Jeffrey Day not Jeffery Day

If you see paintings of old buildings, marshes and magnolias and think I did them you are wrong. There is an artist by the name of Jeffery Day who lives in Gilbert.
Over the years a few people have said "Oh I saw that you had a painting at such and so" and I've responded "No you didn't. "
Tonight two people mentioned something about "my" art. Again, wrong guy. Weird though isn't it?

Workshop story in Free Times

I almost forgot to tell you that my story about Workshop Theatre is on the cover of Free Times this week. The story looks at the theater's journey to getting a new home, search for an executive director and moving its school. Although it is a little more complicated than that.
http://www.free-times.com

Three old white guys, Haydn death day, drums and violins, a play about a man with no head - for starters

This week’s format is slightly different because things going on during the next several days are better organized by connections rather than dates. To make life easier (for all of us, because even through I write this stuff I also use it to keep track of what’s going on) here’s a highlight list. The bigger stuff is expounded upon below that.

Thursday, Oct. 15
Poet Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate, and a guy who most of us would like to have a drink with, will give a reading at 6 p.m. at the USC Business School Auditorium.
How can you pass up a reading by a poet who wrote a book called The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems? It’s free. Call (803) 777-3142.

Opening reception for “Paintings and Drawings of the Last 20 Years” by Alex Powers of Myrtle Beach. City Art Gallery, 6 – 8 p.m. 1224 Lincoln St. (803) 252-1830.

A panel discussion in conjunction with the exhibition “Ceramics: Southeast” at the USC art department with artists Don Davis, Scott Meyer and Gay Smith moderated by USC professor Virginia Scotchie. At 4 p.m. followed by a reception from 5 to 7. Senate and Pickens Streets. Call (803) 777-4236.

The annual production of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” starts at 8 tonight at the West Columbia riverfront park amphitheater. Through Oct. 31. $12 and $10 for kids. http://headlesshorsemanriver.com/

Friday, Oct. 16
Philip Morsberger ("Blithe Spirit #2" pictured) and David Yaghjian exhibitions open at Gallery 80808. Reception 5 – 9. 808 Lady St. (803) 238-2351

Eleanor Heartney, curator of “The State Art Collection: Contemporary Conversations,” gives a talk at 6 p.m. at 701 Center for Contemporary Art. “The Biennial Paradox” is the talk title and for those who keep up with the every two-year gnashing of teeth in contemporary art circles, this will make sense. For others, come and find out. You can see the exhibition too. Free. 701 Whaley St. (803) 779-4571. (See Monday for another Heartney talk.)

"Hunchback of Notre Dame" by the Columbia Classical Ballet, Oct. 16 at 9:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Koger Center. (803) 251-2222 or http://www.capitoltickets.com/

Saturday, Oct. 17
S.C. Philharmonic, 7:30 p.m. Koger Center. (Same ticket contacts as for “Hunchback.)

Monday, Oct. 19
Art Today - Tales of Plastic Surgery, Genetically Altered Rabbits, and Other Acts of Art a discussion about contemporary art, followed by a book signing by curator Eleanor Heartney. 6 p.m. 701 Center for Contemporary Art. (See Friday's list for details.)

Tuesday, Oct. 20
USC Symphony, 7:30 p.m. Koger Center. (Same ticket contacts as for the S.C. Phil.)

Wednesday, Oct. 21
The literary series "Caught in the Creative Act" starts with a visit from novelist and poet Ron Rash. The native of Chester Springs, S.C. is the author of the novels Saints at the River, The World Made Straight and Serena. 5:45 p.m. Gambrell Auditorium, USC. Free. Limited seating. Go to http://www.cas.sc.edu/cica/

"Tap Dogs,” a dancing musical, making a tour stop at the Koger Center. 7:30 p.m. Same ticket contacts as for the USC Symphony.

Art shows by three old white guys

I mean that in the best possible way.
The three are Alex Powers, Philip Morseberger and David Yaghjian. (That's Yaghjian's "Back Bend" is at the top of the page and at 60, he isn’t really old.)

