of Dad’s blue am a hired gun, a freelancer.

National Linen shirts.

Freelancing is simple. Either In winter, tires burning in a you can write well enough to wood stove turned the stovepipe make a living or you can’t. A cherry red. Ten feet from the degree isn’t necessary. stove, though, my breath hung Courage is. amidst smoky shafts of blue winI’m often asked to explain the ter light. The place bristled with writing life. What’s freelancing menacing blades and tools. like? How did you become a freePaintbrushes in buckets of gas lancer? For a long time I couldn’t stood ready to clean black explain my path to writing or freeresinous sawdust from saws that lancing’s randomness, difficulty, had slain Georgia pines.

One and purity. An accident of sorts, a day, a shop-hand cleaning saws temporary teaching position at Columbia College brought me to Portrait of the artist as a freelancer: Tom Poland splashed gas on his overalls.

Daydreaming, he walked near an Columbia. I’ve been here since. acetylene torch showering steel sparks. He ran outside, On assignment to write about waterfalls a few years back, his mad rush fanning the flames until dad tackled him I found the elusive answer. and rolled him in the dirt. The sickly sweet smell of burnt “In the Cherokee’s Great Blue Hills of God,” I wrote, flesh stayed with me a long time. “rivers thunder over the Blue Ridge Escarpment.

My dream to write was embryonic, but I knew one Waterfalls pound the rocks, kicking up mists, which thing: I didn’t want to be around steel, sparks, and gas. A receive treasures from wayward winds—fern spores from vast sea lay before me, one I had no choice but to cross. I the tropics. The lucky ones fall into moist, fertile niches cast my fate to the wind. I didn’t worry about being blown and bless the hard gray rocks with green riches. The off course. There was no course. others perish.”

My father’s father owned a fine cattle farm and he gave I, too, was windblown, a spore who found a hospitable me some advice I never forgot: “If you can make money niche. Many times I have renewed myself through writfor the man, you can make it for yourself.” After earning a ing, Resurrection Fern that I am.

Journalism degree and a Master’s at Georgia, and five years of college-level teaching, I set out on my true jourDerivations ney—to write, break into print, and freelance.

I grew up in Lincoln County, Georgia. It’s a good place.

My first full-time writing position was as a The people are solid South. Still, cows outnumbered the scriptwriter/cinematographer for natural history films people and the world of pastures and pine forests was similar to “National Geographic” documentaries. These light years from the life this boy imagined.

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text: Tom Poland

were the days of endless revisions, remote locations, primitive barrier islands, cold mornings in blinds, and days along blackwater rivers. These were the nights of filming nesting sea turtles in Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge while that luminous river of the heavens, the Milky Way, wheeled above.

I was happy writing scripts. Still, writing for print was the song the sirens sang. South Carolina Wildlife published my first feature, “Mysteries Of The Firefly’s Light,” illustrated by Joe Byrne. I became the magazine’s managing editor. I wrote features and worked with photographer Robert Clark. In time, we tired of the same-oldsame-old but wanted to give it one good shot before leaving.

We set out one spring morning in 1987 for something meaningful. Along Highway 378, we found it: the vanishing shanties of a vanishing South.

“Tenant Homes—A Testament To Hard Times” struck a chord.

Newspapers throughout South Carolina reprinted it and the stately little shacks’ sad stories caught the eye of the USC Press. In one home, an old black lady had scraped by selling lye soap and “flowers” cut from pink and mint green Styrofoam egg cartons. She had died two weeks earlier and unfinished work lay among rat pellets and dead insects. Pines swallowed her shack but her story lives on, here even.

After John Culler left South Carolina Wildlife, it became a government publication run by bureaucrats. A book contract in hand, I walked out to freelance in August ’87.

Finis.

I had never felt more alive or more afraid.

white shirt and a tie and a suit of clothes, you can find out real quick how sorry he is.”

Sorry indeed.

That women tend to see writers as romantic, heroic loners. One night, sharing drinks with a woman, long after the thrill of seeing my byline had died, she asked in wonderment, “Don’t you just love seeing your name in print?”

“I love seeing my name on a check,” I replied. (A Payment Fable: Once upon a time, three clients screwed me. All three drove Jaguars.)

That I prostituted myself being a ghostwriter, a phantom for egos. “Look, I got published.”

That belittlement comes with the territory. I was introduced to a haughty Yankee, a thick-hipped executive, fond of herself and fond of food.

“A writer,” she said. “Well, I mastered that in college and moved on to bigger things.”

Bigger, indeed.

That freelancing brings the world to you. As the years unfolded, I interviewed Bill Gaither, Armstrong Williams (who interviewed me), Mackenzie Astin, Delbert McClinton, Patty Duke, and Grand Funk Railroad’s Don Brewer who sang “We’re An American Band” to me. I came to know James Dickey and corresponded with writers Faye Moskowitz and James Salter, wrote speeches for governors and Bill Gates. These events were light years from saws, gasoline, and men afire.

Dazzled by the possibilities, I stuck with it. I wrote to live but lived to write even more. Beneath it all, though, lurks a fear and aching loneliness I never quite shake.

Monday morning. Cars leave driveways. People rush to work. Soon, they will be in status meetings planning their week, sharing lunch, and receiving automatic deposits no matter what they don’t do. I, however, have no projects, no deadlines, no lunch plans. Today I will attempt to create art but I know I will fail.

The craving to create something sacred is maddening.

Write hack copy for a living too long, I fear, and my love for writing will die. A sad blues refrain plays in my mind.

You know I’m free, free now baby. I’m free from your spell. I’m free, free now; I’m free from your spell. And now that it’s over, all I can do is wish you well. Did I ever consider giving up? One day, while running on a wooded trail near an assisted living center, I came upon a young man and a much older woman in a secluded glade

A book contract in hand, I walked out to freelance in August ’87.

I had never felt more alive or more afraid.

Writing Lessons Everyone should live a year or three without a salary.

You’ll learn something about yourself. I learned much.

That some people view freelance writing as a mystical calling while others deem it menial, something akin to a short order cook who scratches out the day’s menu.

That business-types insist on capitalizing “customer,” “client,” and “company.” “Well that’s how we earn money.”

Oh, I get it. We Writers use Words. Plumbers repair Leaks.

What arrogance. Never forget, the business world gave us that gem: “functionality.” What nonsense. Georgia writer Harry Crews pegged these types. “If you give a man a

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kissing with passion, their side-by-side wheelchairs backed together.

Sometimes the terror overpowers you. You take a sabbatical, a “real job” like a spy who comes in from the cold. Even that’s difficult. Being a “word-slinger” intimidates the weak-kneed who might hire you. Happy with their direct deposit and benefits, they give you short shrift. I was passed over for a job once because I was “too good.” You wouldn’t tell a physician, “No, you might save too many lives.” And so, the truth is sometimes you have no choice but to freelance.

Fine.

Alone with your thoughts, terror at bay, your day is pure. Once you get past the Monday melancholia, the rest of the week is dreamlike. Freedom. No meetings.

Morning sunlight streams in as New Age strains fill the air. A candle burns softly. A rose the color of coral begins to open on my desk. From a fountain, the glassy crash of falling water—a sound older than mankind—floods the room with serenity. At my fingertips lies mankind’s crowning achievement: language.

“Writing is a kind of smoke, seized and put on paper,” wrote Salter. Yes, without doubt. You grab, get nothing.

Eventually I seized a curl and discovered a rich world— not the materialistic world—something more valuable, one with thrills, a grain of recognition, pleasure and peril.

A beautiful woman writes, “Well, I’m not the slightest bit surprised I loved it. Nothing you write could disappoint me.” Having a flawless blonde, fresh as mint (we just met), take your hand and say, “you and I will make love.”

A writer can be a bit of a rake. Of course writing offers pleasure. December, an icy night for a sidewalk book signing, nonetheless a spark of admiration warms the evening.

“I know you must love being a writer,” a ravishing lady tells me. “I envy you so.” She leaves, glances back, smiles.

Though it’s Christmas, her creamy skin is a burnished summer gold, her legs sculpted. She’s stepped right off the silver screen into my heart.

You bask in the limelight a bit and everyone wants to know you, but then you retreat to another uninspiring assignment, lonely, forgotten, all the while looking for a way out of hackdom.

approached too lightly and glanced away, forever uncaptured. Many didn’t have control of their time: writing’s true raw material. Of the hundreds of aspiring writers I’ve taught, but two made it. One became a magazine editor, Sam Morton, he freelances now. The other writes for National Geographic, Glen Oeland.

Writing makes fools of some and fools others into thinking it’s easy. Seeking therapy, many aspiring writers join writer’s groups, though their time would be better served writing. In 1992, Warren Slesinger, USC Press acquisitions editor, called. He was addressing a writer’s group that evening and wanted company. Beers afterward convinced me to go.

We drove to an old home converted into a law firm on Laurel Street. Pink and evocative of Charleston, it had a staircase at the top of which sat a large room with a long table surrounded by dreamers.

Unforgettable night.

A spirited brunette, Collette, introduced Warren, which brought a buzz from the would-be writers.

Warren introduced me as an author. This, too, sent a murmur around the table. The brunette and I locked eyes. She was, I’d discover, a woman who always got what she wanted.

Truly unforgettable. A man whose day job was keeping statistics on venereal diseases read an impassioned piece about English General Orde Wingate who was desperate to fight the Japanese hunkered down in a swamp in Burma.

General Wingate pranced around naked—it’s true— at strategic moments to get an edge. A British general exposed to his officers was comical enough but as the VD statistician read his stilted prose, his crescendo climaxed with Wingate’s plan to roust the Japanese from their haven.

“Men, I’ll penetrate the Japanese in their rear.”

The room exploded in laughter.

The love statistician slammed his fist on the table.

“Damn it, this is serious.”

The Sentence At evening’s end, the brunette approached. “Can I call you? I have a manuscript I’d love for you to read.”

I handed her my card.

The next afternoon a blue convertible pulled into my driveway. Out popped Collette with her Midnight dossier. I invited her in, told her I’d read her work and started coffee. Before I poured the first cup, she put her arms around me.

“As soon as I saw you, I knew we were meant for each other.”

Exposé Over the years, I’ve seen how those exposed to the disease prove their immunity. Many would-be writers crossed my path. They took my classes. Called me. Wrote me. Some plunged in too steeply and burned out. Others

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way, stepping from her car. I see her slipping her clothes off, freeing her bra. She loved words, she loved writers, but not the real me.

Her poor husband ... I think of him too. Tragedies abound.

“Your book has just been haunting me. Tell your friends you have an agent.” July 2, 2002. I had just signed a contract with New York literary agent, Malaga Baldi.

Her words should have taken me to the heights. They couldn’t. I’d just learned my father would have his larynx removed. The voice that urged me to study to avoid Vietnam vanished beneath the knife. He died November 15, 2003. Cancer. I write about him often, as I do here.

And sometimes I do so in the dead of night. Twenty minutes pass. Sleep refuses to return. I write.

What’s freelancing like? This. A cold wind blows. I stand on a peninsula, alone: in one direction, the joyous Sea of Creation, in the other, the terrifying Sea of Disaster.

