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City Paper recently sat down with one of Columbia’s most progressive and buzz worthy artists, Michael Krajewski. His show “Fraught” opens September 3 at HoFP Gallery.

By Paul Blake

COLUMBIA CITY PAPER: Laura Brown’s Artist Basement is often credited for “discovering” you.  Do you wish the community embraced her private local gallery the way it supports a tax payer funded venture like 701 Gallery?  Needless to say, the community should support 701, but I thought I would pose the question to an artist who has had successful shows at both.

MICHAEL KRAJEWSKI: I think the Artist Basement was embraced by the community. We had many successful shows there. And, I see many familiar faces supporting 701.    701 is a whole different creature than Artists Basement. The renovation of that building is incredible and I think it is a huge boost for Olympia and the arts community. 701 Gallery has allowed me to do incredibly groundbreaking shows like the first live painting on a nude woman.

CCP: If you ever get thousands of dollars in grants or hospitality tax money, will you consider buying a $50 ad in [Columbia] City Paper? I mean, this is like your fourth interview in the past five years.

MK: I have painted news boxes for Columbia City Paper, one of which has been stolen from the corner of Main and Gervais. I haven’t seen any money from them.  …Don’t you guys owe me a couple hundred bucks?

CCP: Er, moving right along: I read that you have donated art for a variety of charities including Adopt a Pet and Sistercare, among others.  I assume you are a starving artist, so what inspires you to support these kinds of entities?

MK: Is this an investigative report or are we here to talk about my upcoming shows?

CCP: Word on the street is that you will be featured in the September issue of SKIRT magazine. I’m sure the ladies will be excited about that?

MK: Don’t get too excited ladies; I still have only one lady on my mind, although she recently moved away from Columbia.

CCP: [Mimics sound of cracking whip.]

MK: [Stares back silently. Not amused.]

CCP: …So tell me about your upcoming shows.

MK: I have a solo show at the HOFP Gallery on September 3rd. It will all be my newest works. There will also be a video installation done by Jason Stroud, starring Bonnie Boiter-Jolley. I will also be showing in November on Main St. for their First Thursday at F.O.M. [Frame of Mind].

CCP: It seems all the good people leave Columbia.  Does the fact that you are still around speak to the quality of your work?

MK: Well, you guys are still around.

talkback@columbiacitypaper.com

One of Columbia’s most widely known artists, Marcelo Novo, is moving to Washington, DC this fall. Columbia City Paper sat down with the painter to talk about his decision to leave and to reflect on the many years he spent in South Carolina.

CCP:  Why did you decide to move to Washington, DC?

NOVO: My wife got a job there and it is also a great opportunity for me to move into a bigger city.  The decision was very difficult as I spent 18 years in Columbia. I am very grateful for my friends and collectors and I will most certainly keep in touch with them. Living here so long, I will always have connections to Columbia. My art will continue to represent me here. For instance, on top of having works at if ART Gallery and in Goatfeathers, I will also have a group exhibition at the Columbia Museum of Art starting September 14.

CCP: Can you tell me more about this show?

NOVO: This is going to be a Latino group exhibition titled “Break.” The participating artists are all South Carolina resident Latino painters and our works will be shown on the second floor through October 31. I will be presenting a two dimensional mosaic-type piece from my “map” series.

CCP: What are you planning to do in DC in the beginning?

NOVO: My plan is to first find a gallery to represent me. Until then, I will be focusing on smaller pieces, color pencils. I also want to get involved in more public art projects.  And I already have a show scheduled as I arrive to DC. La Piola restaurant will display my works so the people living in the DC Metro area will get a glance into my work.

CCP: Tell me more about your plans to get involved in more public art projects.

NOVO:  I am planning on working on public art projects all over the nation.  What I love about public art is the easy access to art for people who do not necessarily go to museums or galleries. I like the fact that people go somewhere for a different reason and end up seeing art. It is a surprise. I also like art that would last for a long time. I have a work at MUSC and also a mural in Charlotte. I love the fact that art can affect people in a positive way. I am especially interested in creating public art in hospitals. For example, after I completed my triptych at the Carolina Medical Center-Mercy in Charlotte, a nurse walked to me and told me that she loved taking the elevator down to the mezzanine to see my work on the wall when she was having a hard day and wanted to cheer up.