The art scene is often about the young and the reckless, but all these artists provide an insight and approach only discovered during decades of making art and living life.

The three are technically quite accomplished, use the human figure in their art and have a lot to say. All take
an introspective look at the human condition, all of it kind of personal, but also universal.

I am a little biased in their favor because I’ve written about and have sort of known all of them for quite a few years. Being a middle-aged white guy, their art also speaks to many of my own concerns. And I really like their art.
We’re lucky to have three artists with overlapping interests and approaches all showing at once.

Alex Powers has long been a presence in the Palmetto State. Many people know him for his work as a teacher, leading watercolor workshops all over. He's also won tons of awards in national watercolor society shows and been featured in various watercolor-oriented magazines and books.

But, and this is a big but, Powers paintings, if they can be called that, hardly seem to fit into what one could called the watercolor world of art.

“Paintings and Drawings of the Last 20 Years” showcases about 20 large works on paper, most with a lot of drawing in charcoal, some watercolor washes, text (which can sometimes be read clearly, sometimes not) and introspective statements with each work.

(Pictured above is a detail of "I've Always Been Disappointed" and "Absolute Truth," left)

Powers, 69, often addresses social and political issues in his work and the movement and sketchy nature of his figures does as much to telling the story as the text. Well-known historical figures, Charles Darwin and Frederick Nietzche for example, sometimes appear in his work, but mostly the people who occupy his art are more likely to be the proverbial “everymman." His bent is decidedly liberal. Written across the top of one piece is “The richest 20 percent of American households claimed 91 percent of the increase in wealth between 1983 and 1998.”

And for those who may not want that much political content, he also does art about baseball.

The gallery has created a handsome installation for the show, putting up white wood panels on the brick walls and mounting the drawings simply beneath Plexiglas. It flows like a book.
The exhibition remains on display until Oct. 31. City Art, 1224 Lincoln St. (803) 252-3613

Philip Morsberger of Augusta and David Yaghjian of Columbia will share the space at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in exhibitions by if Art Gallery. The show opens Friday from 5 to 9.

“Time Travelers” is Morsberger’s first exhibition in Columbia. It' composed of recent work, but when you look at the dates you'll see that he worked on some of these paintings for a decade or more.

Morsberger landed in our neighborhood when he became Williams S. Morris Eminent Scholar in Art at Augusta State University in the 1990s, after stints teaching at Harvard and Dartmoth and as Ruskin Master of Drawing at Oxford University from 1971 to 1984.

During the 1960s his paintings often addressed the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement.

So this might sound like a darn serious artist and he is that. But a good deal of his figurative work is in fact derived from cartoon images. They have a joyful character to them, but sometimes there’s a dark undercurrent. Morsberger, 76, himself is warm and friendly and I have a great photo of him wearing a Tin Tin T-shirt. (Pictured is his "Tick Tock." The show will also have some of his abstract paintings.)

I hadn't talked to Morsberger in about a year and when I called him the other day, I asked if he was painting as much as usual.

"Only seven days a week," he said.

The title of Yaghjian’s show “Dancing Man” is a little ironic. The "everyman" (that guy again) in these artworks does dance, but does so with a sort of grim determination and look of puzzlement at times.

They remind me a little of the writings in James Thurber’s book The Middle Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, especially since Yaghjian has done a painting of a middle-aged man on the flying trapeze.

Yaghjian’s technical chops just keep getting better too and he's developing some new approachs as can be seen in "Floating." (above right)
A native of Columbia, Yaghjian studied at Amherst College, the Art Students League and the School of Visual Art. He lived in the Northeast and was in Atlanta for 15 years before returning to Columbia in 2000. “Dancing Man” is his first solo exhibition here since then.

An opening reception for the shows takes place Friday, Oct. 16 from 5 to 9. The shows remains up through Oct. 27.