Infected by the Midnight Disease, I plunge in and swim against the current like a crazy man, hoping talent will save me. I know though. I know.

There is no cure. You write—for better or worse—until death do you part.

After that we seldom discussed writing. A year after meeting Collette, I came in from the cold, taking a writing position at Policy Management Systems Corporation, a place overrun with ardent, attractive women. (You can’t spell “promiscuous” without PMSC—the eager letters line up.) Collette asked me to get her on there, but the corporate world has no need for romance writers. Still, I told her to call me back in a week. She never did. Women fade as their fever cools.

And so, I forgot her.

Seven years later, a woman with the name of an actress and I sat at a bar talking with a couple we had bumped into on our runs into Cola Town. The man was nowhere as vibrant as his brilliant brunette. When he went to the men’s room, she slid over, confessional, volunteering he had lost his previous wife and child in an accident.

“He had the most difficult time with his wife,” she said in apology.

The next day, fearful, I called Collette’s office. A woman answered. I asked for Collette. She put me on hold ... then, “Sir, she was killed in a car wreck three years ago.”

I said nothing. Hung up.

Now and then, I pass the attorney’s office on Laurel. It’s a different color, maize. I remember the beautiful brunette determined to be a writer. I see her in my drive-

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feature

Virginia Scotchie

V

certain je nais se quai and she clearly prefers making art to dictating “meanings.” Scotchie practices traditional ceramics to create contemporary sculptural art forms, but does not make functional, utilitarian objects often associated with craft. Although she was formally trained as a potter, she does not create traditional pottery associated with clay. Scotchie’s ceramic objects are created purely for art’s sake aimed to be visually enjoyed and experienced.

Scotchie is a leader in Columbia’s world of clay. For the past fifteen years she has championed clay for creating contemporary art forms at the University of South Carolina. Here she works as artist, active professor, inspiration to students, and Head of the Ceramics Department. In this position she has attracted students from across the United States and abroad, training artists to join her in the perpetual journey of discovery through the curious world of ceramic art. She prepares each student with the tools they need to descend into their own private and extremely individual travel throughout the limitless universe of clay.

This is a story that centers around a brilliant and experienced contemporary ceramic artist whose enchanting abstract sculptures defy definition, presenting a catalogue of artworks so variable and abstract they cannot be defined by me or by any other – including their creator.

The featured artist is indefinable by her mysterious art and by the medium she exclusively works with. Clay is the ultimate undefined medium due to its lack of structure and can be worked in countless ways.

“Clay is the most abstract material you can create art with; it is really just a shapeless blob of material,” Scotchie said, exemplifying characteristic frankness and her cheerful tone of voice. The boundless nature of this

irginia Scotchie entered the realm of academia at the University of North Carolina, where she studied Sociology and Religion and received her Bachelors of Arts degree in both subjects. After graduating from UNC, a single trip to the Middle East caused her life to entirely change direction. In Israel, Scotchie participated in an archeological dig and discovered some ancient ceramic relics that deeply moved her. Suddenly, she found herself driven to study ceramics obsessively. This experience also sparked an everlasting love affair with travel, and her life was changed forever.

She went on to Alfred College, New York, to obtain her Master of Fine Arts Degree in Ceramics. From there she officially arrived to the world of clay and in this mysterious world has remained. Although fulfilled by her perpetual discoveries in the world of ceramics alone, she still continues to enjoy visiting remote places around the globe.

After meeting Virginia Scotchie for the fourth time, it suddenly dawned on me that I might never fully understand the fantastical world of Ceramic Art or the extraordinary abstract sculptures this artist continuously creates out of clay. The abstract ceramic forms Scotchie creates are unlike contemporary sculptures I have encountered. Unlike many works of modern art, they have no prescribed conclusion. The ceramic sculptures she creates appear simple and abstract yet imitate the surfaces and textures of everyday objects and nature with astonishing realism.

Virginia Scotchie’s sculptures curiously mimic massproduced objects, but ironically her abstract installations have been painstakingly hand-made. Her determination to use clay as a purely artful medium gives her sculptures

text: Shayna Katzman

photography: Kasi Koshollek

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medium has never discouraged Scotchie from engaging it. each of her protégés as if they were her own children. Her She has always been aware that the creation of ceramic graduate students are clearly a great source of pride and art is open–ended from the start, and the indefinite satisfaction. “My students are an extension of my family,” nature of clay is part of its appeal for her. The exploration Scotchie later told me. “I hope to function as their menof ceramics, and the endless possibilities presented by the tor and help them create great art. I want them to become material, remains central to her world. She thrives on the successful and I want to help them to get their art out challenges the medium presents her – eager to share her there,” she said. infatuation with anyone interested. Virginia Scotchie is True to this statement, every introduction she facilitatthe ideal introducer to ceramic art and gladly guided ed was met by showings of praise for each individual. me through her strange Scotchie extensively reportceramic world. ed unique talents, skills, I first met Scotchie at a achievements, styles, methfarewell gathering for some ods, and preferred subject of that year’s M.A. candimatter related to every perdates. The evening promson. At times I encountered ised to be a great opportunistudent résumés before my ty to meet several art stubrain had registered names. dents that had studied Scotchie is extremely under Scotchie, and to passionate about teaching observe her in action operand passing her extensive ating as teacher. I had ceramic knowledge to expected my role would be capable and creative minds. as “fly on the wall”.

Following this initial Unexpectedly, but luckily, meeting, whenever a that was not to be the case. student or the ceramic Distinguishing the ceramprogram was mentioned I ic-clan wasn’t complicated. observed the same enamI noticed them immediateored expression register ly. The large group of scholwith the artist and a euphorars was stretched across a ic smile light her face. long banquet table at the Notions of family and very back corner of togetherness have always Goatfeathers. The greater played a large role in challenge was trying to Scotchie’s life as well as her identify the professor withart. Her family-minded in the group. The table nature has extended itself hummed with familiar chatinto her manner of teaching, ter. Scotchie sat easily and and her group of graduate looked very natural socializ- Scotchie drilling holes into a hardened clay sphere students is a visibly tighting with her assembly of stuknit community. dents alive with friendly Scotchie grew up modestly conversation. Thankfully, Scotchie identified herself at in rural Virginia. She belonged to a large household and once when she slid up from the table to greet us. At first I was as the eldest of six children. Here she grew accussat to one side of the well-spirited group, noting various tomed to being part of a group, at all times. She even social interactions taking place. However, my plans for shared a bed with her sister. “My mother insisted that we surveillance were quickly shattered by the extremely amiall sat down together at the table for dinner. She enjoyed cable and inclusive artist. Now, engaged in the group’s us being together,” Scotchie recollected. The importance intelligent conversations, I felt more like honored guest of family is represented throughout her work and manithan elusive bystander. fests itself in various forms. The most overt example of Scotchie eagerly introduced me to her ceramic students this is her earlier “Familia” installation. one-by-one. With tremendous enthusiasm, she presented Scotchie created textured ceramic pots of different sizes

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Virginia Scotchie forms wet clay using a wheel beside sculptures from “Indigo Transitions Series” at her private studio

and has been manipulated by a multitude of surface glazes. Viewed together, the installation appears like a rainbow of vibrantly hued forms unified by the circular pattern they have been arranged in. The globe grid for this arrangement pulls the separate entities together, also relating them by theme since each has been inspired by different cultures around the globe. Family members can be separated by distance, and relatives can look nothing alike – however, as this artwork shows, there is often at least one feature that will tie them together.

This relationship between seemingly remote objects is also implied with color. Groupings of differently shaped and textured objects can be glazed by the same color to unite the opposing forms and represent the inherent ties that bind a family together regardless of appearance or distance. “Some people say that it must be hard to come from such a large and close family, but I would never have it any other way,” Scotchie said.

My second meeting with Scotchie took place at her home. Here I encountered her large-scale, outdoor installations first hand. Colorful ceramic spheres sprinkle the landscaped garden areas that surround the artist’s home and two working studios. Nature is another strong influence for the artist and she often incorporates it into her

that were glazed in various ways for this gallery installation. She then grouped the pots in front of enlarged photographs – portraits of her actual family, taken in different periods of time. The title “Familia” references the artist’s Polish-Italian heritage, and this upbringing may also explain her affinity with an industrious work ethic.

This series of work acts to celebrate close family ties, but also represents the ways our families may be read like blueprints laid out for us by our ancestors.

The notion of “family” lends itself as an influence somewhat less overtly throughout Scotchie’s other ceramic art series, demonstrated in the clustering together of individual ceramic sculptures. She commonly installs sculptures in groups that a glance may appear randomly thrown together. However unrelated these sculpture groupings may at first appear, they are always somehow intrinsically linked.

Her sculptures can be linked in highly subtle ways.

“Around the World,” for example is an installation made up of ceramic sculptures that deeply vary from one to the next. Each object involved in this installation possesses a unique and individual appearance. All pieces that are arranged to form this artwork are stand-alone sculptures in their own right. Each clay sculpture is a different shape

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ably moving to visit her ceramic studios, both of which art. With this outdoor installation, her appreciation for she uses fully in her creation process. Her studios present nature is obvious although at the same time her sculpa synthesis and critique of early industrial practice; there tures have transformed and diminished the natural beauare shelves of neatly arranged tools, sieves, buckets, kilns, ty of her gardens. The playful presence of the spheres moulds, and funnels (which she once collected until she sharply contrasts the seriousness of nature. found she had too many.) “I cleaned up for Open Studios.

In this permanent outdoor installation, brightly colIt is not usually so neat around her here!” Scotchie said, ored and luminous ceramic spheres sit between bushes standing before two neatly arranged rows of colorful and trees, and lie on top of reeds of green grass. These sculptures that are mounted against her perfectly painted sphere sculptures are large ceramic globes created out of white walls. I am inclined not to believe this, as she seems clay, in varying sizes and covered in various glazes to creto generally enjoy keeping things in proper order. Her stuate their unique surface colors and textures. dios can be viewed as a The spheres perfectly productive universe – offset the beauty of designed and ordered by nature by juxtaposing their owner; the studio organic majesty with a and kiln sheds create a vivid manmade palette small-scale utopia for of bright, playful prithe industry of a cerammary colors, like fireics individual. engine red, canary yelThe first building is low, orange, bottle used primarily for the green, vivid blues and many technical elements the artist’s favorite: involved in the ceramic cobalt, “the color of the process, and for clay world.” These spheres mixing. This studio is look like giant pieces of filled with tools, pottery candy or shiny rubber wheels, and kilns, and bouncing-balls and repUnglazed clay forms including a “Tulip-vase-spout-cone-float” the room is used for resent a recurring mixing dirt to form clay, theme in Scotchie’s filling moulds, drilling holes, throwing pots, glazing, work. Some spheres assume the appearance of enormous firing, and all other laborious tasks necessary to create children’s’ toys and remind me of gigantic wiffle balls. her works.

