End of an artwork - taking apart Jonathan Brilliant's sculpture at USC

Nude Tuesday! Arts forum report, pianist and composer on Boston radio, taking apart art

 

"Insouciance" by Pat Gilmartin. 

Gilmartin, of Columbia,will be one of 27 artists in a 

show at the S.C. Book Festival  Saturday and Sunday

at the Columbia Convention Center.

Talking about the arts

Lately we’ve been having a lot of meetings about the arts. A couple have been forums that have revolved around candidates for city of Columbia and Richland County offices, but a meeting Monday night was aimed more at those in and interested in the arts.
It was part of the S.C. Arts Commission getting input for its once-every-decade “Canvass of the People.”

Some good, interesting things got talked about, but first the bad news. About 30 people attended and 10 of those work at the Arts Commission; several people who spoke were only concerned with their own tiny portion of the art world; I spoke up several times.

The first big question tossed out by the moderator was “What’s working in the arts.”

Here are a few of the offerings:
The “healing arts” program in Kershaw County.
The impact of the arts on economic development in York County.
The good attendance at a local choral group’s concerts.
The Columbia City Ballet performing in Chicago (offered by the artistic director of the ballet company).

To the question the biggest challenge:
Providing more funding for programs about Native Americans (offered by someone who does such things)
Letting people know the difference between the restoration and conservation of artworks.
Getting churches to do arts programming. (Although I do like where the guy who talked about this was coming from it certainly doesn’t seem like big issue.)

It seems to me that one of the biggest challenges is getting people to look beyond their self interest.

I said (I told you I talked too much) that some of the things that are working are the Columbia Museum of Art doubling its membership and attendance in the last couple years, the way the 701 Center for Contemporary Art opened just as the economy tanked and hasn’t pulled back from its ambitions and how the S.C. Philharmonic has turned into a really good orchestra. Someone else gave props to the Southern Exposure new music series. Debra Smith, director of the Newberry Opera House which does all kinds of varied and quality programs, said that attendance and individual donations are going strong.

Everyone agree that getting enough money is a challenge.

Dancer and arts organizer Sherry Warren said getting organizations to work together and to coordinate events so they aren’t competing directly is an issue. (At the time the forum was going on there was an event taking place at the Center for Contemporary Art.)

“You have to change the political climate,” said artist Noree Boyd. “Everyone says ‘The arts are great and a tool for everything that cures everything, but we’re not going to fund it.’”.

Several people pointed out how difficult it is to get young people, especially teenagers, interested in the arts. Some of them, noted art conservator Craig Crawford, are discouraged from pursing an arts career because it is seen as impractical. Aaron Pelzek who is behind the fun “Playing After Dark” series, said even his group, which is aimed at younger people, has trouble reaching them. (My response: hormones. Also, I’m amazed at how many younger people do take part.)

I looked around the room and noted all the people who were missing – city council members, city administrators or anyone from the Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington Counties co-sponsor of the event. Lack of interest among those who should be interested – even for the wrong reasons – is the biggest challenge. And money. And an educated public that understands and appreciates art or least wants to.

Piano on the radio - at the big Boston station

Marina Lomazov, who teaches at USC, recently performed on a live broadcast from WGBH radio in Boston. She played pieces by Schubert, Chopin, and John Fitz Rogers, who also teaches at USC. She played Rogers' "Blue River Variations" which Rogers wrote for Lomazov. You can listen to the concert for a few more days at the WGBH website. Go to http://www.wgbh.org/995/index.cfm and scroll down a little and you should see it.

Unstacking sticks

Don't forget - you can go to the USC art department gallery today at 5 and help take down Jonathan Brilliant's coffee stirrer sculpture.  And if you haven't seen it yet better hurry on down.

Apology and credit
The very cool stacked television video installation at "What's Love" was made by Betsy Newman. Here it is again.