CCP: So, in the end, do you have mixed feelings about your move?

NOVO: During my 18 years in Columbia many people asked me why I was not moving to a bigger city with my art. To be honest, I was hesitant and ended up not moving. If I do not go now, I will never know what could have happened to my carrier in DC. This will bring more challenges, but also more opportunities.

“Break! Artistas Latinos in South Carolina” will be on view in the David Wallace Robinson Jr. Community Gallery at the Columbia Museum of Art from September 14 – October 31.

By Judit trunkos

Art +Cayce is ready to open the new school year with graduating USC art student, Bri Kinard’s solo exhibition.

As a ceramic artist Kinard recently held her BFA show in the lobby of the Columbia Museum of Art. The exhibition consisted of ten large pieces made up of wooden structures with ceramic pieces hanging from them in front of what appeared to be slabs of thin stone.

Some of the pieces exhibited at Art + Cayce are from the Columbia Museum of Art show earlier this year.  Kinard’s work directly references often violent industrial objects and weapons. When paired with light organic pieces, the tools combine to create a beautiful yet tense duality between industrial and organic shapes.

The first impression of the large pieces is that they must have been alive once, but when studied closer, the viewer realizes that Kinard is playing with our senses. Walking around the gallery the viewer develops an “extra terrestrial” feeling about the artworks. Kinard’s hanging half-organic, half-artificial objects seem to want to come alive. Studying the pieces closer, the viewer discovers the details and the shades and colors of the pieces. Under the busy ceramics, unexpected objects such as an axe or a handgun can be seen under the glossy surfaces.

The Columbia native has always taken a unique approach to her art. “I’m still doing things you’re not supposed to do,” she says.

The exhibition can be viewed through August 31 with an opening reception on Thursday, August 12 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

By Judit Trunkos

City Art Gallery is proud to present Kathy Casey’s new solo exhibit entitled, “Hot . . . a passion for painting.” Gallery goers who have been faithfully visiting City Art for while will likely know Casey’s work very well. Her colorful new non-figurative pieces, dedicated to Harry Greenberg, can be seen through August 14.

Joe Cocker’s song “Summer in the City” would provide the perfect mood for this show. These spontaneous abstract pieces are flooded with warm colors; angles and lines melting jutting an intriguing texture that seem to radiate with both the unbearable heat of summer and Casey’s own observations of life in a hot urban city.

“The paintings that I love have a life of their own,” Casey says. “I have a quote by Jackson Pollock hanging on my studio wall: ‘Every good painter paints what he is’.”

Like most artists, Casey has changed and developed her style over years. The active lines and engrossing colors that fill Casey’s current canvases show a strong influence of abstract expressionism.

This exhibition features more rectangular shapes and less curves. Mostly inspired by the parallel lines and structure of a city, Casey depicts the smoldering buildings of summer. The straight lines of streets and skyscrapers painted in red, oranges and pinks producing the heat Casey desires to express.

Suggesting a subject for a canvas is not the same as actually having a clear title or an object in mind. In fact, Casey avoids objective painting; her inspiration comes from abstract ideas such as feelings and moods. To explain her approach in more depth, Casey says that “surface quality and texture are often inspired by the corrosion and dissipation I see in old buildings … cracked stucco, worn wood, the patina of rusting iron.”

Looking at the thick paint often shaped by a pallet knife one can’t help but wonder at the texture of the pieces.

“I search for beauty in the seemingly imperfect,” she says, “unearthing and embracing subtle details that beckon the viewer to linger and look more closely.”

By Will Moredock

And it still inspires us to be better people

They are still toasting and cheering in Monroeville, Ala., a week after the official observance  commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication of that quintessential Southern novel, “To Kill A Mockingbird.”

Nationally, the celebration has been going on for weeks, with stories in major magazines, including Smithsonian, Southern Living and a turn by fellow Pulitzer Prize-winner and Alabaman Rick Bragg in Reader’s Digest. At least one book, “Scout, Atticus and Boo,” by Mary McDonagh Murphy, was published this spring to observe the moment.

