Look at these amazing Jasper supporters! Every year for Mardi Gras the Krewe de Jasper Arts gathers to celebrate the arts. Like most of our Jasper projects, it costs very little — mostly just time and energy — but it delivers an incredible sense of purpose, community, and joy. Please plan to march with us in 2023.
Hi Friends!
I’m coming to you once again to ask for your help in bringing to fruition a project that I’ve devoted almost twelve years to–the publication of Jasper Magazine.
As you probably know, Jasper is a grass roots non-profit with no paid employees—including me! Every penny that comes into the Jasper Project goes back out to artists either in the form of promotion, sharing their work via events, or actually as remittance for their work. Other than insurance and a few cyber fees, we have no overhead that would suck up any money you might give. No office, no desks, no benefits.
But we do have an amazing working board of directors and helpers and a volunteer staff, made up of your friends and colleagues, all of whom have invested their energy and talent into the Jasper mission.
Mission Statement
The Jasper Project is a project-oriented, multidisciplinary arts facilitator serving the greater Columbia and South Carolina communities by providing collaborative arts engineering and community-wide arts communication.
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The Jasper Project Priorities
The Jasper Project is committed to four integrated priorities:
Process – illuminating the unique processes endemic to all art forms in order to provide a greater level of understanding and respect for that discipline.
Community/Collaboration – nurturing community both within and between arts disciplines.
Narrative – creating a more positive and progressive understanding of SC culture.
Economy – being efficient stewards of arts funding committed to creating more with less.
But to be honest, because we’re small and facing greater and greater costs of publishing Jasper, we’re finding it harder and harder to keep Jasper free. Call us naïve, but we really hope we can continue to put Jasper into the hands of everyone, no matter what their ability to pay, for as long as we can.
So, I’m coming to you once again, our readers, supporters, colleagues, and friends, to ask for your help in continuing the work of the Jasper Project and publishing Jasper Magazine. The fall 2022 magazine is written and ready to go to the printer. We have stories about the Midlands beloved Jazz scene, artists Jim Arendt, Wilma King, Elizabeth Catlett, Jamie Blackburn, stories about three local films—two of which made it to the Tribeca film festival this year, poetry, book reviews, album reviews, and so much more!
Publishing this issue of Jasper will cost well over $10K. Please donate whatever you can at our website , on Facebook, or by joining the Jasper Guild.
I can’t thank you enough for your generous support over the past 11+ years. It’s because of donors and helpers and good-hearted people who believe in arts at the grass-roots level that the Jasper Project has grown to be the force that it is, impacting thousands of Midlands artists and arts lovers each year with our events, publications, and more than 20 active projects.
Thank you. And remember there is always a place for you at Jasper.
Take care,
Cindi
This is me at the launch of Jasper Magazine in 2011. I’m holding the first ever Jasper featuring one of my favorite artists, David Yaghjian, on the cover. Next month, Jasper will install David’s art in one of our captured galleries at MTC’s Harbison Theatre lobby. We’ve grown a lot in the 11 years since we started, but we’re still here for the arts and the artists we value so highly. Thank you for your continued support of the Jasper Project and Jasper Magazine.