These, too, are solid globes of clay but she has drilled The second and tidiest shed is Scotchie’s creative stuholes into them to create these cavities in their perfect dio. It functions as a sort of “think tank” for her, and is a three-dimensional forms. very private and personal space. Here she prefers to work These looming spheres have noticeable anthropomorin solitude, using this space to develop artistic inspiraphic qualities, and look as if they may begin suddenly tions and for traditional artistic processing. Postcards, moving at any time. I like to imagine that these mischiemagazine and newspaper clippings, as well as lists and vous sculptures will start bouncing about the garden drawings denoting ideas for future pieces are all taped to when no one is watching them. the walls that don’t contain sculpture. This is the only Gardens are often thought of as mediators between the room in which she handles the clay wet (“in its most fragoutside world and the privacy of our personal, domestic ile state”) since she prefers to have no distractions for ultirealms. Gardens are also linked to the natural, social, and mate concentration. cultural environments that they surround. Both the pubScotchie actively demonstrates her busy working stulic and private gardens function as an extension of the dios and bounces between them with enormous energy – artist and her work. The front garden presents the artist’s like the ceramic spheres that lay about her lawn. She outward identity and artwork to the world and also visuexplains the function of each of her ceramic tools and ally separates her home from all neighboring homes. retrieves examples of art in answer to questions asked. All Virginia Scotchie appears to be in her element at home. the while, she barely pauses or ceases moving for a secShe fluidly moves us between gardens and studio spaces. ond. She will admit to never quite stopping for any “This is my space,” Scotchie proudly states inside the second building constructed behind her house. It was invariextended period, and it seems lapses in activity are diffi-

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cult to deal with. “I took my son to the pool the other day and I stood in the water for a while, but I felt like I should be moving or swimming laps or something,” Scotchie revealed. Being in her presence for significant lengths of time is somewhat exhausting. Her buoyant energy seems to just loom and sit dormant when not actively being exerted. Each time her activity stops, the energy carries on waiting for movement to begin again. This ceaseless level of activity is highlighted by four sweetly tempered mutts who mimic her every move. All four of her loyal canine companions trail behind her in a pack wherever she goes, only sitting when Scotchie has committed to staying in one spot for some time. This domestic scene is magical to watch and vaguely dizzying. My head spins with dogs, artist, and spheres bouncing, floating, and spinning around outside.

The ceramic sphere has played a starring role in Virginia Scotchie’s artistic career so far, and was featured in her unprecedented sculpture commission that took her to Japan in 2006. She and her three volunteer student assistants spent more than six months preparing what she refers to as “The Japan Project.” Scotchie recollects: “One day when I was teaching my MFA students I asked, ‘Who wants to go to Japan?’” She chose the first three students whose hands were raised. The project culminated with a trip to Japan and the final installation of “Floating Spheres of Continuity” – seventy-five larger-than-life ceramic marbles of various sizes, colors, and textures.

Scotchie specifically designed this installation for the Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan. The museum awarded the commission for a large-scale, outdoor, public ceramic artwork that they installed in the new sculpture park built outside the Japanese museum’s modernistic building. This art commission was an honor and a colossal undertaking that would remain permanently displayed in the Yingge Ceramic Museum Sculpture Park.

You may be thinking that ceramics might be the easiest program, with the biggest perks, a graduate could pursue.

Since, when I was studying, the furthest I was ever taken by a professor was to the library, I would initially be inclined to agree. However, ceramic sculpture is not simply about playing with clay, giant bouncing balls, and trips to Japan. Before coming to judgment, let me emphasize that there is far more to ceramics than what first may meet the eye.

Scotchie and her student assistants worked extremely hard on every level to prepare for the huge “Japan Project” installation. Tasks included mixing 6,000 pounds of clay, creating 100 gallons of glaze and conducting hundreds of tests before casting any spheres that could be used as final

South Carolina’s largest fire kiln at USC, used in “Japan Project” to fire hundreds of giant clay spheres

sculptures. Each individual sphere required 55 pounds of clay to be physically packed into molds 135 times to cast the final clay forms. These clay boulders were then moved to the largest gas kiln in South Carolina (located at USC) to be fired, hardened, and readied for glazing. After six months of this grueling process, the spheres were shipped to Taiwan where Scotchie and her student assistants met them to facilitate the final, and highly scientific, sculpture installation.

These details concerning the “Japan Project” offered a deeper look into the working practices necessary for ceramic art and suddenly everything became complicated and confusing. All understanding that I had grasped for Virginia Scotchie’s work quickly left me. I naively assumed that her art installations used pre-fabricated materials.

It is difficult, as a person not wrapped up in ceramics, to understand why an artist would go through such

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painstaking lengths to create an object that emulates with changing what art could look like, how it could be mass–production. Many artists spent most of the twentimade, and what it could be made from. These sculptors eth century disassociating themselves from the then clashave been charged with irreversibly altering ways we sic notion of “art” – to allow nearly anything to become look at three-dimensional art by elevating industrial acceptable inside a gallery. Why would an artist then objects to forms of art and installing manmade materials choose to work with industrial-looking objects, but create in gallery spaces. them by hand anyway? What is the point of mimicking Minimalists were concerned with the arrangement of something a machine could have made? Our expectations objects that justified treating industrial materials as art of art have so drastically changed that it is now common when the conditions of perception are altered. The plastic to see prefabricated and everyday objects exhibited as appearance of the spheres is so convincing that they look sculptures. It is now usual to see almost any media incorlike they were actually created by machines. porated in contemporary art installations that can Scotchie went further than designing the experience include anything from and arranging the sphere everyday objects and forms for her minimalistitems taken from style installation. Every nature, to sound, element involved in the performance, and light“Floating Spheres of ing effects.

Continuity” was created Almost any material by hand. The artist’s has become acceptable touch is all over her to be called “art”. It enormous abstract seems logical that artists forms. It is her concern who are dedicated to for hand-making each mastering traditional piece that makes this mediums would want to installation really quite visually separate themopposite to a minimalist selves from artists who assemblage.

Ceramic sphere textured with crusty glaze in Scotchie’s front yard work with prefabricated Scotchie has spent materials. I would imagyears developing formuine that if you spent your life experimenting with a matelas to create the ceramic glazes that are added to her crerial you would want your art to convey your time and ations after they have been fired to create the vivid colors effort. and detailed textured surfaces characteristic to her artI do not wish to even begin with the old “art vs. craft” works. At her studio, she revealed hundreds of different debate, but I may like to argue against claims that ceram“test spheres” that have been used to experiment with varic art may be excluded from modern and contemporary ious glazes to create new colors and textures. The tests art history books because art history writers consider have been conducted on small balls of clay, about the size ceramics unimportant or a lower form of art. From my of a golf ball, and each covered in different mixtures of experience, I believe ceramic art is not often written glaze. about by art critics because it reminds them of science.

The result of hours of testing presents itself as a rainPerhaps they overlook ceramic art because it seems too bow of brightly colored balls that represents infinite varicomplicated to explain. It is very difficult to apply art theeties of colors and textures – all neatly stored away in ory to a mysterious over-extended science project. buckets. She brought the little spheres out to demonstrate Especially an infinite science project that is unique to glazing and casually tossed them in the air. I was too every individual. Personally, I would sooner write about aware of the thousands of hours these buckets contained something considered a “low art form” or “craft” than I to consider handling Scotchie’s ceramics like sporting would write about something scientific. All I remember goods (even if they were only testers.) I carefully picked of science class was accidentally igniting my lab partner up a few of them and gently cupped them in my hands with a Bunsen burner; therefore writing about scientists like gemstones to examine their surfaces. is something for which I am perhaps ill-equipped.

Some of the clay balls were highly glossy and shiny, The pioneering artists in the Minimalist movement some were rough, and others had the texture of sandparemain a personal fascination, and have been attributed per. Some appeared matte, others were dull, some had

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space to explore. been sand-blasted, and Virginia Scotchie has travsome looked overgrown eled around the world with with moss. A few looked her art and installations. She rusty, others gleamed like has taught ceramics in polished silver. Some famous artistic institutions looked metallic, others and attracted students from looked organic or natural. across the globe. I had Some looked dirty, some hoped that I could at least bumpy… I could go on. I make an attempt at impresswas particularly drawn to a ing the professor. If not with little sphere that looked quotations from Robert exactly like a lemon, the Morris’s “Notes on texture and coloring was Sculpture,” I could share my uncanny. I also liked anothPlanning llustrations for future ceramic sculptures distaste for Clement er sphere that looked like a Greenburg or just anything that could elevate my knowlpartially peeled orange with part of its dimpled orange edge of art in her eyes. skin removed.

Instead I was forced to relate to Scotchie’s sculpture on I cannot begin to imagine the extreme levels of concenthe only level I could, with the naiveté of a curious child. tration, curiosity, and dedication to a material to be willFortunately, Scotchie has raised two sons and is a charising to experiment in so many different, extremely timematic teacher; and she did not hold me accountable for consuming ways that this test bucket contained. This endany high expectations. I actually received some positive less concocting is exactly the part of ceramic sculpture feedback for my levels of cognition related to her work, that seems so hard to understand. You can dedicate your and she said she enjoys hearing new interpretations and life to ceramics but you will never master the processes observations from anyone that engages with her art. because the scope is far too broad and there will always be

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I felt silly blurting out “that looks like a pipe…and a For Virginia Scotchie, the alchemy of ceramics and the phone” while pointing at one of her sculptures. I was mystery the clay medium provides her is the driving force pleased to later learn “Domestic Abstractions,” the series behind her continuous adventures into ceramic art. this object had come from, was inspired by personal, col“What kind of person do you think spends all this time lective memories and objects. All objects in the series creating something that will be put into a kiln, knowing imply items she has seen or that when the kiln is opened found around the home. again they might pull out The sculpture I was drawn something they don’t expect?” to was actually influenced (in This rhetorical question conpart) by her father’s pipe coltinues to resonate with me. lection that was displayed on a These boundless worlds she pipe rack on top of the piano refers to are the endless necesthat was in her childhood sity of garnering new experihome. The artist recalled sitmental knowledge by working ting at the piano to practice with clay, the new working when she was a young girl and processes that are rediscovered said she remembers staring at or invented, and designs that these pipes every time she sat are refreshed and evolved. In down to play. An indigo tulipthis world: nothing is ever vase-shaped object was anothmastered, you will always be a er that I was remarkably student of your material, and drawn to. nothing is ever put to rest.

This sculpture is part of Ceramic artists may live, “Indigo Transitions.” “It is a work, study, and create their tulip-vase, spout-cone, float art in Columbia but exist withabstraction” Scotchie said in a foreign place of their own about this multi-spouted triancreation. Scotchie is kept busy gular object that sits on a cirin her own world of curiosity – cular base. This object was also uncovering secrets within the inspired by childhood memomysterious world of clay. As ries. She told me that it long as her will remains, she is resembles a shiny commerdestined to continue exploring Virginia at the wheel. (above) cial, ceramic Christmas tree Ceramic sculptures from “Object Maker Series” installed and pushing the boundaries in gallery on wooden shelves (facing page) ornament her mother loves. this infinite universe presents I became frustrated by my to her, and will not cease. We art history training that has allowed me to appreciate can appreciate her wondrous art from a distance as passculptures made from cigarette butts, randomly-cut sive bystanders. Regardless, her art will be produced. pieces of string glued to canvas, and planks of wood The formless medium she has chosen presents a sepainstalled into gallery spaces, because it never taught me rate, complex, and multi–faceted culture to which she about ceramic art. I stood in Scotchie’s studio peering belongs. Clay provides its devotees unparalleled freedom into the textured surfaces of some more little spheres with their art and boundless opportunities to explore. installed to the wall and decided to give u p trying to This freedom for artistic expression – that Scotchie understand this strange ceramics world. Instead I chose devours with her endless sculpture production – seems to share some deep personal insight with the sculpture’s far too big to explain in words. creator and it sounded like this: “Thes smaller spheres Back in my day-to-day life, any attempts to describe the look like solar system mobiles for babies – you know, the beauty and knowledge Virginia Scotchie showed me durone’s they stare at when they are sleeping in the crib.” Not ing my alien visit seem weak. It is very difficult to discuss my most intelligent observation, but one that determined a distant and foreign place with someone who has never my place in the ceramic art world. In response to my combeen there. Should you one day have the opportunity – ment, Scotchie smiled because she had known exactly take the trip to Virginia Scotchie’s ceramic world. what I meant. “I love those!” she cheered.