USC musicians in spotlight on the big stage

USC music school faculty members share the spotlight with Columbia orchestras this week.
Bassoonist Peter Kolkay plays Wolfgang Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto in B-Flat Major with the S.C. Philharmonic Saturday night. Written in 1774 when the composer was only 18, the bassoon concerto was his first piece for wind instrument and the only one that’s survived. It’s also quite popular.

Kolkay, who joined the USC music school in 2006 and principal bassoonist with the Philharmonic, was the first bassoonist to win the top prize in the Concert Artists Guild International Competition and the Avery Fisher Career Grant. He was in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's program for young musicians and has performed at the chamber music series of the Spoleto Festival USA.

The orchestra will also play two works by Franz Joseph Haydn – “Te deum for the Empress Maria Therese,” with the Columbia Choral Society and Coker College Singers and the Symphony No. 94 in G major.

This year is the 200th anniversary of Haydn's death so he's getting a lot of attention. He was not only a long-lived and prolific composer, he greatly advanced the symphony and string quartet forms - his music is the very definition of "classical." He was a mentor to both Mozart and Beethoven and apparently a nice guy as well.

“Te Deum” was completed in 1800 in honor of Marie Therese, the wife of Austria’s Holy Roman Emperor Francis II.

And yes, I double-checked that Symphony No. 94 – The number is correct. He wrote 104 as well as 68 string quartets. This from 1791 work is one of his 12 “London symphonies” written while he was living in England. The “Surprise” is because of a sudden fortissimo chord during the opening theme of the quiet second movement. That's a bit of a misnomer since Haydn’s music contained frequent surprises.

The orchestra will also play “Perpetuum mobile” a complex polka by Johann Strauss Jr. and H.K. Gruber’s comic deconstruction of it “Charivari.” Music director Morihiko Nakahara seems to think the later will drive everyone slightly mad.

The whole concert is launched by Antonio Salieri’s Overture to ‘Cublai, gran kan’ de Tartari.”

Actually the whole night starts with beer and brats. For $10, guests can load up on sausage with sauerkraut, peppers and onions, German potato salad, dessert and a beer. Humm, I’ll make not comment about the extra brass this might add to the concert.

Eating starts at 6 and you should buy an advance ticket for it by calling (803) 254-PHIL.

Nakahara will give a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m. No doubt with his mouth full.

Tickets for the 7:30 concert range in price from $12 to $42 and are available by going to www.capitoltickets.com or calling (803) 251-2222.

Scott Herringis on the USC Music School faculty and a member of the Shiraz Trio, a percussion group that will perform “The Glory and the Grandeur,” a 1988 composition by Russell Peck with the USC Symphony Orchestra Tuesday.

“This is the first time we have played this piece, and the first time we have appeared as a group with the orchestra,” said Herring, pictured in the center of the group. "The piece is very audience friendly and visually captivating, blending elements of traditional percussion ensemble with an orchestra accompaniment that is decidedly influenced by popular music and jazz. The group plays two xylophones, vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, crotales, several Chinese opera gongs, multiple tom-toms, bass drums, snare drums, cymbals, and a variety of small hand percussion instruments. At times, two of us will be playing on one vibraphone and all three of us on one marimba!”

The other two members of the trio are Susan Powell, director of percussion studies at Ohio State University and Joseph Krygier, who is also with Ohio State.

That night, you can also hear Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1887 'Capriccio Espagnol," which also features a large percussion section and, as the title suggests, Spanish melodies.

Last, but not least is Alexander Borodin’s (left) Symphony No. 2, completed in 1876, and his most important large-scale work. It took him about eight years to write – after all, his full time job was as a chemistry professor. Some people are just really, really smart.

Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. concert are $25 and available through the same sources as the S.C. Philharmonic.