Art at the book festival

What’s coming up next weekend is called the South Carolina Book Festival. But I’m going to write about art. Art and the book festival.
Each year the festival, which is put on by the S.C. Humanities Council, uses an artwork on its promotional materials and posters. Usually this is a pre-existing artwork.
The artist this year, Claire Farrell of Columbia, did a painting specifically for the festival of a woman reading a book.  Actually she appears to be looking at picture in an art book. Still the painting captures the pure pleasure of sitting down and relaxing with a book.
 “They called after the last festival and asked me,” said Farrell, “and I really wanted to do something of someone reading.”
Just a few blocks from the festival at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center, Farrell has a solo exhibition. The show at City Art Gallery, at Lincoln and Lady streets, opens with a reception Thursday night from 6 to 8 and remains up through March 27.
Best known for her landscape paintings, Farrell’s show of about 40 paintings and monotypes about equally divided between figurative and landscape. (One work actually consists of about 16 small portraits displayed as a group so the individual count is about 55.) This show will have more figurative works than just about any she has done.
 “To be perfectly honest the galleries find figurative work harder to sell,” she said.
But Wendy Wells, an owner of City Art, decided on the figure-heavy show.
“I’m really excited about it,” Ferrell said.
One doesn’t even have to leave the convention center to see an art show. The festival has put together its first in-house art show. Among the 27 artists are Farrell, David and Ellen Yaghjin, Mike Williams, Pat Callahan and Christian Thee of Columbia, Tarleton Blackwell of Manning, Phil Garrett of Greenville and Edward Wimberly of St. Matthews.
The art show is a way to reach across disciplines and appeal to a wider range of people, said Paula Watkins, festival director and assistant director of the Humanities Council.
The festival also has an arts panel this year, somewhat tied to recent art books. Lynn Robertson, director of the McKissick Museum at USC, moderates the panel that includes Harriett Green, visual arts coordinator of the S.C. Arts Commission, Todd Herman, chief curator of the Columbia Museum of Art, and George Stewart, a photographer. That’s Saturday at 10.
A musical ties in is also part of the festival. Reverend Floyd Knowlin and the choir of the Lighthouse of Jesus Christ will perform during the 4:30 Saturday session with authors Stanley Lanzano and Charles Joyner. Lanzano is author of True Places: A Lowcountry Preacher, His Church, and His People a photographic documentary of the lives of Knowlin and his congregation. Joyner will be at the festival in conjunction with publication of the 25th anniversary of his ground-breaking book Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community. Blues singer Drink Small plays Sunday at 4
One person who will be missing from the festival is Rick Bragg, who was to be keynote speaker. He canceled every this week due to an illness. It appears that only today was a replacement found. That’s John Hart of North Carolina and author of The King of Lie, Down River and most recently The Last Child.
The festival, 9 – 5:30 Saturday and 11:30 – 5 Sunday, has all kinds of panel discussions, book signing and other events. Go to the festival website at http://www.scbookfestival.org/index.php?c=home

Forum provides plenty of ideas for the arts

A few nights ago a few dozen people gathered at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art to talk about the arts in Columbia. 

The floor was open to anyone 9the title of the event was “What I Want The City of Columbia to Do For the Art Is ….”), but it turned in a question and answer session with the candidates for city of Columbia and Richland County offices. And that turned out to be pretty good. Certainly much better than the candidates forum on the arts at the Columbia Museum of Art a couple weeks back.
Here are some of the things everyone talked about and a few of my own thoughts.
•    The candidates, and a few others, complained that the city hospitality tax isn’t used for what it’s supposed to be used for: creating and promoting things that get people to buy food and drinks. The money, several said, had been siphoned away for other uses.
•    Council member Belinda Gergel, who is not up for re-election,  asked all the candidates to say if they’d support continuing the 2-cent hospitality. They all more or less said yes, although candidate for mayor Aaron Johnson said he didn’t believe the hospitality tax provided stable enough funding. Mayoral candidate Joe Azar said later that some of that money really needs to go to fund public transportation.
•    The idea of an “arts czar” who would work for the city came up. Several people objected to the very notion. Kirkman Finley,(top) a council member running for mayor, noted that the city had what amounted to an arts czar with Dot Ryall, former head of the Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington Counties. And, he said, that was a disaster. The arts groups would be better served if the city provided funding for infrastructure rather than operating expenses and then got out of the way.
•    Mayoral candidate Steve Morrison (right) questioned the role of the Culture Council as it raises less and less money and is unable to provide basic advisory services to arts organizations. “It’s not functioning,” Morrison said. “If it’s not working let’s look at setting that aside.” (No Cultural Council board members or staff attended the meeting. Also missing were all the museums, theaters, dance companies and the arts at USC. )
•    Aaron Johnson suggested that the city have an art services office to promote the arts and assist arts groups and artists.
•    Several people brought up areas that would be good areas for artists: abandoned big box stores, the Tapps building on Main Street, the former State Hospital on Bull Street and Olympia. It was also suggested that empty buildings on Main Street be used by artists, but that’s been tried unsuccessfully because owners don’t want the liability. The importance of arts in redevelopment, as happened in the Congaree Vista 20 years ago,  were stressed.
    “Artists are like earthworms,” Azar said. “They go through the soil and make it     fertile again.”
•    Anne Sinclair, a former council member, said she’s always felt that the city should have a center where art classes could be taught possibly with a shop where artists could sell their work. (Surprisingly none of those in the commercial gallery ownes objected. And the city actually already has an arts center where classes are taught.)
•    She also wishes the city had more public art.
    “You go to other cities and they have art on every corner,” she said.
    The city through the Cultural Council has tried to do this and ended up with a lot     of second-rate art because the shortcuts were taken in the vetting process.)
•    The need for a couple of smaller performance centers, one seating about 1,500 and 500, came up.
•    County Council candidate Scott Winburn talked about his wife’s knitting shop.
•    Mayoral candidate and presumed front-runner Steve Benjamin did not attend.
•    Gergel said the city council has not sat down talked about the arts and she’ll push to make that happen.
(City council candidate Kevin Fisher sent me an email saying he said some really good things and that I should note who cared enough about the arts to show up and who did not.)
(Fisher sent me another email saying I should have said he was laughing then he said the first and was serious when he said the last.)