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project

3004 Forest Drive

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watched the Matsons live their lives through the gaping windows that expose the inner-workings of their kitchen.

Tourists in their own town, Columbians slow their cars down, stop to ask questions, and even take pictures of the stark white, flat-roofed home that does look more like it belongs in a futuristic film than seated among its traditional-style neighbors.

“Many people look at the architecture and think it’s so cool, but they have no idea what it’s like to live in a space like this,” Liisa said.

Another family may soon find out what it means to inhabit Modernist Art. After toiling to re-create architectural history, the Matsons are selling 3004 Forest Drive to build their own Modernist home from scratch. That, however, is another story.

Contractor George Price, who lived directly next door, built 3004 Forest Drive in 1952. The Price house, while similar in appearance to the Matsons’, was built in 1939, which predates the International Style/Modern of 3004 Forest Drive. There are two other houses in Columbia of the same era.

ary Matson is Columbia’s Modernist man. Along with his wife, Liisa, six-year-old son Ethan, five-year-old daughter Emma, and bulldog Woobie, Gary lives in one of Columbia’s most noticeable homes – and that’s not just because of the robots that preside on their upstairs balcony.

An interior decorator, photographer, furniture maker, painter, musician, and owner of Metro Design with his brother and Liisa, Gary is an expert on all things Modernist.

As a product of his passion, he purchased iconic 3004 Forest Drive ten years ago. In the decade since, he and his wife have completely renovated this 3800-square foot International Style/Modern home to museum quality. Lived-in museum quality, that is.

“My mother used to shop at Richland Mall, so we used to drive by this house all the time when I was in school,” Gary said recently over lunch in his anything-but-private kitchen.

“I remember seeing this house and thinking: ‘Oh, that’s so cool!’ I never in a million years thought all of this would happen.”

During the renovations, passersby on Forest Drive have

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text: Emily Cramer Boyle

photography: Brad Allen

Price constructed 3004 Forest Drive as a gift for his son, who was in architecture school at Clemson. The son, Ray Price, lived there for a short while, but ultimately had no interest in staying, Gary said. After that, it changed the hands of a long line of renters, including a fraternity.

None of the tenants, however, attempted what Gary has: fashioning the inside of the house to match the artistic history that the outside represents. He and Liisa have done so with such precision, in fact, that 3004 Forest Drive is now on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina.

The consideration the Matsons have put into renovating the home makes it particularly important to Columbia’s landscape, said Columbia architect Tom Savory, who recently co-presented a lecture with Gary and Clemson Professor Emeritus of Architecture John Jacques at the Columbia Museum of Art. “Because of the care Gary has taken with the house, many people are able to see the potential of contemporary design, which is very important in a cultural environment that tends to strongly favor traditional residential design,” he said.

“Another important aspect is the fact that they have imbued the house with a great deal of warmth in their choices of color and materials and landscaping, so people are able to see that more modern buildings can also be very warm, something that is often not recognized by the general public.

I think it’s also a fortunate thing that we have this type of residential architectural statement so visibly sited on a major artery since it is much more common for modern residences to be sequestered in nature, hidden from view.”

Gary’s son, Ethan, in the library.

The inside of 3004 Forest Drive is just as remarkable, designed in a very carefully planned, simple style, true to Modernist Art. Yet it is functional enough for everyday living.

“If you go further back to the Gropius Period and the Bauhaus Movement in Germany before the Nazis took over, the whole Modernism movement was about being a machine for living, which sounds pretty severe,” Gary said. “I don’t think anyone wants to live in a machine but somehow that got coined and whether the media took it too far with it and it was never intended to be, it stuck. Everything was rectilinear.”

The efficiency and the lack of clutter draw keen attention to the house and the interior design. Every piece of furniture has a purpose, from the Eames lounge chair and ottoman and the leather Lignet Roset Togo couch in the living room to the AGA cooker in the kitchen.

“I think it’s more about form,” Gary said. “Think about the Baroque Period when everything is gilded and everything is curvy and frou-frou, lots and lots of textures about it. This is the antithesis of all that and yet the understatement, to me, makes it just as bold and as powerful.”

The attention to detail invites not only multitudes of built-in conversations in every room, but also an education about other Modernist creations worldwide. The best way to appreciate its intricacies is to have Gary and Liisa – who studied interior design at the Rhode Island School of Design before moving to Columbia – explain the significance of each room, step by step.

The tour starts on the first floor in the kitchen. Alive with yellow walls and nothing but a large photo canvas of red

A view from the dining room. The table belonged to Gary’s grandmother. A bit of serendipity.

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panels, reminiscent of Philippe Starck’s “Indoor/Outdoor Lobby” at the Hotel Delano on Miami Beach. Beyond those waving sheets is an expansive backyard, unseen from Forest Drive, with rock gardens against the walls and a pool – Gary says it’s shaped like a profile of a Barbie Doll’s hair – that coolly blends in with the surrounding green grass.

Adjacent to the pool is a guesthouse, or cabana, renovated first to accommodate the growing Matson family while Gary and Liisa worked on the main house. The exterior matches the style of the main residence, but has even more of a resort feel, almost like an old beach motel. Inside is one large room, divided into a kitchen/bedroom and living area by a large bookcase.

Back inside the main house and up the dark granite stairs are three solidly colored bedrooms, two bathrooms, a studio, and “attic space” (because of the flat roof, there is no traditional attic). The master bedroom has a bedroom-sized walkin closet that used to be a nursery, centered by an Eero Saarinen tulip table that Gary reproduced. The bedroom leads to a stark white laundry room – again, with integrated appliances – and the studio with wide windows and endless inspiration.

The upstairs also opens to two balconies – one facing

Gary’s photograph of "Right Turn on White" Barbara Neijna.

This sculpture is installed within the Thurmond Complex, designed by Marcel Breuer Architect (1902-1981).

apples (that Gary produced from one of his own photos) as a bold focal point, this is where the family spends the majority of their time. The room is full of surprises. An apothecary opens from what looked like just part of the cabinetry. A speakeasy rolls out from behind the white, Sub Zero refrigerator.

“Liisa and I, during the planning for the renovation, decided to keep everything as it was designed except removing the center island area dividing the original kitchen/breakfast areas,” Gary said. “We used everything original as an inspiration for the new design. Being purveyors of design ourselves, we had to research our own project for accuracy in the design, as we would do for any of our clients in our own design business.”

It’s easy to want to stay and enjoy the light and the effect the colors have on the food served for lunch. Red strawberries somehow look even redder and larger when eaten off of a stark-white counter brightened with the mid-morning sun.

“The kitchen is really the heart,” Liisa said. “We do so much design here.”

In the dining room, next to the kitchen, is a white Drexel table, “Profile,” that Gary inherited The remodeled kitchen, Gary and Liisa designed it to blend with the from his mother. He credits her with inspiring restored elements in the home. his interest in Modernism. Above the table hangs Forest Drive and the other facing the backyard. The robots, a matching reproduction Nelson bubble lamp. What looks “Tobor I” and “Tobor I, too” (read: “robot” backwards), live like a bank of mirrors decorates the wall facing the backyard on the balcony facing the street. Salvaged from a field, these windows, but they open to reveal dish storage space. One of 1950s “robots,” complete with eight-track tapes and circuit Gary’s own versions of a Jackson Pollock – the artist Gary boards, were once used for marketing. Often dressed in lights credits as a great Modernist – adds complexity and history to for holidays, the Matsons realize that they have become synthe simple decor. onymous with 3004 Forest Drive.

The dark, parquet floored living room – noticeably withYes, they are included in the upcoming sale of the house. out a television set, which hides in the adjacent audio-visual The most fascinating part of 3004 Forest Drive is Gary’s playroom – opens to a dreamlike porch with flowing sheer undefined : book three

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A small paradise within Columbia.

might take for granted – very clear.

Not only appreciating Modernist Art, but also taking the financial and physical risk of re-creating its products is what drives Gary to continue working on his passion.

“It fascinates me how people stay with what’s comfortable,” he said. “We’re missing out on our lives if we aren’t open to new things and embrace them when we find affinity for them.”

Like any piece of artwork, it’s important to conserve the integrity of homes like 3004 Forest Drive and other Modernist structures in Columbia as an educational legacy for future generations, Gary said. He hopes his love for Modernist Art will spread so that the new owners of 3004 Forest Drive and others will also work to keep it alive.

“Preservation in general is vitally important,” he said.

“Preserving Modern, specifically, is equally important because there is so little of it to preserve. Most people don’t understand Modern design – whether it is furniture, art, clothing... because it represents something ‘unfamiliar’ to them.”

Like any piece of artwork, it’s important to conserve the integrity of homes like 3004 Forest Drive and other Modernist structures in Columbia as an educational legacy for future generations, Gary said.

“The idea behind preserving Modern is in its educational opportunity, that there is something in Modern that piques one’s interest,” he said. “Preserving them means that, in another period of time, there was ‘movement’ in design toward something new and different.... Some of us (thankfully) keep looking at things differently and want to make things better both functionally and aesthetically; or, perhaps, just aesthetically.”

encyclopedic knowledge of Modernism. He lists names of artists from the period and their works with deep appreciation and understanding, almost as if he knew them personally. Frank Lloyd Wright – or FLW, as Gary calls him – is one of his favorites to discuss.

“Frank Lloyd Wright was really a genius,” he said. “The things he did were so extraordinary. He dropped Fallingwater (in Mill Run, Pennsylvania) in on a landscape on top of a stream. It’s just incredible.”

From his library of architecture books in his living room, he pulled down Taschen’s International Style – Modernist Architecture from 1925 to 1965 by Hasan-Uddin Khan and narrated each page. He recognized not only the significance of the buildings the photographs catalogued, but particularly the talent of the handful of photographers who the architects entrusted to capture their work.

“Look at how the contour of the plane matches the Kennedy Airport,” he said, noticing how the photographer of the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York thought to juxtapose the wing of the plane with the structure to emphasize Finnish architect Eero Saarinen’s curving design.

Flipping through further pages, he simultaneously pointed to photographs he took of Columbia’s Modernist buildings and posted on his own web site, www.gmatsonphoto.com.

From Capstone to Adluh Flour, many of these historic structures were envisioned by some of the same famous architects featured in Kahn’s book. The Thomas Cooper Library on the University of South Carolina campus, for example, references the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi.

