From Columbia to Camden and Back - Visual Artist Laurie Brownell McIntosh

Laurie Brownell McIntosh

Visual Artist Laurie Brownell McIntosh is one of those artists who is always up to something. By something we mean something that will challenge her; something she will learn and grow from as an artist. Never one to churn out the same old same olds on canvas after canvas, it’s always fascinating to touch base with Laurie and just get her to talk about her work. The listener is sure to learn something.

Jasper caught up with Laurie recently to do just that – hear what’s going on in her world and head and at the end of her brush. Read on to see what we found out.

~~~~~

Laurie: In 2015 my husband and I moved to Camden to begin renovations on a dilapidated, old Queen Victorian we had fallen in love with. For the next year and a half I continued my studio work at Vista Studios but there were many transitions going on there so I began to consider my options in this beautiful, historic town I was calling home. My Dad always said “be where you live” so I took this to heart.  In November 2016, after a great deal of searching, I found a large, fully north lit studio space right in the heart of downtown Camden and opened Northlight Studio.  

Columbia is only 25 minutes from here so I’m in and out of Columbia all the time. I still meet with my critique group, shop at City Art, use my framer in Irmo, visit my pals at Vista Studios and around town, and work on attending as many cultural events as when I lived on Gervais.  Camden is pretty much the same commute from Chapin and Blythwood to the downtown Columbia area, but without all the bumper to bumper traffic. 

Jasper:  You have several projects coming up. We know that you usually move through projects as a way of challenging yourself to become a better artist. What is going on with your latest project?

Laurie: In 2012 I began working on a body of work I called “Pages.” “Pages” was an ongoing series of large, deconstructed paintings created with multiple layers of calligraphic marks and grounds and then reassembled to create new visual relationships between the images. During the transitional summer and fall 2016 - moving into a newly renovated house and then a new studio - I began to feel a strong pull to reintroduce more subjective shapes into my work. Shapes that were representative of objects that are part of the present and shifting world around me. After producing several pieces with this influence I realized the shift was strong enough to warrant the new signature, “Environmental Abstractions,” to identify this body of work. 

Stable as Change

22x30

Acrylic and paper

In Stable Condition

84” x 60

Acrylic on Canvas

Another fun thing I’m going to do in the next few weeks is open Northlight Downstairs, a temporary, contemporary gallery, in my space in the heart of Camden. All of my new work will be showing at City Art so I decided I’d try and do something fun with my empty walls in this cool little downtown. I’m such a believer in the strong ties between the arts and economic development so I’m going to put this belief to work. Northlight Downstairs will feature small to medium work from SC artists such as Jan Swanson, Eileen Blyth, Louanne LaRoche, Brucie Holler, Lynn Parrott, Cat Coulter, Lisa Adams, Laurie Isom and more.

It’s well worth the short drive from Columbia to come check this out, as well as Rutledge Street Gallery, the Fine Arts Center, Books on Broad (our truly independent book store,) ....and of course one would need a fresh, salty beverage from Saluds to quench one’s thirst before checking out Camden’s antique and handmade furniture scene. Can you tell how much I love this town? 

Northlight Downstairs will open Saturday, November 25 thru Saturday, December 9, 10 am - 5:30 pm at 607 Rutledge Street, Camden, SC... right across the street from the big clock tower.

There will also be a reception... that looks, acts and taste more like a party... on Sunday, December 3 at 3:00 pm. Also, I will be open later on December 9 for the Annual Tour of homes.

Jasper: How do you feel about the way your aesthetic has responded to these most recent challenges?

Laurie: My abstracted works involve some recognizable objects from my life that is split between South Carolina’s Midlands and the coast —a fishing lure here, a sleeping dog there and what appears to be a piece of horse tack in another—each one is like a remnant of a dream. In these fleeting images I hope to stir memories and emotions, creating more questions than answers for my viewer. Connecting their memories and prompting them to put together what they see into their story. My work is intentionally open to interpretation.

Jasper: And when will the public get to see the results of this project? 

Laurie: On Thursday, November 16, a solo show of "Environmental Abstractions" will open during Vista Lights at City Art on Lincoln Street. The opening reception will be from 5-9 p.m. The Environmental Abstraction show runs through January 27, 2018. City Art is open Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Fridays from 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; and Saturdays from 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Jasper: Tell us about your workspace out in Camden.

Laurie: In December 2016, I moved my studio into a space by myself in the heart of downtown Camden, SC. After seven wonderful years I hated to leave the community and support of Vista Studios in Columbia, but things were changing there as well, and I wanted more space and less commute. My new studio is a painter’s dream with the exception of the enormous flight of stairs it takes to get up here. Heart pine floors and beams, 12 foot ceilings, brick walls and nine, 7-foot high, north facing windows make up the physical character of this space. It is large enough to work on several large canvases at the same time and keep all my sketches tacked up to study while working. The icing on the cake is it is located directly over Rusty Davis’s guitar shop and studio, where he teaches blues and rock and roll all day long. If you were here right now you would be listening to a hell of blues set going on down there

Northlight Studio

Jasper: How would you compare the Camden arts culture to Columbia’s arts culture? Besides you, who else is getting good work done out there?