The world comes to Sumter
I’ll have to admit I’ve been a little out of the loop on Sumter’s annual installation art show “Accessibility” during the past few years. This year’s event, opening Friday, Oct. 16 from 6 to 9, sounds really terrific.
“Accessibility 2009: Cross Currents” focuses on film, video and new media from artists coming to Sumter from Taiwan, Israel, Buenos Aires, New York California and Manitoba, Canada.
A quick run down of some of the artists and art:
Jarod Charzewski’s art examines landscapes and people, man-made structures among nature. He’s done two large-scale pieces working with the people of Sumter.
Yaron Lapid is an Israeli artist who lives in London. “The New Zero plays on the photography and history.
Clint Enns of Winnipeg has created a movie from film footage found in thrift shops.
Blu is a graffiti artist and muralist from Bologna, Italy.
Robert Fraher’s “No Horse In Particular” combines photography, digital illustration, interactivity, and custom software development.
“OM” by Jen-Kuang Chang’s is an audiovisual piece, which explores the universal sacred syllable used in Eastern religions.
Magsamen & Hillerbrand is a collaborative team, creating video installations.
“The Ambient Medium” by Bill Domonkos is created of manipulated film footage, special effects and animation inspired by 19th century spirit photography.
For information call (803) 775-0543 or go to http://www.accessibilitysumter.com/access_2009.html

Nude Tuesday!

"Hill Series," 2009, by David Yaghjian of Columbia. This is one of the paintings that will be in Yaghjian's exhibition "Dancing Man" opening Friday, Oct. 16 at Gallery 80808 by if Art Gallery.

The mystery of Main Street

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for 11 years for something to happen to Main Street.

That’s when the Columbia Museum of Art opened there, but instead of putting a push to revitalize the street, the city of Columbia spent the next eight or so years making it worse mostly by ripping up the street. Last year the city got around to fixing the busted-up sidewalk in front of the museum. And what did they do then? Put a big, ugly gray metal electrical box on the corner of the block where one enters the museum plaza. I'm assuming they also store city planners' brains there.
OK, I'm already off track.

The other night I was on Main Street where Frame of Mind has been generating a little bit of action during the past year or so, with its little art shows. In conjunction with the latest show, the shop (it’s actually an eyeglass store) blocked off a few parking spaces for performances– a little theater, a dance, a music. A relatively undressed belly dancer has a traffic-calming effect. Things segued over to Gotham Bagel where a jazz band was playing. With all those windows in Gotham – the old Kress store - and tables on the sidewalk, it was pretty inviting.

All that got me thinking about the Vista in its infancy when artists often moved into empty buildings and did shows, usually very cool short-term installations. (With all the empty new and old buildings, some right in the center of Gervais Street, in the Vista that could still be done.)

Matt Kennell, director of the City Center Partnership said doing something like that on Main Street has been discussed. The problem, which didn’t surprise me, was the liability. But he did say someone is working on it and it might transpire by the winter.

At Gotham I ran into a woman (whose name escapes me) who was talking about doing some art things in the windows of both occupied and empty buildings on Main Street. Back over at Frame of Mind, I found artist Marcelo Novo, who has done several installation pieces, and we talked about it the possibilities on Main.

There was an installation project on Main Street a few years ago, but it was spread out, not very well-planned, mostly inaccessible and poorly attended. (It did get a lot of attention because city workers thought one of the installations was trash and swept it up and threw it away.)

That project might have been a little before its time, Kennell said.


Still mulling this over a day later I strolled down Main counting the empty buildings. None of those empty places bother me much. For almost 20 years I’ve strolled along the street looking at them and thinking about the potential.

What did bother me was what was happening on the plaza in front of the museum; you know, the mostly empty plaza with the big gray electrical box on the corner? The Main Street Marketplace, run by City Center Partnership, was taking place. If you need a plastic belt or a toy you could have bought at the dollar store or a cell phone charger you’ve come to the right place. In the front yard of the art museum.

So if art is going to make its way into the windows of buildings and maybe into empty buildings, it need to be quality art by appropriate artists and organized by professionals. Or it will end up like this market - filled with junk.