Internationally renowned architect Edward Durell Stone designed both. Seeing Gary’s picture next to the photograph of Stone’s work in India made the connection – which most

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profile

Adam Shiverdecker

A

USC and preparing for his life of creating art.

A flawless, ebony, to-scale Airbus A-380 piece he is working on exemplifies his criticism of modern advances in technology.

The largest commercial plane invented, seating up to 853 people, he sees as symbolic of society’s unnecessary technological excess.

The presence of militaristic icons that also recur in his art does not imply the artist glorifies war in any shape or form.

Instead emblems of war are replicated to deal with the false barriers and false layers of protection societies have built for themselves by creating weapons and warfare.

The artist’s earlier grotesque sculptural forms deal with other disturbing occurrences and have been heavily influenced by Kurt Vonnegut, best known for writing “Slaughterhouse Five.”

These works focus on disturbing themes such as death and dismemberment. At the time the artist would see images in the media that would drive him to express his sensitivity to the sadness he saw with art. “I find needless death, suffering, and the loss of innocence disturbing,” Shiverdecker said.

Francis Bacon is another artistic influence. He admires expressions of pure unbridled emotion. The turquoise surface glaze on the latest ceramic “head” in the series looks like dripping paint was applied at the crown and is slowly rolling down to the neck. This head evokes Bacon’s “Pope” painting and is one of a collection of thirty-two ceramic head forms that make up his series so far.

Each featureless head is cut-off from the neck down, and each is unique from all others since the artist has worked different techniques on each one.

Shiverdecker’s works are open for interpretation, but most lean towards mythical emblems, metaphors, and social pessimism. Irony and humor are also prevalent themes. “Mutiny,” for example, is a metaphor for “the way society is prone to bleeding itself dry,” he said.

It is not all doom and gloom in this talented emerging artist’s studio. Shiverdecker provides comic relief from the seriousness of his own art using blunt and sarcastic wit. “I would love for my work to be seen as the artistic equivalent of a South Park episode,” he said smirking. “Seriously – you can watch any old episode and understand exactly what was happening in the news at the time. It is the greatest social commentary of our generation. The humor they use is so bizarre and so blatant, but it is all done with cartoon characters and they can get away with it. I love that show!”

dam Shiverdecker claims to be “working towards becoming a better artist” – yet this talented sculptor already has a solo art exhibition and several acclaimed group shows under his belt. To top off this résumé, his piece entitled Mutiny took the award for Best Graduate Work at the 52nd-Annual Student Art Exhibition at McMaster Gallery in March.

Mutiny is a sculpture of a large, featureless, genderless, dollsized figure. The androgynous being has hand-less arms folded across its chest and miniature incarnations of itself standing on each shoulder. The central figure stands looking nonchalant, while the two small figures play out a tug-of-war across his head and operate the pump-jack that they have burrowed into the larger figure’s skull.

“Yeah, they are pumping my head and I don’t even care!” said Shiverdecker, as he folds his own arms across his chest and imitates the unflappable facial expression of his creation.

His sculptures might look like characters from “A Nightmare Before Christmas” to some, but his art is not for kids, and Shiverdecker’s ominous sculptures are as unusual and complex as his name itself.

Shiverdecker was raised in small-town Ohio, “in the middle of a field with one school and two traffic lights.” This field happens to be beside the birthplace of aviation and Wright Cycle Shop in Dayton, where the Wright Brothers constructed the world’s first successful airplane from bicycle parts.

Shiverdecker examines having lived in a world that was completely immersed in the celebration of aviation. Existing within a theme park dedicated to The Flying Machine is strange to outsiders; however, “Wright Brothers are everywhere. It is the way of life around Dayton – it just seemed normal,” he said.

With a normal, rural upbringing, surrounded by planes, you may think that Shiverdecker would share his hometown’s infatuation. But he tends to defy expectations. Ironically many of his newest works deal with “the irresponsible side of technology.” His art pinpoints problems and pitfalls associated with our advancement with machines.

Shiverdecker set out to become a Mechanical Engineer. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Toledo but at the last minute turned to art and graduated with a Bachelors of Art Education degree. In case you were wondering, he had chosen Mechanical Engineering to design roller coasters, not planes. The Ohio native was drawn to Columbia for its sunny appeal and is wrapping up his graduate studies at text: Shayna Katzman

photography: Kasi Koshollek

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project

Columbia Art Studio Project CHARRETTE

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e ask you to please use your own voices to “We hope that participants will see their fingerprints all communicate this vision to other people. Tell over the final presentation from their valuable inputs to others what you have seen here and share our this process,” Delk said, while taping various architecturenthusiasm for integrating art and culture in the commual sketches to the walls of the Vista Room in preparation nity and for keeping it alive in the Vista,” said Fred Delk, for the final public presentation that would culminate the Executive Director of The Columbia Development intensive planning process. Soon this room would be Corporation (CDC), during closing remarks that completfilled with Charrette participants eager to see their collabed the Columbia Artist Studio Project Charrette. For this orative contributions revealed. event, the CDC partnered with Columbia Design League The Columbia Artist Studio Project is a complex and in the Vista Room at challenging undertaking the SC State Museum for Columbia, but projon May 1-2, 2008. ect advocates, local A charrette is an old artists, and the support French word that of the wider community architecture students can help make this should be familiar unprecedented cultural with. This particular vision become a reality Charrette (a multiin South Carolina. Plans day, hands-on, public, for building an “indusdesign-planning worktrial arts center” in the shop) took place to Vista has been growing solicit the communiin popularity and feasity’s involvement, colbility since last year laborative vision, and when the CDC met with input related to a spea wide range of artists cific proposed buildand artisans working in The artists and planners discuss the project on Day 1. ing development to be the Vista area to explore constructed in the Vista. This development would be this concept and determined that interest for such a facildeliberately constructed as a sustainable community ity was high. What began with the purchase of a vacant specifically for Columbia’s working artists of every nature, lot has evolved into a multi-phased cultural project that exclusively to purchase affordable living and studio spaces could leave an everlasting imprint of social and artistic in the Vista area. Over a two day period, artists, architects, innovation on the 1.5 acres of land adjacent to One Eared and project visionaries joined City of Columbia specialists Cow Glass. There is still a long way to go for this project, in planning and zoning. South Carolina Arts Commission but when it finally takes on a life of its own and these representatives and interested members of the wider great ideas are finally put in place, the very future of community teamed up to brainstorm this unique vision the Vista and Columbia’s artistic communities would for Columbia with the aim of working towards a be remarkably, indelibly changed by this unique landplausible, strategic plan to further develop the envisioned use opportunity. artistic community.

Delk reports the attendance of over 60 members of the

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text: Shayna Katzman

photography: Kasi Koshollek

community for this Charrette and included more than 20 beginning to understand the importance of keeping the local artists. These interested attendees included some of production of art alive. This importance is particularly Columbia’s most visible local artists, gallery owners, and true for the Vista area, so heavily reliant upon cultural art enthusiasts such as Clark Ellefson, Jeff Donovan, activity for entertainment, tourism, attracting new resiHeidi Darr-Hope, Steven Chesley, Anna Redwine, Mike dents, and its overall aesthetic.

Williams, Laura Sprong, Sharon Licata, Wim Roefs, Mark The creative character of the Vista has largely been Woodham, and Tommy Lockhart, to name a few. formed by artists such as Clark Ellefson, who moved there The proposed artist-owned development in the Vista long before it became upscale. These artists that chose to would help increase live, work, and propublic exposure for duce their crafts in Columbia’s working this area are responartists, provide pracsible for beginning tical and affordable the current era of work space for change for this previartists, and enable ously abandoned and artists to interact declined district – with one another. contributing to its Project visionaries climb back into the and enthusiasts foremarket. They drew see the project develpeople towards the oping into an artists’ rundown area by colony that will concapturing their attensist of a mix of tion with the art owner-residents repthat was being proresenting a wide variduced here. ety of the arts. This From there, the Vista space is tentausual stages of urban tively reserved for gentrification began. four separate faciliThe area became ties for residential “fashionable.” occupancy and workProperty increased ing studios, but in value. Artists this could change could no longer depending on what afford their rents the artists require. and moved away.

The community Columbia Artist Vision to concept. Artist sketches and computer models lay the ground plan is extremely Studio advocates work for the project. practical and well such as the CDC are considered. Some of the studios will be used mainly for eager to put an end to these cyclical problems that threatthree-dimensional artists such as ceramicists, sculptors, en artistic communities. and glass blowers to sequester some of the noise and mess When supporting continued inner-city growth for that can be associated with these working practices, Columbia, we should at the same time support breaking therefore artists would be separated according to media those negative cycles that begin with “re-urbanization”, used. Parts of the planned area will include glassed-in “gentrification”, and all those other words that cause areas, where visitors can watch artists at work in “fish emerging BFA’s to begin running from their flea-infested bowl studios.” Other areas will remain completely private studios. It’s been said that those who follow a never-broand closed off from public view, except for when the comken-cycle end up exactly where they began. Support for munity may host periodic Open Studios events that have the Columbia Artist Studio Project can help assure that been historically successful in Columbia. our city doesn’t fall into this cliché, and may very well This project exemplifies Columbia’s broadening acceptafford Columbia the opportunity for truly significant ance of arts and culture. It seems that the community is change.

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Lyon Forrest Hill

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a bunch of stand-alone drawings; they don’t look like anything. You put them on the light box and they become something,” Hill said. “It has its limitations, but it takes the pressure off of trying to get the drawing perfect the first time. I just grooved on the way things looked on the light board. I let that be the finished work instead of just a step in the process. The drawing is the piece. It’s so much quicker to create that way.”

Many of Hill’s works revolve around fairy tales and childhood themes, which he accredits to both his wife (Jennifer Hill) and employer (the Columbia Marionette Theatre). “Jennifer’s aesthetic influenced me, and I began to look more at work that had its dark elements, but could also be playful and was ultimately uplifting. I hope my work has that element, and if so, I have Jennifer to thank.”

The CMT presents classic fairy tales like “Cinderella,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “Alice in Wonderland”; these and other storybook themes appear in Hill’s work from time to time. “I think that is a result of the marionette theater,” Hill said. “I get those images stuck in my brain and want to reinterpret them. There’s less kid-friendly aspects you can draw out of those themes.”

“Before Jennifer and I began our relationship, I was a brooding, angsty type and my artwork reflected it,” Hill said. “I then became a much happier person, and such a

hen an artist undergoes a great change, it is inevitable that his work will reveal the past, present and future. Lyon Hill’s portfolio reads like a narrative self-portrait that stems from torment and blossoms into a dark, yet romantic evolution, catalyzed by the relationship with his wife, Jennifer.

Hill plays in many creative arenas, including the Columbia Marionette Theatre, and crafts everything from puppets to comic books, videos, neoprints, paintings and illustrations. “Drawing is one of my favorite things to do,” Hill said. “The drawing is what I’m doing a lot of these days.” While Hill dabbles in a multitude of media, the immediacy of illustration entices him to concentrate on drawing. “I’m all about getting to it as efficiently as possible,” Hill said. “I like mediums that allow me to get rid of some of the back log.”