Author Harper Lee, 84, is in a retirement home today, but in fact she has been in retirement for decades. Known for her reclusiveness and eccentricity almost as much as for her book, Lee put in a few appearances in the weeks prior to the July 11 anniversary, but pretty much left the speaking and toasting to others.

And why not? How much more can be said about this wonderful little book? Forty million copies sold worldwide. Translated into 50 languages. Ranked as the best novel of the 20th century in a 1999 survey by the Library Journal. A 1991 survey by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Library of Congress Center for the Book found that “Mockingbird” was “most often cited as making a difference in people’s lives, second only to the Bible.”

Southerners love a good yarn more than any people since the ancient Greeks and “To Kill A Mockingbird” is a yarn for the ages. In a time of intense and often violent social change, it affected people as no speech or treatise could have. It is not a “civil rights” story, yet with its tale of racial violence and injustice, it allowed whites to sit in the comfort of their homes and book clubs and peer across the color line, to stare into the darker corners of the American psyche. What they saw there transformed many and, for some, awareness became political and social action. Even today  lawyers around the country say they were inspired to go into law by the courage and conviction of Atticus Finch, the attorney at the heart of the novel.

To those who require a refresher, the story takes place in Maycomb, Ala. –  a fictional town that looks a lot like Monroeville – in 1936. It is told by 6-year-old Scout Finch, whose father is appointed  to represent a black man accused of raping a white woman. The rage of the community is directed not just at the falsely accused man, Tom Robinson, but at the Finch family as well. Atticus is wise and strong throughout the crisis, never allowing himself to impart fear to his children. When he is vilified and threatened by an angry mob, even when Tom Robinson is wrongly convicted and later killed trying to escape from jail, he remains stoic. Only when his own children are threatened does he take action. Seen through the eyes of young Scout, the folly and injustice of adult society is clear, but never pedantic.

The novel won a Pulitzer Prize and huge sales and was spun into an Academy Award-winning film two years later, starring none other than Gregory Peck. Perhaps that is why “Mockingbird” remains Lee’s first and only book. After all, what could she have done to top it? Or perhaps, as some have suggested, she was too stunned by the years of celebrity and fawning to ever put pen to paper again. Whatever the reason, she became Monroeville’s silent sphinx, the famous spinster, living with her spinster sister in the prosaic little town in southern Alabama.

I was 10 years old when “Mockingbird” came out, but did not get around to reading it until college. I was ready for it then. I’m not sure I would have been in my slow and isolated South Carolina hometown — which also could have been a model for Maycomb.

For me it was the story of one man’s grace in the midst of anger and violence. No, he could not prevent the tragedy which overwhelmed his town. Or as Rick Bragg wrote, “…it would take more than one good Alabama man to make this sorry world all right.” But one suspects that those who witnessed his quiet strength would forever be changed. Certainly, he inspired millions who have met him on the pages of Harper Lee’s novel.

Reading “Mockingbird” did not inspire me to become an attorney, but it did play into my decision to go into journalism. I have always been awed by the power of words to move people – for good or for evil. I’m still looking for the right words to “make this sorry world all right.” But until they come to me, I will keep reading “To Kill A Mockingbird.”

See Will Moredock’s blog at www.charlestoncitypaper.com/blogs/thegoodfight.

After many years of planning and budgeting, USC decided to extend the current size of the Thomas Cooper Library (TCL) with a new wing and a home for the special collections. The new addition is called the Ernest F. Hollings Special Collection Library and it is near completion. The new building has three levels including reading and meeting rooms and a room for exhibitions.

The evolution of the TCL started in 1959 when construction on the original structure began. What many used to call the “biggest hole in Columbia” was the foundation of the Thomas Cooper Library. A portion of Davis Field, now the site of the Library’s reflecting pool, was originally used as a parade ground for occupying Federal troops after the Civil War and later as a baseball field.

“The Evolution of the Library” shows pictures from the official opening of the library in 1959 and from the entire construction process until the completion of the building in 1976. Designed by Edward Durell Stone and Lyles, Bissett, Carlisle & Wolff, the structure won the coveted First Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1963. In 1976 a large, partially underground addition was completed, transforming the building into the campus’s main library. It was named after Thomas Cooper, an Oxford educated British professor who joined the faculty of South Carolina College in 1819, teaching chemistry, mineralogy, and political economy and who later became the college’s second president.