Weekend arts: not as crazy as the last one, but still some goodies

 

Theater piece uses old stories to tap into today's truths

Most of us know at least some stories from “One Thousand and One Nights” – "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp", "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor." Those stories had been kicking around from India to Egypt for thousands of years when they were first collected and published in Persia (centered in today’s Iraq and Iran) around 1300. They came west mainly through 19th and 20th century English translations.

Playwright, theater and opera director, Tony Award winner and MacArthur “genius” grant winner Mary Zimmerman wrote her play version “Arabian Nights” during the 1992 U.S. invasion of Iraq.  The play, which hews closely to original stories, has won accolades nearly everywhere it has been performed. The Chicago Tribune last year called it “Zimmerman’s most theatrically complete and perfect creation.”

The play, being produced by Theatre USC starting Friday, tells some of the lesser-known stories from “One Thousand and One Nights.” It starts with King Shahryar preparing to kill his latest bride Scheherazade, as he does often. She starts telling stories which come to life on stage and keep her alive. The play includes erotic, comic and satiric tales, stories about love and justice and one about a man some forced into exile because of his excessive flatulence. These stories often contain other stories and the play comes apart like a set of nesting dolls.

 The USC production is being directed by Mary Boyce Holtcamp, a visiting artist who has directed several USC Lab Theatre shows and others at the Culture Project and Soho Rep in New York.

Although it is not overtly political, it doesn't complete ignore the recent wars in Iraq. Holtcamp notes that the loss of many Persian literary treasures during the Mongol invasion in 1250 has its modern parallels.

“The story reminded me that in my own lifetime (in 2004, in fact, during the chaos of the U.S. invasion of Iraq), the National Library of Baghdad was also bombed and looted,” Holtcamp said. “Priceless artifacts from the Ottoman Empire were lost and much of the collection was damaged or destroyed.  In the years that followed, Iraqi citizens attempted to reopen the library.  They were met first with threats from the insurgents and two library workers were kidnapped.  One was killed, the other tortured and sent back to the library with the message: ‘Do not reopen this library.’  The library had become a target, but the library workers did not abandon the place.  It is an open, public library today. “

Appropriately the director has set the play in a burned out library.

“The ruined library where real people work to preserve their nation’s culture in the midst of violence seemed the perfect setting for this play,” Holtcamp said. “It presents a world where books, stories and tales are important: important enough to kill for and important enough to die for.”  

Oh and those really popular stories about Ali Baba, the genie and Sinbad: they weren’t part of the original Arabic collection, but were added by European writers.
“Arabian Nights” runs through Feb. 28 at Longstreet Theatre, located at Sumter and Greene streets. Call (803) 777-2551.
From top: Top cast members in the USC production, a 14th century book of the tales from Syria, and a 19th century illustration from the book.

Thursday, Feb. 18
The low end
A concert of solo bass might sound like a kind of low concert – unless you’ve experienced one. Jason Ajemian dances up and down the four strings in a solo performance tonight at 8.  Ajemian’s music has been called "intoxicating, impressive and innovative" and his newest recording, “The Art of Dying,” dubbed “a brilliant document.”
The concert is at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art, 701 Whaley St. $5 for non-members and $4 for center members. (803) 238-2351.