Hill draws only in pen, and assesses his work with a light box, where he places each illustration over an illuminated surface, often in several layers, to get a feel for the finished product. “I gave up on the pencil…it helped me to be forceful. I always redraw my work on a light box to tighten it up,” Hill said. “I like how crisp it is. I go through scores of drawings before getting to the final one.”

Hill gathered several sheets of paper with simple drawings on them and stacked them over the light box. “Here’s text: Jenny Reese

photography: Kasi Koshollek

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bleak, myopic approach to art felt false.” His own romann’t think that puppetry would be so stressful,” Hill said. tic experiences are reflected in several of his pieces, “The weird thing is since you’re contracted for so many which include grim self-representation and reverent refperformances, you’d rather squeeze them all in one day.” erence to his wife. “I do try to analyze some darker stuff,” With hundreds of shows every year, both at the theatre Hill said. “There’s this whole interplay of the gnarly old and on the road, children make for a captive audience. man and the young woman. Sometimes at face value “They’re always very excited and very vocal as an audithat’s the relationship between a man and a woman.” ence,” Hill said while laughing. “I do a performance of Hill’s marionettes have played up characteristics that “Litter Trashes Everyone” and as everyone’s walking out pronounce his own, arguably distorted, likeness. “I put there’s gum wrappers all over the floor.” big ears, big noses, and small chins on a lot of them,” Hill Hill is combining his love of puppetry and illustration said. “That ubiquitous dark figure is this totally distortwith lightweight, paper-puppet videos. “The puppet ed self-image.” The marionette shows are meant to be kidvideos are the other thing I’m focusing on,” Hill said. friendly. But, as one might expect, a room full of hanging “They’re being seen a lot and the response is very positive. marionettes – especially ones created with such a dark I perform with them and edit it all together. It’s puppetry, vision – is a little eerie. but it’s primarily drawing. The immediacy of that is very “There are a few children and adults that just don’t dig nice.” Hill’s puppet videos are viewable online and include on it, and are scared or have a phobia,” Hill said. “We “Incubus,” which he entered in the first-year Indie Grits, used to do a performance of “Frankenstein” around “A Small World,” “Junk Palace,” “Dirt Dauber,” and Halloween that was pretty dark. I’m pursuing the darker “Puppet Rampage.” “A lot of my work deals with the twin stuff elsewhere.” attractions of love and lust, which can become a conflict Many of Hill’s marionettes, like “The Ferryman,” are within an individual,” Hill said. “I hope that my work brooding and skinny, yet accessible characters. “The explores this conflict without necessarily condemning or Ferryman” is made of several materials,” Hill said. “I condoning it. “Incubus” is getting seen by a lot of people haven’t played with him in so long.” Although Hill is curnow, but it is an example of one of the simplest interacrently focusing on illustration, puppetry remains a big tions of male and female in my work. “The Doll” is a nice part of his crecounterpoint to ative life, keeping it. In one, the him torn between male has the marionettes and power; in the drawing. other he is frail “Puppets are and needs caring what I’m paid to for.” do,” Hill said. “It’s The puppet like ‘Sophie’s videos appear Choice’ for my brilliantly crude babies.” but are laced Hill has been with complex with the CMT for imagery and subeight years, since ject matter. Hill’s founder Allie hands control Scollon retired in the hands of the 2000. He learned puppets, which puppetry at the take on the same CMT and was mannerisms, like later sent to Lyon uses a unique light table technique to create the depth and complexity of his a bleak self-porillustrations and videos Prague by the thetrait in miniaatre to study pupture. “Puppet pet-making for three weeks. Hill and the CMT work Rampage” was meant to be really low-tech,” Hill said. “I closely with Palmetto Pride on a traveling show meant to try to make everything out of paper.” The puppet videos increase environmental awareness, “Litter Trashes allow Hill to experiment with puppets and new media at Everyone,” which keeps the puppeteers busy. “You wouldthe same time. “Puppet videos are fun because I can just

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Hill’s marionettes have played up characteristics that pronounce his own, arguably distorted, likeness

incubus demon, associated with rape and decay. Others display twisted silhouettes and skeletons, and most are painted in ominous blues and bloody reds. “Red’s probably the color I’m most comfortable with,” Hill said. “Red, black, and white; it pings so I gravitate toward it.” Hill’s portfolio is extensively related to decadence, until “Jen in the Water” appeared in 2005.

This painting, of his wife and inspiration, is much more subdued, uses a much softer palette, and is reminiscent of early works by Dali of his own spouse and Picasso before him. Usually these softer images are present in the early stages of an artist’s career, before cynicism hits and/or sanity is lost forever. Hill’s career took a different path.

“When I got happy, I couldn’t make the angst-ridden stuff I had been doing,” Hill said. “It wasn’t accurate anymore.”

He and Jennifer married in 2004 at the CMT. “We met at the theater,” Hill said. “We were both puppeteers.” Hill crafted handmade pop-up wedding invitations and turned the theatre into a romantic wonderland for the big day.

“We transformed it,” he said. “It needed to feel special

kind of wing it,” he said. “I like this idea of how I can build things that are delicate and don’t work perfectly and all you need is one good take. If it works one time out of five for the video it’s ok. I’m not a physicist; I can’t anticipate what a string will do.” The simplicity of the videos’ imagery should not be mistaken for lack of effort or talent. It is this elemental aspect of the work that lends it so well to illustration, puppetry, and video. “It does work for me intuitively, I understand it. In the photograph, the texture of the paper shows up which I like,” he said.

Hill’s peculiar, dark-yet-tender style is reminiscent of the films for which Tim Burton has become so wellknown. “I think that Tim Burton is one of the most popular associations to conjure,” Hill said. “I take the comparison happily.” Hill’s work is often monochromatic and includes looming figures, skeletal, emaciated characters, and themes of death and decay, including the repeated image of the octopus. “I think the octopus is related to the freaky man,” he said. “It’s difficult to have a happy vocabulary with your artwork.”

Many of Hill’s pieces center around the legendary

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Hill said. “We’re sharing the second bedroom as an art studio. I still want us to stay close. I don’t want the house being bigger to split us up.”

The multi-colored walls of the original house are covered in artwork, murals, a display of Hill’s inhaler collection, and the shelves are full of Barbie parts, children’s books, a display of Hill’s prized fetus collection, and Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and Hello Kitty memorabilia. Hill is currently working on a piece entitled “The Hoarders,” in which he claims the characters “amass so much stuff they suffocate in it.” “Jennifer will save me from that fate,” he said. “I want to do a big painting just to celebrate having the space.”

Interspersed among the visual feast that is Hill’s home are lions in the forms of a door-knocker, a painting, and even a mask, which he modeled proudly. Aside from the obvious connection between the animal and Hill’s first name, he identifies with the beast in a more poignant sense. Hill identifies with the Mermecolion, a mythical creature which has the head of a lion and the body of ant.

Because the lion craves to eat meat and the ant cannot digest it, the creature lives a short life of starvation. “A lion made small and tragic,” Hill said, “I’ve kind of adopted it as a symbol.” His comic “The Life and Death of the Mermecolion” is included in this issue and tells the story of uncertainty and its consequences. Hill dreamed of having his comics published for the mass market and pursued that for a short time. “I shot for my favorite, Top Shelf Comics,” he said. “They were very polite and declined. I haven’t pursued it since then.”

With Hill’s current focus on illustration and puppet videos, the themes of his work have lightened a bit, but the darker undertones are still present. “I use the imagery as dark, but I hope my message isn’t dismal,” he said. “I don’t like stuff that’s dark for dark’s sake. There’s always an uplifting message.” Hill’s newest designs also eliminate the post-partum problems many artists have when selling their work. “That gets problematic with painting,” Hill said. “I get that separation anxiety. That’s probably a factor of why I’m more into these reproducible mediums.”

As Lyon Hill’s repertoire has grown from the work of a troubled loner to the manifestations of his blissful union and content maturity, the progression of style, theme, palette, and subject matter has retained his inner spirit and gained the romanticism and zest for life Hill found in love. “At the end of the day, I’m trying to make work that is accessible and gratifying to the viewer and yet as personal and meaningful to me as possible,” he said.

“Although much of it is dark in terms of subject matter, I hope my art is ultimately hopeful, non-cynical, and displays an awe and appreciation for life.”

Hill has been with the Columbia Marionette Theatre, where he learned puppetry, for eight years

since I’m here everyday.”

Hill uses his wife as a model and keeps photos of her in his files for reference. Jennifer appears in several of Hill’s works, distinguishable by her dark hair. “When the stock characters come up, it’s modeled inevitably after Jennifer,” he said.

The couple lives in Columbia in what would be any child’s fantasy home. There are so many toys, books, dolls, and generally crazy things to look at that the two are adding an entire wing onto the house. “We’ve filled every nook and cranny,” Hill said. The added space will give Hill and his wife more room to work and hopefully space for a new addition to the family, eventually. “That’s the goal,” undefined : book three

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Hill’s work is often monochromatic and includes looming figures, skeletal, emaciated characters, and themes of death and decay

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“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.”

Ambient lighting from windows and a single table lamp.

Single overhead incandescent light fixture.

Light is good - there's no question, but most of the multiple light positions, illuminating as much as time we don't think about lighting beyond flipping 360 degrees. Consider the form of the object; a switch when we enter a room. A little thought which portions should be illuminated and which and planning, though, can have a marked impact should remain in shadow. Is it appropriate to add on the quality of our perception. After all, it's not sparkle - an intentional hot spot on one or more the light, it's the sight. features? Using a number of Proper lighting of artwork flashlights and experimenting increases our enjoyment. with angles and positions is the Think of lighting as added easiest way to do this. It is value, an enhancement to the important to remember to pleasure we derive from art. reveal what the artist intended, The most important princinot to make a statement on top ple to good lighting design is of a statement. to put the focus on the A good starting point is to artwork, not on the lighting light a statue using two oppositself. When planning your ing sidelights, facing each other lighting, consider these six 180 degrees apart and vertically elements: Color, contrast, even with the focal point of the shadow, luminance ratios, statue. Lamps in these positions glare, and illumination level are rarely practical or aesthetibefore choosing the light cally pleasing though, so a comsource and application. promise must be reached. One Paintings and other twocommon compromise is high Two side position and one low front dimensional pieces can be position spots with a fourth accent light added side positions which can be very for sparkle, all halogen. clearly lit from a single posieffective but generally give tion, usually from above with more emphasis to the upper half either a spotlight or fixture that creates a wide of the object. Incorporating a third light source wash of unfocused light. The objective is usually to low and to the front of the object increases depth light the artwork as smoothly and evenly as perception and balances the presentation. Add a possible while minimizing splash over. fourth, focused beam for accent and watch your Three-dimensional objects often require artwork come to life.

Two high side position halogen spotlights.

• Color can significantly affect performance of art lighting. Visible light has a range of color temperature from cool to warm which refers to the temperature of the light (not of the bulb). In most cases choose lamping that gives an even balance or replicates the lighting conditions in which the art was likely created. Color temperature can be adjusted through lamp choice (cool fluorescent vs. warm incandescent), dimming (lowering the output warms the light), or color filters.

• Contrast is the difference in brightness or color between elements. The greater the contrast, the more readily our eyes differentiate between them.

