Posts from December 8-9, 2006 until January 30, 2007

Tuesday January 30, 2007

Tapestry in Blue by Susan Lenz featured at Mac's on Main Tapestry in Blue, a grouping of twenty-four mixed media portraits of early female Blues singers by Susan Lenz, will be on display at Mac's on Main, a popular jazz club and restaurant in downtown Columbia. The artwork will hang throughout February in honor of Black History Month. Chef Fatback, pictured with the artwork, requested this exhibit during last November's Vista Lights event. Artist Susan Lenz is happy to share the series with a new group of music fans. Mac's on Main is located at 1710 North main Street. For more information: (803) 929-0037 or www.macsjazznblues.com

Sunday January 21, 2007

WINTER EXHIBITION: Chesley, Williams, Wimberly, Yaghjian Oil on panel by Stephen Chesley The annual WINTER EXHIBITION featuring Stephen Chesley, Mike, Williams, Edward Wimberly, and David Yaghjian is an art event often described as "not to be missed". The show open in Gallery 80808 at Vista Studios, 808 Lady Street, on Friday, January 26 and runs through February 6. Weekend hours are 1 - 5 PM. Weekday hours are 10 AM to 5 PM. The opening reception will be on Friday, January 26 from 5 - 10 PM. For additional information, call (803)252-6134 or (803)206-9600. Oil on panel by Stephen Chesley The following is the artists' press release: Friday, January 26, 2007, will mark the opening of the fifth annual Winter Exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios featuring South Carolina artists Stephen Chesley, Mike Williams, Edward Wimberly, and David Yaghjian. This annual exhibit has become a New Year’s tradition for these artists to present a unique and diverse mixture of outstanding new paintings and drawings for collectors and art lovers to enjoy or purchase. During the opening reception and throughout both weekends that the show will be open, the artists will be available to discuss the artwork. David Yaghhjian's "Back Flip" David Yaghjian's "Snake Handling"

Monday January 8, 2007

Vista Studio artist Susan Lenz with Janet Kozachek at I. Pinckney Simons Gallery Vista Studio artist Susan Lenz is participating in a two woman show with Orangeburg artist Janet Kozachek in I. Pinckney Simons Gallery, 1012 Gervais Street from January 5 through 31. The exhibit is called "Stones, Bones, Fibers: Excavating Civilizations of the Mind". The gallery hours are Tues. thru Fri. from 11 AM until 5 PM and on Sat. from 11 AM until 3 PM. The artists reception is scheduled on Thursday, Jan. 18 from 5:30 until 8:30 PM. This is a grouping of collaborative work done by the artists. Susan Lenz created a unique installation called "The Archeology Project". Viewers are encouraged to sort through the collection of imaginative "artifacts" and altered books. Also part of Lenz's "Archeology Project" are one hundred-twenty-five wrapped nuts and bolts and spools with decorative hand stitching and collaged images. The artists team-wrote the following article to accompany their work: “STONES, BONES, AND FIBERS: EXCAVATING CIVILIZATIONS OF THE MIND” A two-person exhibition of mixed media works by Janet Kozachek and Susan Lenz opens January 5, 2007 at the Pinckney Simons Gallery, 1012 Gervais Street in downtown Columbia. The exhibition features individual and collaborative art through January 31. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, January 18 from 5:30 to 8:30 PM. Collaborations can yield amazing and often serendipitous results. When artists dare to relinquish what two hundred years or so years of history has considered sacred, they step across traditional boundaries. By letting go of ego, identity, and property, Kozachek and Lenz have torn down old ways of working and traveled into each other’s creative space. An article in the May 2005 issue of Carolina Arts brought the artists together. The article detailed Kozachek’s art and work processes for an exhibition of mosaics and companion oil paintings reminiscent of archaeological sites. The concepts resonated with fiber artist, Susan Lenz. Both artists are intrigued by cultural mystery, fragments of civilization, and their artistic identity within the scope of history. Both artists find a parallel between ancient ruins and the chaos of accumulation in their own studios. The first collaborations resulted when Lenz’s small fiber fragments were positioned on Kozachek’s unfinished paintings. The blend of color and texture effectively completed the work. The two artists described their experience as “finding the missing puzzle piece in one another’s studio”. They had tapped into the Jungian “Collective Unconscious,” that morass of signs, symbols and archetypes that lie at the foundations of all civilizations. They also had to relinquish individual artistic control and develop a link to a greater creative unity. The second collaborations tested their trust in one another’s unconscious choices. Kozachek and Lenz challenged each other to create artwork using artifacts salvaged from one another’s studios. The results are both startling and amusing. They were taking the Dada practice of “ready made” art even further by using found objects that were found for the artist rather than by the artist. Ironically, even within the confines of these limitations, the identities of the assembling artists shine through. In addition to their collaborative artwork, Kozachek and Lenz are also displaying individual pieces that explore their joint interests in history, archeology, and cultural remains. The exhibit strives to create a narrative where there was once merely an amalgam of facts.