Expression and the common object
Like a lot of artists Josh Drews makes his living by teaching, in his case at spring Valley High School which is where he went to school. Drews’ first solo exhibition, composed of about 16 monotype prints, opens tonight at Compass 5 Partners.
Drews often uses common objects as the central iconic figure surrounding them with expressive marks. As the name implies, a monotype print is a one-of-a-kind print. The artist will give a talk about his work and the process during an opening for the show tonight from 6 to 8. Through March 18. 1329 State St., Cayce.  (803) 765-0838.

Off the Wall and off to Chicago
The Columbia City Ballet gives “Off The Wall and Onto the Stage: Dancing the Art of Jonathan Green,” a send off before taking it to Chicago.
The ballet, based on colorful, narrative and often nostalgic paintings by South Carolina native Green, is usually done in large halls. Tonight and Friday the dancing is in the Drayton Hall Theatre at USC which means not all the giant scrim images of the paintings will be used, but it will not be a bare-bones production either.
The ballet by company director William Starrett was premiered in 2005 and got a lot of attention. My bottom line on it was and is this: the first act is four times better than I thought it would be and the second ten times worse than I could have imagined.
Admission is $20 for the 7:30 shows. (803) 799-7505.

Friday, Feb. 19
Dancing to “Africa”
“Off the Wall” isn’t the only black roots dance this weekend. DANCEWORDZ premieres its theatrical-poetic-ballet “Africa” at 8 tonight and Saturday at the CMFA Art Space, 914 Pulaski St. Tickets, $15,  www.dancewordz.com

Two art shows – one place
 “Anna Redwine: Frauenau” and “Laura Spong: Renovations” both open tonight at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios. Both artists live in Columbia.
Redwine’s show of paintings were created during a one-week stay in Frauenau, Germany, in 2004. The pieces blend washes of color, jagged marks and some representational elements. (right)
Spong’s abstract paintings are connected to a recent renovation of her home.
An opening reception takes place from 5 to 9 tonight and can be seen through March 2. The gallery is at 808 Lady St. (803) 238-2351.

Jazz down the hall
If you're going to see the Spong and Redwine shows, stroll down the hall to hear jazz pianist Jangeun Bae at the Blue Martini. The Korean musician is playing in a trio setting tonight and 9 p.m. It’s free.  (803) 256-2442.

Falling to pieces again
Country singer Patsy Cline never died – at least not at Town Theatre.  “Always … Patsy Cline” is back for third time  once again with Shannon Willis Scruggs as Cline and Kathy Hartzog as her friend Louise. The show by South Carolina native Ted Swindley is based on a true story of the friendship.
The show opens tonight and runs through March 6. For tickets, $20, call (803) 799-2510 or go to www.towntheatre.com

Sunday, Feb. 21
The chemistry of dance and color
The new S.C. Contemporary Dance company unveils a new work inspired by the artist Alvin Loving’s “Midtown” series of jazzy painted cutouts that are part of “The Chemistry of Color” at the Columbia Museum of Art. The piece was choreographed by company director Miriam Barbosa, with original music by John Valerio of the USC music school.
The piece will be done at 3 p.m. today and Feb. 28 at the museum. Admission is $10 or $8 for museum members. http://ColumbiaMuseum.org or (803) 799-2810.

Musical giants turn 200
Retired USC professor John Kenneth Adams will be back on the piano for "Piano Portrait: Ruins and Eagles' Feathers" focusing on the music of Robert Schumann and Frederic Chopin. This is the 200th anniversary of the births of the two giants of the piano. "Piano Portrait" is composed of the music  along with commentary and visuals. 3 p.m. at the USC School of Music. (803) 777-4280.

Monday, Feb. 22
Speak up
You had a chance to speak out on the arts last week at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art. Hang onto those ideas and share them at the S.C. Art Commission’s “Canvas of the People” taking place at the Columbia Museum of Art from 6:45 to 8. Call (803) 734-8696.

Olympia goes on sale today
Well, not the mill village itself, but artworks based upon it.
These works are part of what has been a terrific show at the 701 Center for Contemporary Art by Gwylène Gallimard and Jean-Marie Mauclet of Charleston. Everything must go starting at 7:30 p.m., but you should go see the exhibition while it is still intact.
701 Whaley St. (803) 238-2351.

Tuesday, Feb. 23

Stick up take down

Everyone is invited to help take down Jonathan Brilliant's coffee stirrer sculpture at the USC art department gallery at 5 p.m. If you can keep it together you can carry a chunk of it off. The department is at Senate and Pickens.