Proper lighting improves vision by resolving images on the retina.

• Shadow can be deliberately used or avoided in art lighting. Highlighting and shadowing can effectively differentiate the various surfaces to enhance or

Artwork: Diane Gilbert, Celtic Dragon

define them. A raking light, one that comes from a sharp angle, is effective on dimensional pieces but a poor choice on very flat works.

• A luminance ratio is a comparison of the brightness of the lit object to the surrounding area. Too high a luminance ratio within the field of view makes vision difficult and/or uncomfortable. Too low a luminance ratio fails to enhance detail. In other words, the lighting needs of the rest of the room must be taken into account so the art is highlighted but remains part of the whole.

• Glare has to do with reflectivity. Two types of glare reduce lighting quality; disability glare and discomfort glare. Disability glare is light that masks an object, for instance, late afternoon sun through a west window reflected on photos under glass.

Disability glare is often transitory, only occurring at a certain time of day or a certain season. Discomfort

glare is an annoying or uncomfortable light source directly in the field of view. In some cases both can occur at the same time. Artwork with a very shiny surface or under glass will have glare, so the trick is to position the light in such a way that the glare is not at eye level. Sparkle is a type of glare that actually enhances viewing. A good example is lighting directed onto hand-blown glass where the brilliance bouncing off details animates the object.

• Illumination level is the last component of lighting design. Solutions to lighting art vary greatly from a bright atrium to a cozy library. The room's use, task areas, traffic patterns and color scheme all come into play. Most rooms also benefit from variable lighting that can be changed from daytime to nighttime and varied from a quiet evening at home to a house party.

2828 Devine Street : 803.799.7405 : hofpgallery.com

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701 Center for Contemporary Art: Coming to the Neighborhood Near You

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lueCross BlueShield of South Carolina wrote the weeks ago was the Bronx-based sculptor. You talked to her, check, and now the 701 Center for Contemporary Art told your friends about her, all excited, and immediately will open in October at Columbia’s 701 Whaley Street penciled in the date of her opening reception at the 701 in the surging Olympia neighborhood. The new kid on the Center for Contemporary Art. Columbia and South Carolina art block will provide curated Don’t get too excited, though. No one, whether from exhibitions and a competitive artist-in-residence program.

Pickens, S.C., or Berwick-on-Tweed, England, will be workIt’ll be similar to Charlotte’s ing alongside anyone for now. As McColl Center for Visual Art or it stands, non-profit 701 CCA the Atlanta Contemporary Art almost – well, almost almost — Center, albeit, at first, on a more has enough money for one single modest scale. live-work unit. One. In the cur701 CCA will occupy part of the rent plans, one unit will accom701 Whaley Street building’s secmodate five artist residencies ond floor, and the BlueCross annually, running consecutively check takes care of the first year’s rather than concurrently, like a rent on the center’s gallery space. bad prison sentence. And the cenThat is, BlueCross’ check and a ter, operated by volunteers for contribution from the developers, now, almost – well, almost almost Columbians Richard Burts and – has enough money to cover the Robert Lewis and California’s Bob cost of the first year of visual arts McConnell, who want their programming. building to become a magnet for mill people, milled cotton (detail), by Scotty Peek is That ‘almost almost enough creative types. The city of a community portrait of former Columbia Mill (cur- money’ still won’t cover 701 rent home of the SC State Museum) workers. For Columbia, meanwhile, has CCA’s other programs. It won’t 701 CCA's inaugural exhibition, Peek will create com- cover lectures, workshops, open committed funding to support munity portraits of former mill workers from the 701 CCA. studios, panel discussions, group Olympia neighborhood.

Depending on who else writes tours and other aspects of the checks, the center will in addition to the gallery have one, center’s education effort. Nor will it cover the music and two, three, four or five live-work units for its artist-in-residance performances, the literary presentations and media dence program. That program will bring contemporary arts programs 701 CCA will have in between and in conjuncartists from here, there and everywhere to Columbia. They tion with art exhibitions. Developing such cross-disciplinary will produce art, show art, engage the community and insert programming is a high priority. Read our mission statement: a bit of excitement into the local art scene.

“The center encourages interaction between the visual arts Imagine! and performing, literary and media arts.”

The young painter from Columbia and the video artist Are you reaching for your checkbook yet? We hope so, from Boise, Idaho, working alongside the veteran Chinese because 701 CCA still has to raise considerable cash. You mixed-media artist, the installation artist from the Bronx can send the check to 701 Center for Contemporary Art, and the sculptor from Rwanda, whose kinetic sculptures, P.O. Box 12822, Columbia, SC 29211-2822. Your gift is tax made partly of flattened bottle tops, leaves Columbia childeductible if you make out the check to the Columbia Music dren wide-eyed and the artsy-fartsy types in awe. And, yes, Festival Association, which kindly has agreed to be our temthat woman scavenging for old furniture, plastic ducks and porary fiscal agent until we complete the process for becombicycle parts in your neighborhood’s trash piles several ing an IRS-recognized non-profit. But make sure to write undefined : book three

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text : Wim Roefs

The Light Factory gallery installation of works by Phil Moody from his ongoing series of over 20 large scale photographs titled "Textile Towns." Works from this series will be featured in 701 CCA's inaugural exhibition.

“for 701 CCA� on the check. If you don’t care about the deduction, you can just make out the check to 701 CCA. Soon you’ll be seeing membership forms floating around Columbia and beyond. Soon you also can go to our website, www.701CCA.org. For a few dollars you can join the effort early, earning bragging rights – “I joined the minute I heard about it� – years from now. And if you want your own, your parents’, your company’s or your cat’s name on one of the live-work units or artist’s residencies, we can make that wish come true. Please give me a call at (803) 238-2351.

But back to the artist from Pickens, the one who won’t be working alongside the one from England. The good news is that the two will be showing together in 701 CCA’s inaugural exhibition. Ellen Kochansky, from Pickens, and Phil Moody, who lives on Rock Hill’s London Drive but hails from Berwick-onTweed, will be exhibiting with Columbia’s Scotty Peek and Rock Hill’s Elizabeth Melton when 701 CCA opens in October.

By then, Melton will have been the center’s first resident, for six weeks, creating one of her trademark installations of fabric and objects from textile mills.

Kochansky will show Mill Memory, a 24-part mixed-media assemblage commissioned by the Hub City Writers Project as the arts component of Textile Town, the Project’s book on its hometown, Spartanburg, S.C. Peek will create a series of drawings on raw canvas based on Olympia and its residents. Moody will exhibit large photo-based, text-infused, socially engaged but highly formal compositions about the textile industry. These works sometimes have a collage and quilt-like quality, and Moody will create a piece specifically about Olympia.

So the first show focuses on the legacy of the textile industry, mill workers and mill villages, including Olympia. Actually, 701 CCA’s entire inaugural year will maintain that focus. Kochansky will be back for a 12-week residency, leading to a solo installation show based on objects, photos and memories from Olympia residents. Moody will be back for a solo exhibition, too. And another

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Encounter Past Present (detail) by Beth Melton from TRIENNIAL 2004 is a sitespecific installation using stretch mesh fabric & antique wooden bobbins.

Melton will create a site-specific work for the center's inaugural exhibition.

artist’s residency and exhibition also will be rooted in the local community.

This focus honors the community where 701 CCA is located, as will at least one artist’s residency annually. The 701 Whaley building, completed in 1903 and in the process of a total overhaul, used to be the mill store of what was then the Pacific Mills community. Next it became the mill village’s community center – for a while even after the textile jobs were lost. Now the building and 701 CCA are at the heart of the neighborhood’s revitalization, providing an anchor for large residential developments across the street and a few blocks to the east, at Whaley and Assembly streets.

701 CCA also is part of the current residential, economic, academic and cultural push in Columbia. It will be central in Columbia’s development of a creative economy, including the University of South Carolina’s Innovista. 701 CCA will be a key player in boosting, energizing and diversifying the Columbia art scene and infrastructure. It complements the offerings of the Columbia Museum of Art, the South Carolina State Museum and USC’s McKissick Museum. This makes 701 CCA a crucial element in reshaping Columbia as a major cultural tourism destination.

In the process, 701 CCA will fill a statewide void. Does South Carolina have a contemporary art center with artist residencies geared toward professional artists at all career levels? No. Do other Southern states and urban centers have such a thing? Yes. Columbia, the capital city, and the state’s other major cities have not kept up with the South’s development of contemporary art centers. Charlotte’s McColl Center and the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center offer fine organizational models. Of course, they are funded much better than 701 CCA is right now.

Here’s our goal: that the 701 Center for Contemporary Art becomes a premier destination for contemporary art in the Southeast and the contemporary art destination in the area between Charlotte and Asheville, N.C., and Atlanta and Savannah, Ga. And, yes, you bet: We do believe our own PR.

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show

Living with the Enemy: The Exhibition

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“The support that is generated for SCCADVASA through he SC Coalition Against Domestic Violence & this incredible exhibit will allow us to more effectively Sexual Assault, proudly announces Living with the pursue our relentless work to change the pervasive and Enemy: The Exhibition by globally acclaimed phoserious levels of family violence in South Carolina,” said tojournalist Donna Ferrato at City Art Gallery in the Vicki Bourus, Executive Director. “We believe that this Vista. This exhibition will be central to a line-up of special powerful and emotive exhibition is sure to make a differevents planned by the organization to increase awareness ence in this state by raising awareness, educating, and and prevention of domestic abuse during Domestic encouraging citizens to take action.”

Violence Awareness Month 2008 The non-profit organization hopes this extraordinary SCCADVASA has also made special arrangements for exhibition will increase prevention, protection, shelter, Donna Ferrato, featured in publications such as LIFE, NY rehabilitation, and care Times, and TIME for domestic violence Magazines, to appear victims in SC through in person for the education and training.

Columbia debut of her Funds raised will be traveling exhibition. used to continue creatFerrato will be availing better environable to speak about her ments for victims, domestic abuse work at benefiting the many the sponsored events. member organizations Living with the Enemy: SCCADVASA supports The Exhibition will be organizations such as open to the public and Sistercare, SAFE on display at City Art Homes, and Sexual Gallery October 3rd Trauma Services of The thru October 11th, Midlands.

2008, in the historic Lisa & Garth: During the middle of the night, Garth cornered Lisa in their SCCADVASA repreVista, Columbia. bathroom, still hunting for his cocaine pipe.

“I’ve hidden it”, she said, sents all the domestic Living with the Enemy: The Exhibition “to save our marriage.” “You’re lying, you wanted it for yourself,” Garth violence programs and shouted. He grabbed one of Lisa’s fur coats and threatened to burn it. He rape crisis centers consists of 47 framed ransacked the bathroom searching frantically for the pipe. Suddenly he and captioned photo- hit Lisa. Garth raged and threw Lisa on the marble counter. Whey he final- in South Carolina, graphs that represent ly found the pipe, he smashed it. “I had my own all the time,” he said addresses the critical needs of victims and Ferrato’s harshly realis- smugly. “I just wanted to teach you a lesson.” survivors of domestic tic, photographic violence and sexual assault, supports domestic violence exploration into domestic violence issues: “the dark side and sexual assault member programs, provides education of family life” as she describes. and advocates social reform to help eradicate interpersonThis exceptional exhibition starkly documents many al violence in this state. horrors and tragedies surrounding domestic violence with the goal to “educate the public and to enable domestic violence organizations to raise badly needed funds,” For more information about SCCADVASA, or to become an Ferrato said. The 47 captioned pieces have so far traveled event sponsor, contact Rebecca Williams: 803.256.2900 or rwilliams@sccadvasa.org. to over 500 venues internationally, and SCCADVASA will proudly present Living with the Enemy: The Exhibition to The National Domestic Violence Hotline® Break the Silence, the Southern United States for the first time in October.