How about setting up a group that includes some of the high-powered and art savvy business leaders on Main Street who have a serious interest in art (and there are quite a few), some artists and a couple of curators or other art professionals to look into it. Otherwise empty buildings – like any empty plaza – would be better.

Another big weekend

Mad good trumpet madness

This is kind of weird, but these two trumpet concerts Saturday night are not connected other than by instrument.
The Carmine Caruso International Solo Trumpet Competition takes place in Saturday and master classes and playoffs take place during the day. All that is open to the public.
If that sounds little too insider for you the closing concert is anything but.
Get a load of this lineup:
Brian Lynch, top right, won a Grammy Award for the 2007 recording “The Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Recording Project – Simpatico.” Lynch was the trumpeter in the last edition of Art Blakley’s Jazz Messengers and is a regular with the Phil Woods Quintet and Palmieri's Afro-Caribbean Jazz. He leads the ongoing Spheres of Influence group which recently did a Chamber Music America “New Works” series.
Terell Stafford, right, has been in large and small bands led by
Benny Golson and McCoy Tyner, the Jimmy Heath and the Jon Faddis.
Sean Jones, director of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, boasts time with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
Vince DiMartino played in the Lionel Hampton, Chuck Mangione and Clark Terry bands.
I don't know all that much about jazz, so the names of the players at the concert didn't mean all that much until I began researching them a bit. And even if I don't consider myself a jazz fan I know a lot of the names, place and reputations on these cats' resumes.
This may well be the most under-reported and overlooked event that's taken place here in a long time. (I'd also put Al Frankin's visit here a two years ago on that list and I'd put my next-to-last-entry below, writer Richard Dawkins' talk, on that list.)
The five finalists in the competition will also play.
You don’t get this sort of concert often – and it’s free at the Koger Center at 7:30 p.m.
http://trumpet.music.sc.edu/Caruso/index.html

Competing directly against this will be trumpeter Jacob Wick a young player of new and improvised music making a mark all over. He really is doing it all over with his “Road Trip: Drawing a Perimeter of the United States.”
The trip stops in Columbia at 8:30 p.m. at if Art Gallery, 1223 Lincoln St. $5.

Thursday, Oct. 8

Art on Main Street
Wow you can really have a busy time today Look, those folks up there are worn out already.
Not really.
That's Wideman/Davis Dance and they're part
of an extravaganza on Main Street.

If you’ve taken in any of the art shows at Frame of Mind on Main Street you know it’s a small place. Tonight it will host Alicia Leeke's show of landscape-inspired paintings and short performances by Wideman/Davis Dance, the NiA theater group, a sampling of the re-vamped “Dracula” by the Columbia City Ballet and belly dancer Natalie Brown.
If that sounds a little cramped don't worry because most of it will be taking place in front of Frame of Mind, something the place has experimented with before.

When Frame of Mind, a high-end eyeglass shop, opened in late 2007 owner Mark Plessinger knew he wanted to do something with art in the space, but wasn't sure what. A few months later he and Alicia Leeke (they already knew one another) started talking and she did the first art show there in April 2008.

The show openings have gotten good buzz and a good turnout of 100 or so people. The quality of the art has varied greatly as have sales.

The shop has been branching out onto the sidewalk during the past two months and trying to drum up a little more nighttime activity on the street. That's been helped by because Frame of mind in now sandwiched between the White Mule and Gotham Bagel, which serve music and food and often stay open after dark. Both will have music going on tonight.

Both Plessinger and Leeke are interested in breaking down the barriers between various art forms so this dance, theater, art deal seemed right to them. The big goal is to have a regular First Thursday Night event every month on Main Street.
The event runs from 6 to 8:30. 1520 Main St. (803) 988-1065.















A powerful artist
“Alex Powers: Paintings and Drawings of the Last 20 Years” takes a close look at an important, but too often overlooked South Carolina artist.

The exhibition at City Art Gallery opening today shows Powers’ sketchy, intuitive, but still intellectual, way with the human figure. In these works he also often explores social issues sometimes incorporating text.