Now, 50 years after the original library was erected, the new addition is almost ready to open. The new building is named after U.S. Senator Ernest F. Hollings, who served our state his whole life and who became known for his financial and trade expertise. The $18  million state-of-the-art building is located behind the TCL on Blossom Street and comprises 50,000 square feet. The Hollings Library will house TCL’s growing Rare Books and Special Collections and will provide the first permanent home for USC’s Political Collections. There is space available for teaching, exhibits, and public programs, as well as for offices, processing areas, and extensive stack space to house the collections. Special features include a large reading room with comfortable work areas for researchers and students, seminar rooms, a mini theater, exhibit galleries, a “treasure vault,” an auditorium for meetings or other events, a digitization center, and a room for audio-visual research.

To honor and remember the road that led the library here, TCL features a photo exhibition titled the “Evolution of the Library” through July 31.

By Judit Trunkos

The South Carolina State Museum is famous for educational and entertaining exhibits. This summer the museum surprises visitors with a sneak peek into the real life of pirates in the South. Exhibiting real artifacts as well as reproductions from the 17^th and 18^th Centuries, the engaging show illustrates the lives and times of buccaneers during the golden ages of piracy.

Notorious pirates and their stories were mostly known to be originated in the Caribbean; however, colonial South Carolina could not escape the stealing and blockades of the pirates either. Blackbeard was possibly the most famous who operated in the colonial South, attacking ships. Blackbeard and his crew even successfully blockaded Charleston, demanding medicine and supplies for his crew.

American colonies were home to many of these famous pirates and their crews. South Carolina with its great harbors, many rivers, and well-established trade, especially drew pirates from all areas.  Preying on merchant, private, and sometimes military vessels, the South Carolina pirates built fierce reputations and made fortunes on stolen treasure. The biggest port targeted by pirates was Charleston. Charles Town (today Charleston) was a major port city in a state that only rarely had a governor who welcomed pirates or their trade, although it was known that men of that sort mingled with the locals during or after their career.

To better relive the frightening and romantic times of piracy, the exhibit displays pirate weapons such as swords, pistols and muskets, a pirate ship’s bell, rigging hook, cannon balls, pewter plates, buckles, ballast stones, cannon aprons and small vials of gold dust. A concretion tank features mineralized artifacts as they would have appeared when found on the ocean’s floor.  See three hundred year old money plundered by pirates, including silver “pieces of eight,” gold doubloons, and Spanish reals (pronounced ray-ahls). Reproduction cannons from pirate ships give guests the feel of being on the deck of a pirate ship.

“Pirates, Privateers and Buccaneers” can be seen though September 19^th.

talkback@columbiacitypaper.com

^{By Judit Trunkos}

McMaster Gallery is currently hosting the 2010 Master’s in Fine Arts group exhibition. The exhibition, which features the best of the graduate school’s recent work, represents a variety of specializations from painting and printmaking to ceramics and sculpting. It is the culmination of a program that emphasizes the development of a sustained artistic practice through exploration, experimentation, and intensive studio work and study.

The most well known painter of this graduating group is probably Nick Oleszczuk, whose works have been exhibited throughout Columbia during his graduate studies. An abstract painter, Oleszczuk has been experimenting with the non-figurative genre throughout his career in Columbia.

Laura Van Camp has made a name for herself in the area of ceramics and sculpture. Her ceramics, including a feminine torso titled “Figure,” suggest a strong desire to discover the creative possibilities of human bodies. Van Camp uses a method of saggar firing, which protects the artwork from open flame, smoke, gases and kiln debris. Frieda Dean is a professional artist who is trained in a variety of mediums including painting, sculpture, watercolor, oil painting, sculptural masks, printmaking and lithography, however, at this exhibition, the viewers can see her abstract ceramic sculptures.  Dean’s earlier works borrowed more figurative images; however, today she mainly creates non-figurative bright colored abstract pieces. Dean is currently teaching painting and printmaking at the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta.

Chris Johnson mostly works with woodcut prints and etching. His rich and creative pieces are enchanting and rich in detail. Johnson’s work “Equine” is a good demonstration of the artist’s skill and attention to detail.