Make the Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) - 24hrs Toll-Free

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VerseWorks

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art – it’s spoken word,” she said. “You’re expressing yourself through your voice and your body movements. There’s more performance.”

The VerseWorks crew enjoys complete creative freedom at Art Bar, sans self-censorship and the worry of offending crowd members and peers. “It’s a free-speech venue and that’s very important to us,” Kendal Turner said. “Putting a stipulation on the processes is anti-what-we-do.” Turner (no alias) joined VerseWorks this year with some experience under her belt. “I was on the Columbia team last year, so this is my second year,” Turner said. “I don’t go by a stage name because everything I do is autobiographical, so I don’t really think it’s necessary.” Because performers aren’t limited in topic, theme, or language, the shell-shock sets in quickly as F-bombs fly and no sexual innuendo is too risqué.

On this particular Tuesday, performers spoke about everything from politics to love to rape to cunts and cramps (if the mention of “cunt” offends you, don’t plan on attending a slam). Joye Harmon, first-year VerseWorks member, delves into the female collective unconscious with performances of loaded feminist pieces. “I do a lot of feminist stuff,” Harmon said. “If you asked people on the Columbia scene they would say I’m known for the political

s night falls, cigarettes are lit and sacrificial poetblood washes over a stage, the VerseWorks poetry group awakens for a cathartic meeting of souls.

They are travelers, parents, men and women, black and white, unripe and seasoned: a veritable melting pot of Columbia’s finest wordsmiths. Chris McCormick, founder of the VerseWorks poetry series and slammaster of the VerseWorks team, stressed the importance of diversity within the spoken word community. “A lot of the arts scenes in Columbia are more mono-cultural,” he said.

VerseWorks currently meets every Tuesday at Art Bar at 8:30 p.m. and hosts open-mic nights, for local artists wishing to share their work, and a poetry-slam every third Tuesday of the month. Slams, created by Marc Smith in the ‘80s, are judged competitions that give poets the opportunity to vie with fellow artists in a welcoming and positive battle of words and wits. Judges are chosen from the audience and poets, who have three minutes to perform, are scored on a scale from 1 to 10. The rules state: “Props of any sort, including clothing/costumes and musical instruments, may not be used to emphasize the poem.”

VerseWorks member Melinda Oliver, a.k.a. MelO, hosts H2O’s open-mic on Wednesday nights and values the freedom of on-stage solitude. “Slam is definitely performance

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text: Jenny Reese

photography: Kasi Koshollek

artist

McCormick said. “We needed someone there who wasn’t interested in slam.” Enter: J.B. Frush-Marple, the Faulkner-esque, freestylin’ fixture of the VerseWorks crew.

Frush-Marple hosts the VerseWorks slams, and has been performing in Columbia since 1997. Frush-Marple, as the anti-slam member of VerseWorks, has a palpable aversion to the inevitable boundaries of slam poetry. “There are some formulas that tend to surface [in slam],” he said.

“The words ‘you see’ come up constantly. It drives me nuts.

It was cool the first, second, third, fourth and twentieth time.” Many academics also frown upon slam, claiming that the style is disgraceful to the classical canon and approach to poetry. “There is a divide between academic poetry and this kind,” McCormick said.

However, with these modern-day poetic styles knocking at the door of mainstream performance art, VerseWorks supports poets on both sides of the debate. “Everyone that walks through that door should have the opportunity to say whatever they want to and express themselves,” McCormick said.

feminist pieces.” Jason Spiro, another VerseWorks newcomer, spoke with passion about the evils of drug addiction and a cocaine habit with a moving on-stage performance ending with the whispered words, “I’m sorry.” Crowdfavorite, Tony Cromer, who performs as Jon Poets, recited an oh-so-sexy haiku about “threading the needle”…take a guess. “I’m hooked on haiku,” he said. The crowd hummed “mmmmmmm” with erotica. If you’re interested in a more “PG” poetry night, try what McCormick calls a “polite-speech venue” at Jammin’ Jazz Columbia on Thursdays.

McCormick, a.k.a. “Token Poet,” is well-versed in the Columbia poetry scene and made the move to Art Bar in 2007, with a new team to match his new venue. “I know a lot of people look down on the art scene in Columbia,” McCormick said. “Columbia actually has a very good scene for this stuff.” Like most Columbia art circles, the spoken word constituents keep a tight circle, but are surprisingly welcoming to what they call “the newbies.” VerseWorks members embrace open-mic performers with open arms of acceptance and curiosity. Stage virgins might even get snaps.

The flip side of slam is unfortunately blemished with criticism. “People are divided about the idea of slam,”

VerseWorks: (left to right) J.B. Frush-Marple, Melinda Oliver, Chris McCormick, Jason Spiro, Joye Harmon, Tony Cromer, Kendal Turner.

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The Corrections

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Such a small space and so many errors. But this is a learning experience so weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re just going to put the big ones here and really, really, try not to make any more....

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â&#x20AC;˘ The article in Book Two on Heidi Darr-Hope was written by Shayna Katzman.

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â&#x20AC;˘ Heather LaHaisesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; paintings are not featured in the book â&#x20AC;&#x153;Animal House Styleâ&#x20AC;?, the author, Julia Szabo wrote a NY Times article about Heather.

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â&#x20AC;˘ Heatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work is shown at No. 411, a gallery in Savannah. Her work was purchased by a designer for the 2008 Green House. This project was not associated with Julia Szabo.

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Please look for the complete calendar of events, with new interactive features, as well as subscription and distribution information on our website: www.beundefined.com

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Thank you for continuing to support undefined Magazine and your arts community.

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Mark Pointer, Publisher

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{consumptional*} art

Maison Champy Meursault | 2005 France | From the famed '05 vintage comes this amazing chardonnay from the meursault region of france! and whereas you normally have to fork over serious "dime" for an' 05 meursault, the folks from the "house" (maison) of champy have managed to keep this one mildly affordable at around the $50 mark per bottle. although that might seem a bit steep for an everyday wine, this elegant, lightly-oaked, citrus-apple-coconut-laced meursault will age for another 5-6 years if you need to hold it for an "extra special" occasion.

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opinion

Downright Womb-like

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band requires some history with your manager. Either you need to have made yourself somewhat indispensable through your work ethic or you and your manager are in a relationship (opposite sex works for most of us, but I’m not judging here). Obviously, the relationship is the more dangerous of these two options, but if it works out for you, then you are set…until it doesn’t work, then you are screwed.

So, good luck with that.

Alright, I’ve got a good one. Again, it’s for the reasonably reliable among you, but it can be ideal. It’s great for guitarists expecially…and it is…teaching private lessons. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a great experience teaching privately, but I know it’s not for everyone. It’s not as easy as you think, but it’s also not as difficult as you might fear. There’s organization required, so all you left-brained artists need to go buy a day-planner or a big calendar write down EVERYTHING and start developing a clientele (fancy word for people who pay you money).

Now, I say it’s especially easy for guitarists because in my experience, the ratio of kids who want to learn guitar to kids who want to learn drums is five to one. Bass guitar is tougher, but that’s as it should be. Bassists, good luck with the bar/waiter job.

A great piece of advice is to take some lessons yourself, not so much to improve your playing, but so you can steal teaching ideas from other teachers. It’s a practice in which I still participate, though if I know you’re stealing from me, I charge more.

Well, it’s hardly thorough, but I’ve given you some good ideas.

There are plenty of others. One of my good friends worked as a collections & repo agent, but he is physically imposing enough to make an impression and smooth-talking enough to distract his “customers” from the unpleasant nature of his job. I’ve another friend who works on a cruise ship for few months, fills suitcases with the cash he makes and then returns to the mainland to pursue his musical interests with less pressure to find part-time employment. It comes down to knowing yourself and what you’re willing to do and sometimes just doing whatever is necessary. If it were easy…you know the rest.

You’ll notice that my suggestions all require a certain amount of responsibility/accountability/organization. We all know musicians don’t have the best reputation among the various stations in life. Well, to all you worst examples of us that are propagating this negative stereotype, I say “thank you,” not only because I overachieved (in the eyes of my misinformed superiors) but also because you only make us reliable types look better.

ou live in Columbia or the surrounding area and want to start a band or maybe you’re in a band looking for gigs or perhaps you’ve been playing for a while, sometimes playing out of town. You are my brothers and sisters. Viva la musica! Good luck. Here’s your story…

Something unspeakable attracted you to rock music as a young child/teenager/college student. During your formative years, you put in the time learning to play the drums. It could have just as easily been the guitar or singing, but the drums fit your personality best; you are a supporter, a follower who knows how to keep others in line and even a disciple happy to convert anyone who will listen to sharing your opinion about the poet/singer/songwriter to whom you’ve hitched your metaphorical wagon. Oh…I digress…

Recently (last month, last year, whatever), you met some other people that share similar interests in music, but not enough to make your conversations boring. All of you are close in age, dress in the same way and either don’t have any immediate plans (or need) for gainful employment or are experiencing a crisis about the inevitability of the need for it (joining a band is a great distraction from responsibility).

Well…lucky you! You’re in as hospitable a place as exists anywhere in the country. Columbia is downright womb-like in its offering an environment in which bands can grow and live without having to busk on the streets or live in your rehearsal space.

It’s been said before how we’re centrally located; several popular “out of town” destinations are scattered around us: Atlanta, Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Greenville/Spartanburg, Charlotte, Augusta, etc. But what makes Columbia so ideal for musicians is the cost of living. You can easily get by on a part-time job (two maybe) and whatever meager profit (none) you get from being in a band.

I won’t bore you (too late?) with advice on how to survive on a musician’s wages (non-existent), but I will tell you that there are plenty of ways to pay the rent.

Besides the very reliable “temp” services out there (where you only have to compromise most of your dignity for your pittance), there are alternative options like…marionette puppetry. We actually have a pretty swanky marionette theater in Columbia that could be a great resource for musicians. The hours are reasonable and because you’re either on a scaffolding (out of sight, working those puppets) or in a gigantic costume (acting like a moron but, again, hidden), it’s no “button down with a tie,” clean-shaven or otherwise “uncool” affair. At least you’re participating in a creative activity. It’s perfect for the reasonably reliable, creative types out there. Give ‘em a call! Tell ‘em Tony sent you.

One of the more popular wage-earning occupations for musicians (and slackers in general) is working at a bar or restaurant.

I totally understand the attraction, but the hours involved (time of day) directly conflict with optimal band time. I’m not saying it can’t be done, because it can, but it’s tough. To successfully use this occupation for dough while trying to maintain a working

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text: Tony Lee photography: Brad Allen