Wednesday, Feb. 24
Columbia native back to read
Columbia native Percival Everett gives a reading and talk at the Richland County Public Library at 6 p.m. A professor at the other USC – the University of Southern California – he is the author of Wounded (2005), Erasure (2001),  American Desert (2004) and I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009). The event is free and the library is at 1431 Assembly St. (803) 799-9084.

"Nude Tuesday!" Sex talk. Classical music.

Since it is “Nude Tuesday!”  this seems the appropriate time to recap the “What’s Love” event that took place Saturday night. It's an event mostly aimed at being a fun, but with all the talk that goes on around it and the large number of people who attend, it's hard to understand why it can't be good and fun.

I’ve found past “What’s Loves” rather tame and not very good. This year’s (held at 701 Whaley  which is not the 701 Center for Contemporary Art) sounded as if it might push things a bit in terms of erotic content and quality.

No such luck.

Most art in the show was not particularly well executed or erotic. Nudes do not make for an erotic art show. The performances I saw (I missed some) were vaguely funny and again not what one would call edgy. As the night worn on a band played, but why the band didn’t play songs with strong love and lust themes just the vagueness of this entire undertaking.

This year the organizers brought in quite a few people selling things – mostly jewelry and various gewgaws few of which had anything to do with the theme.

Among the artworks that stood out was Billy Guess’ installation of doors which offered a little peek show through the keyholes. Leslie Pierce once again came up with a truly weird and wacky installation based on some sweet images from magazines of fey naked young men. Michael Kwejewski showed prints where the printing plate was a vagina. (top) Not terribly interesting to look at, but give him points for audacity.

The most erotic thing about the show was the people there. I speak mostly of the women who attended wearing, or barely wearing, some really wonderful, revealing outfits.

In many ways “What’s Love” is just a new wrapping on an old and unattractive part of the art world: social or “society” event masquerading as an art event. In the old days, the ladies showed off their ball gowns and furs – now it's butts and boobs. I’d rather see the latter two, but my desires don’t change the equation.

The event was to end at midnight, but everything kind of started petering out an hour before. “They should have to throw people out at 2 a.m.,” I shouted at a dancing friend over the din of the band.

“They got all charged up and are at home shagging,” she shouted back.

Good point. I was at home in bed by 1. Alone. Brushing my teeth  I noticed I had a lot of lipstick on my face.  


A stellar concert from the Philharmonic

Before heading to “What’s Love” I was listening to the S.C. Philharmonic. As orchestra concerts go this one in advance sounded pretty tame. It would start with the familiar and often overexposed “Romeo and Juliet” Overture by Tchaikovsky, move on to the Piano Concerto in D Major for the Left Hand by Maurice Ravel and wind up with Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3.

I’m a big fan of contemporary music and while the Ravel and Rachmaninoff are both from the 1930s they still fit into what most people would consider more traditional classical music. Because it didn’t cater to my particular tastes, that made it all the more wonderful that this was one of the best S.C. Philharmonic concerts I’ve ever heard.

Most people know the “Romeo and Juliet” overture even if they don’t “know” it because the music has been used so often in so many ways. The orchestra breathed new life into it and made it sound fresh.

The Ravel was played by Sean Yeh, the 17-year-old winner of last year’s Southeastern Piano Festival competition here. The composer wrote the piece for Paul Wittgenstein, an Austrian who lost his right arm in World War I.  (He was brother of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.) If Yeh plays this well with one hand – well who knows where he’ll go using both.

The Rachmaninoff got a rotten reception when it was premiered in 1936 – just too many unexpected twists and turns for the traditional twits of the time. That of course is what makes it a memorable work and especially when it is played as well as it was Saturday night – and this after a rehearsal cut short because of the white stuff.

The Philharmonic concert was titled “From Russia With Love” didn’t strike me as all that romantic, but then again I didn’t have a date.

Old music with old art

Sunday morning I watched the snow melt while listening to pop music -  something I don’t do that often. There was the romantic side of socialist Billy Bragg singing “She’s Got a New Spell” and “Sexuality” (“I’ve had relations, with women of many nations/I’ve made passes, at women of all classes”); the original version of “Tainted Love” by Gloria Jones; “Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House (“Now I'm walking again to the beat of a drum/And I'm counting the steps to the door of your heart.”); and Leo Kottke: “I said that I’d come back to stay, she laughed at what I said.”

The afternoon held a concert of 17th and 18th century music played on lute and violin d’amore (of love or of the Moors depending on who you believe) at the Columbia Museum of Art.