To view these artists and all of the wonderful works from the USC graduate students, visit the McMaster Gallery soon. McMaster is located at 1615 Senate Street, Columbia, SC.  Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9:00 – 4:30 (closed weekends and all University holidays). For more information contact: Mana Hewitt, Gallery Director, at (803) 777-7480

If ART Gallery’s new solo exhibition presents Ashlynn Browning’s abstract paintings. Browning’s work blends intense brushstrokes and layers that culminate in mixed media landscapes filled with emotion and spontaneity.

By Judit TrunkosIf ART Gallery’s new solo exhibition presents Ashlynn Browning’s abstract paintings. Browning’s work blends intense brushstrokes and layers that culminate in mixed media landscapes filled with emotion and spontaneity. Currently based in Raleigh, NC, Browning received a Master’s degree in painting and printmaking at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and recently partnered with if ART Gallery. Despite her young age, she is already the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and has exhibited at New York’s CUE Foundation and Lincoln Center. Browning’s current oil and acrylic works exhibited at if ART Gallery represent the newest direction her work has taken.  Grids and other fixed geometric shapes seem to slowly wither away while at the same time brave and bright brushstrokes scream of emotion and intensity. The artist searches for a balance of deliberate and spontaneous lines as she applies thick layers of paint and vivid lines.“I love to mix intuitive mark-making with somewhat more calculated areas,” Browning explains. “My goal is for the finished work to strike a balance of structure and accident, restraint and recklessness, deliberation and instinct. This is a balance that resonates with me as being ‘truthful’ and is also perhaps a parallel for my life philosophy.” Abstract expressionist painters often choose subjective terms or feelings as their subject matter, and Browning is no exception. The titles of her paintings vaguely point at the subject emotion –“Urgency,” “Organic Thoughts of You,” or “Our Brightest Days” — to help create a lingering mystery. “Time, memory, and desire are themes that crop up repeatedly in my work,” she says. “While my subject matter references both the figure and landscape, it always contains a prevailing sense of ambiguity. It is this feeling of mystery that intrigues me and propels me on to make new images.” Browning’s most recent works and can be seen through June 12 at iF ART Gallery, 1223 Lincoln Street. Call the gallery at (803) 255-0068 for more information.

By Judit Trunkos

Art + Cayce’s new exhibition features a dual show “Kidult – Being.” Two Taiwanese art students are visiting from the Tainan National University of the Arts. Chen Chih-Yu presents her show, “Kidult” and Lin Lung Chieh shows his ceramics as part of the “Being” installation. Both shows can be seen through May 27 at 1329 State Street in Cayce.
The dual exhibition demonstrates a unique and outstanding depiction of children by Chih-yu and a basic existential being by Lung Chieh. The ceramic sculptures are non-functional pieces, most of them installed on the wall or simply hanging on a wire to achieve the needed visual effects. Walking into the gallery, some viewers will undoubtedly be stunned by a tortured rabbit, whose body was torn into two pieces.  Going deeper in the rabbit hole, there is much more to discover.
Chih-Yu is inspired by more feminine objects and creatures such as cats, babies and children. In her work “Pillow Box,” she created an open ceramic box which is hanging on a wire, and painted many intertwining children’s faces and other imaginary objects resembling body parts, flowers and sea creatures. The fantastic drawings and paintings are reminiscent of the colors and styles of Japanese prints. The ceramic pieces lead viewers into a fantasyland, seemingly into the mind of the artist itself.
Lung-Chieh’s” Being” features more masculine pieces and darker colors. His works depict complex and complicated individual beings that are often not titled. The untitled works represent the essence of all, not just human beings, creating long and curvy horn-like creatures. The extent of Lung-Chieh’s fantasy and imagination almost crosses into a dream-like surrealist collection of work, in which the viewers will spend time trying to understand the intention of the artist.
The artists synchronized their work to the extent that both Chih-Yu and Lung-Chieh added mysterious black cutouts to their sculptures. The black shadow-like additions sometimes serve as an extension to the ceramics and sometimes as some sort of connection between pieces. While it is up to the viewers to figure out the role of the shadows, the experience provides a great intellectual game for art lovers.