But none of what he shows the viewer is obvious in the words chosen, lines drawn or washes laid down.

What some people might find odd is that the Myrtle Beach artist is best known to many for his teaching watercolor workshops around the country. He’s also done well in the many national watercolor exhibitions, but his art is likely to blow away any preconceptions you might have about watercolors.

An opening reception for the show takes place from 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 15. (So don’t come up to me tonight and tell me you went to the gallery and it wasn’t open so I must have had the wrong date here.) The show runs through Oct. 31.
City Art, 1224 Lincoln St. (803) 252-3613













Abstract painting from the road
Suzy Scarborough doesn’t show much in Columbia although she lives here.
The artist spends much of the year on the road pulling an Airstream trailer and showing her paintings at high-end art shows around the country. She has won top awards at many of those shows as well as selling a lot of art.

A solo exhibition of her newest, mostly abstract paintings at Compass 5 Partners opens with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. It remains on display at Compass 5, 1329 State St., Cayce, through Nov. 5. (803) 765-0838.

How funny - I think
Trustus Theater is offering two short plays by Paul Rudnick, author of “I Hate Hamlet,” “Jeffrey” and “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told” in an evening sure to offend or amuse everyone. Or maybe offend and amuse.

“Mr. Charles, Currently of Palm Beach” is set on the public access cable television show of Mr. Charles. The name of the show? “Too Gay.” "Mr. Charles” is partnered, so to speak, with “Pride and Joy” in which a stereotypical Jewish mother talks about her kids - the lesbian Leslie, transsexual and lesbian Ronnie, and the baby David who is into leather and poop.
Gerald Floyd stars in the first and Dianne Wilkins in the latter.

The shows continue through Oct. 17 in the Trustus black box theater. T(803) 254-9732.

Poe west of the river and south of the border

The Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens opens its new El Jardin, a Latin American garden, with a reading of works by that famous Latin American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Well nothing's perfect. The reading is part of Columbia's "Stark Raven Mad" celebration of 200th anniversary of Poe's birth. Several Latino writers will give voice to Poe's works that use images from nature.The event starts at 6 p.m.

For information on this and other Stark Raven events, such as the Edgar Allan Poe Canadian Wheat Harvest Festival, go to http://neabigread.org/communities/?community_id=1980

Friday, Oct. 9

Art and the Word
Columbia artist Jason Amick is doing his own sort of illustrated Bible, drawing visual ideas from Old and New Testament stories. One painting looks at the near-sacrifice of Issac by his father Abraham. (left)
Amick has a solo show of these paintings, etchings and monotype prints opening today from 5 to 9 at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios and running through Oct. 12.
Call (803) 629-3827 or go to www.jasonamick.com.

See some theater
Yes, looks like a slow Friday, but you can see plays at Trustus and Town Theatre tonight too.
And the NiA theater company is doing something called "Whisper....The Movies" at the future home of the Nickelodeon Theatre on Main Street. It's either a play about movies or a movie about a play. Quit talking and share that popcorn. 8 p.m. tonight and Saturday.

Saturday, Oct. 10

Opera or BBQ Opera or BBQ?
The first live broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, Puccini’s “Tosca,” can be seen on the big (movie) screen at 1 p.m. Not surprising, this is an opera full of tragedy. More surprising is when this new production debuted a few weeks ago most of the audience booed. It’s supposed to be quite a mess.
You can see for yourself at Sandhill Cinemas. Or you could wait for “Aida” Oct. 24; “Turandot,” Nov. 7; or “Les Contes d’Hoffman,” Dec. 19.
(800) 638-6737 or to to http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/

Two high forms of art – barbecue and well, art – are two ingredients of the Fall Heritage Festival at the S.C. State Museum. Among the 20 artists showing work and doing demonstrations are potters, basket makers and wood carvers.
You won’t have to eat and look without some sounds provided by several country and bluegrass bands. I'ts unlikely any of them will be picking tunes from "Tosca," but you never can tell.
The event runs from 10 to 5 p.m. in front of the museum and in the lobby which means it is free. 301 Gervais St. (803) 898-4921.