Friday December 29, 2006

GROUP 07 at Upstairs Artspace in Tryon, NC Upstairs Artspace opens GROUP 07 with a "Rock Around the Clock" New Year's Eve Reception on Sunday, December 31, 2006 from 6 to 9 PM. The show will run through February 24, 2007, Tues. thur Sat. from 11 AM until 5 PM. Vista Studio artist LAURA SPONG is among the artist's presented. Others include: Andrew Blanchard, Edward Evans, Celia Gray, Gay Groomes, Mana Hewitt, Hanna Jubran, Ralph Paquin, Kathryn Rileigh, Fern Samuels, Paula Smith, Dustin Spagnola, Ann Stoddard, Kathryn Temple, Scott Upton, and Paul Yanko. Upstairs Artspace is located at 49 South Trade Street in the heart of Tryon, NC. From Interstate 26, use Exit 67 (Columbus), turn west on Highway 108 to Tryon and go about 4 miles. From additional information: (828) 859-2828 and www.upstairsartspace.org.

Monday December 4, 2006

CONSTRUCTION CREW II: Dec 8 - 19, 2006

if ART, International Fine Art Services presents at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios 808 Lady St., Columbia, S.C. C o n s t r u c t i o n C r e w II: MATT OVEREND VIRGINIA SCOTCHIE CHRISTINE TEDESCO PAUL YANKO Dec. 8 – 19, 2006 Artists’ Reception: Friday, Dec. 8, 5 – 10 p.m. Opening Hours: Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Sundays, 1 – 5 p.m. Weekdays, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. and by appointment For more information, contact Wim Roefs at if ART: (803) 238-2351 – wroefs@sc.rr.com For its holiday exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in Columbia, S.C., if ART, International Fine Art Services of Columbia presents Construction Crew II, a group exhibition with work by South Carolina artists Matt Overend, Virginia Scotchie, Christine Tedesco and Paul Yanko. Like the first if ART Construction Crew exhibition in December 2005, the show consists of two-dimensional and three-dimensional art that has strong constructional or architectural characteristics. The exhibition opens Friday, Dec. 8, with a reception from 5:00 –10:00 p.m. and runs through Dec. 19. Opening hours are weekdays, 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m., Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., and Sundays 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. Overend, Scotchie, Tedesco and Yanko are represented by if ART Gallery, 1223 Lincoln St., (803) 238-2351, where additional works of art by all four artists will be on view. Overend will show paintings of buildings and architectural structures, a new direction in his art. Scotchie will show her well-known abstracted, ceramic sculptures and objects. Textile artist Tedesco will show colorful quilts and textile pieces of different sizes, typically with abstract, geometric patterns and compositions. Yanko offers colorful, abstract paintings often with a heavily built-up surface. Matt Overend (b. 1950) is a native of Las Vegas who grew up in Atlanta and has lived in Smoaks, S.C., since 1981. He was with Janet Orselli in an if ART exhibition in March 2005 at Vista Studios. In the past two years, he has had solo exhibitions in Hilton Head, Camden, Charleston and Charlotte. Overend in 1973 graduated as an aerospace engineer at Georgia Tech before studying art at Santa Barbara City College in California, the University of California at Santa Barbara and Yale University. Virginia Scotchie (b. 1955) is an internationally renowned ceramic artist who teaches at the University of South Carolina art department. Earlier this fall, she returned from Taiwan, where she did a major commission for the Yingge Ceramic Museum. In recent years she has been an artist in residence at the University of Hawaii and Taiwan’s Tainan National University for the Arts. Christine Tedesco (b. 1959) is an architect and textile artist in Pendleton, S.C. Her work has been part of the U.S. State Department’s Art in Embassies Program, featured in Tanzania and Honduras. She has shown in the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C., and was included in the 2001 S.C. Triennial and the opening exhibition of New Orlean’s Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2003. Paul Yanko teaches at the S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville. He holds an MFA in painting from Kent State University and a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art. He has exhibited at the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art and the McDonough Museum of Art in Youngstown, Ohio. This will be his first exhibition in Columbia.