The violin d’amore looks a viola you might have picked up in the big and tall section of the music store, but the first thing you notice is that it has 14 turning pegs instead of the four you’d find on a violin or viola. Seven strings are bowed and the other seven vibrate.  Joining those bowing strings was a lute player and it was all taking place in a gallery full of art from the time the music was created and the viola d’amore was a popular instrument.

A well-attended and lovely concert. But no lipstick.

An amazing journey through the long tradition of Lowcountry basketry

In the early fall, I was driving from the Francis Marion National Forest down toward Charleston on Highway 17. It had been a while since I’d been down the road and I was appalled. The sprawl of shopping centers and developments stretches nearly all the way to Awendaw.

My dismay at this rapid and ugly development has to be dwarfed by that which must be felt by the basketmaking communities and the basketmakers who have lived and sold their work along the highway for almost 100 years. It’s a bit ironic since the paving of the highway in the 1920s and the tourist traffic it brought was what helped keep the basketmaking tradition, that goes back to the first African slaves brought ashore at Sullivan’s Island, alive.

You can learn about the pressures development puts on the basketsmakers, the history and technique of the craft and its roots in the extraordinary “Grass Roots: African Origins of American Art” at USC’s McKissick Museum.

The exhibition, which is touring the nation with stops at the Smithsonian Institute and the Museum for African Arts, draw heavily upon the McKissick collection of baskets. The museum began collecting them in the 1970s and in 1986 mounted the show “Row Upon Row.” That exhibition was curated by Dale Rosengarten who is also curator of “Grass Roots.”

The exhibition is about equally divided among baskets makes from Mount Pleasant down to St. Helena Island and from many parts of Africa. The research never uncovered a direct link between one place in Africa and the baskets of South Carolina, but it follows the many possible links. One of the major links was rice cultivation. It was a big crop in African and became one in South Carolina making rice plantation owners some of the richest people in the world. Of course they made it through the sweat of slaves. The exhibition does address the issue of slavery with reproductions of ads for slave sales as well as the early 20th century nostalgia white expressed for those lost times that were so good for them without every addressing how horrible they were for blacks. (This is particularly pointed in the watercolors of Alice Ravenel Huger Smith; she was not too long ago held up as a someone who created lovely romantic images, but has more recently become poster girl for the brutal racism of the region.)

Most of the South Carolina baskets in the show were made during the 20th century, sold largely to the tourist trade. They’re practical sorts of things – a place to toss keys and change, maybe serve as a bread tray or sewing baskets although some are modeled on the large shallow “fanners” used to separate rice kernels from the husk. (That’s a method still used in many third-world countries.)

The baskets are made mostly of golden green sweetgrass with contrasting details in deep red-brown pine needles. Some incorporate heavier rush reeds which were the dominant material pre-tourism. In the distant past men were the basketmakers, but in the early 20th century basketmaking became the craft of women although more and more men have returned to it.

The African works (also included are wooden sculptures used in harvest ceremonies) are much more colorful and in recent year the basketmakers there even started using brightly colored wires in their work.

Few really old baskets exist – they were worn out or rotted. This exhibition though has two very old recently discovered baskets: one from around 1850 and another thought to be nearly 100 years older than that. Both are dark and noble with age and solidity.

One of the best parts of the show is several videos.
In one Leroy Browne St. talks about making baskets at the Penn Center on St. Helena Island; the baskets were part of the early 20th century movement to use traditional crafts to create jobs in rural areas. Others show basketmakers working or hanging their wares on the stands that still dot Highway 17. Many of the basketmakers talk about the difficulty of continuing the craft – especially how hard it is to find grass. When traditional harvesting areas like Seabrook and Kiawah islands were developed into gated communities baskermakers were no longer welcome. (That’s changing a bit.)

The major problem with the exhibition is that the McKissick Museum simply does not have enough space or the right space to display “Grass Roots” properly. It is broken up into two wings of the museum’s second floor as well as into a couple of side rooms which makes it disjointed and confusing. 

 

Although the text panels in the exhibition are extensive, they barely graze the surface of the subject. A catalog published in conjunction with the exhibition contains extensive, in-depth, but accessible essays by Rosengarten and her husband historian Ted Rosengarten, co-curator Enid Schildkrout of the Museum for African Art, one on rice cultivation and “Plantation Painting as Progaganda” by John Michael Vlach. Anyone who sees the show should take along

$35 for the book.

“Grass Roots” continues through May 9. Call (803) 777-7251 or go to http://www.cas.sc.edu/mcks/