Monday, Oct. 12

Dark anniversary of a ground-breaking play
In October 1998 a young man was left hanging on a fence beside a road outside Laramie, Wyo. The court determined that Matthew Shepard was tortured and left for dead because he was homosexual.
The murder motivated a group of theater artists to interview hundreds of Laramie residents and study news reports about the crime. That material was turned into the play “The Laramie Project” first performed in 2000.
“The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later” takes a look back at what has happened to the people in the original play and the nation’s outlook on homosexuality. The play is having staged readings at about 100 theaters today –the tenth anniversary of Shepard’s death. In Columbia it will be done at USC’s Longstreet Theatre at 8 p.m. Admission is free.

Tuesday, Oct. 13

Two in tune
Opus Two, violinist William Terwilliger and pianist Andrew Cooperstock, are an excellent duo that plays here only occasionally, although Terwilliger lives here and teaches at USC. So don’t miss the group’s concert tonight at 5 p.m.

They’ll perform Beethoven's Sonata in G major, Grieg's
Sonata in C minor, Haydn's Concerto in F Major for Violin,
Piano, and Chamber Orchestra, and Andre Previn's “Tango, Song and Dance.” The free concert is at the USC School of Music.


Falling writers
The Fall Festival of Authors isn’t a huge event, but the lineup is good.

Masha Hamilton, author of four novels, including this year’s 31 Hours, starts the series tonight. The book is about a young man who has recently converted to Islam and drawn into a terrorism network.

Hamilton has also worked extensively as a journalist and founded several literacy programs including the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, also started early this year. Her other books include The Camel Bookmobile and Staircase of A Thousand Steps. She’ll be at the Currell College auditorium at 6 p.m.

The other festival writers are the delightful former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, Oct. 15, and our resident of all things poetry, USC professor Kwame Dawes, Oct. 20. www.sc.edu/library/fallfestival.html or call (803) 777-3142.

The most important writer in town today though is Richard Dawkins - not only a noted, but famous evolutionary biologist and outspoken atheist. And he's a darn good writer.
He's the author of ground-breaking books including The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion and his brand new tome The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.
He'll be at the Carolina Coliseum at 7:30. It's free.
www.pastafariansatusc.org


Not (all) your usual ceramics
"Ceramics: Southeast" examines traditional pottery to non-traditional sculptural forms made by artists from the region. The show opens today at the USC art department gallery and runs through Nov. 19.

Among the 13 artists in the show are Alice Ballard, Russell Biles, Jim Connell, Paula Smith, Mike Vatalaro, all of South Carolina.
Pictured is Biles' "Screwed: Bernard Maddoff.

The department is located at Senate and Pickens streets. Call (803) 777-4236. Check out the online catalog at http://web.mac.com/mcmastergallery/McMaster_Gallery/Ceramics_Southeast.html


Wednesday, Oct. 14
Larry Clark: Tulsa - says it all

Let’s wrap up the week on a down-beat, but high note.
“Larry Clark: Tulsa” is a series of grim images the photographer took during the ‘60s of the down and out, drifting young people of the Oklahoma city.
Clark is an important documentarian – one who often has no distance from his subjects - of lives many people don’t see and don’t want to see. The pictures provide a sharp contrast to the peace-and-love-loving hippie kids and the American-dream suburbanites and their even more upwardly-mobile offspring.
Most of the people in the Tulsa images were Clark’s friends engaged in aimless drug use, violence and sex. He captured their and his destructive ways on and off between 1963 and 1970.
The show consists of about 20 black and white photos drawn from a 50-work portfolio in the museum collection.
The show opens today at the Columbia Museum of Art, Main and Hampton streets. (803) 799-2810.

Nude Tuesday!

"Venus de Milo" by Alex Powers. The Myrtle Beach artist is subject of a 20-year retrospective opening at the City Art Gallery Thursday.