Laurie: I’ve had my head down in the studio for the past year so I’m not a very good source on this question. What I do know is there is a vibrant cultural community in Camden. The Kershaw County Fine Arts Center is always buzzing with activities in the performing arts. Rutledge Street Gallery carries many national and regional acclaimed contemporary artists. Books on Broad is a real, honest to God, independent book store featuring events and promotions on a regular basis. Camden is home to political cartoonist-Robert Ariail, sculptor-Maria J. Kirby-Smith, Abstract Painter - Patton Blackwell, National columnist-Kathleen Parker and The Buckley School of Public speaking founded by Reed Buckley... just to scratch the surface.

Environmental Abstractions by Laurie McIntosh:

A Holiday Solo Exhibition at City Art Gallery.

November 16, 2017 - January 27, 2018

Opening Reception during Vista Lights, November 16, 5pm-9pm

1224 Lincoln Street. Columbia, SC

Northlight Downstairs

Saturday, November 25 - Saturday, December 9, 10 am - 5:30 pm

607 Rutledge Street, Camden, SC right across the street from the big clock tower.

Holiday reception, that looks, acts and tastes more like a party, on Sunday, December 3 at 3:00 pm

Kershaw County Fine Arts Center

Solo Exhibition Spring 2018

April 12 - May 4, 2018

Exciting Stuff at City Art Gallery - Dan Smith takes on the Civil War

For Randy Hanna at City Art Gallery in the Vista, art is his life. A none-too-shabby visual artist himself,  Hanna has a proverbial eye for art that stands out above the rest due to anything from its color palette to it execution. Once in a while, Hanna will reach out to let us know that something special is going up on the walls of the spacious turn-of-the-century railroad warehouse where he and Wendyth Wells have been showing art and selling art supplies for years.

We've learned to listen.

When Hanna contacted us yesterday to make sure we knew about Dan Smith's exhibit opening tonight with a reception from 5 to 8 and running through January 1st, he not only said that he hoped I'd get to see this exhibit, he continued with,  "I don't think we've ever shown anything like it."

The title of the show is “US: A Civil War, Artwork by Dan Smith” and here's some more about Smith and his work that Hanna was good enough to share with us so that we could share it with you:

Smith’s new body of work includes mixed media paintings, as well as photographs and installations inspired by the American Civil War. On May 15, 2014 the artist began his Civil War Travels throughout the United States visiting specific Civil War sites. Many of the sites presented 150 year-old re-enactments. Along with extensive reading, the sites became inspiration for Smith’s artworks. Sites like Ft. Fisher in Wilmington, NC, the Shenandoah Valley of VA, Columbia, SC, Andersonville, GA, and Lookout Mountain, TN, inform much of the work.

In 1986, Smith received a graduate fellowship from the University of South Carolina and moved to Columbia to earn his MFA in Painting. The US: A Civil War show is a component of a larger collection of works organized chronologically under what Smith calls his Extended Sites collection, which incorporates the dichotomies of nature and man into an ‘art ecology’. Previous exhibitions under the Extended Sites moniker were based on the English colonist John Smith of Jamestown, VA, fame, and the frontiersman Daniel Boone. “My art is about death and life packed in with stories. Mathew Brady's story and work are woven into the US: A Civil War exhibition. Ultimately the show is about me and my associations with the Manland thesis I began at USC almost 30 years ago”.

The artist will continue his research for two additional Civil War exhibits in Newton and Sherrills Ford, NC, in 2016. Partial funding for these and his City Art Gallery exhibition were provided by a grant from the United Arts Council of Catawba County through the North Carolina Art Council with funding from the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts which believes a great nation deserves great art.

Smith’s art has been featured in numerous exhibitions during the past 35 years including NYC, San Francisco, CA, Seattle, WA, Washington, DC, TX, FL, NM, VA, NC and the recent Artfields competition in Lake City, South Carolina. His artwork is included in collections throughout the US.

City Art Gallery is located at 1224 Lincoln St. in the historic Congaree Vista area in Columbia, South Carolina.  Gallery hours are Monday – Thursday 10:00 a.m. until 6 p.m., Friday 10:00 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.  For more information contact Wendyth Wells, City Art Gallery, at 803-252-3613.

Jasper Announces 2014 JAYS

Jasper Magazine is delighted to announce the winners of the 2014 Jasper Artists of the Year awards. Winners were announced on Friday, November 21^st at a fundraiser gala for the magazine at Columbia’s historic Big Apple at Park and Hampton Streets, amongst a crowd of 150 guests.

Winners include Katie Smoak for dance, Darien Cavanaugh for literary arts, Greg Stuart for music, Kathleen Robbins for visual art, and Catherine Hunsinger for theatre.

The evening’s entertainment was provided by swing dance masters Richard Durlach and Breedlove, who are featured in the November/December issue of Jasper Magazine, and who demonstrated and taught attendees how to dance the Big Apple dance, made famous in 1937 at the historic Columbia location. Vicky Saye Henderson and the Apple Jacks, a new period musical ensemble comprised of Greg Apple, Christopher Cockrell, Chase Nelson, and Henderson, entertained with songs from the era, and Terrence Henderson emceed the event. Catering was provided by Scott Hall Catering. Rob Sprankle was the photographer.

Sponsors for the evening included Bourbon Columbia, City Art Gallery, HoFP Gallery, Peter Korper Realty, Coal Powered Filmworks, Burt Pardue, Billy Guess, Jody and Jeff Salter, Pura Wellness Spa, and an anonymous donor. The gala committee was comprised of Lauren Michalski, Bohumila Augustinova, Rosalind Graverson, Margey Bolen, Annie Boiter-Jolley, and Jasper editor Cindi Boiter.

Nominees for Jasper Artist of the Year (JAY) were solicited from the public early this fall based on individual artistic achievement from September 15, 2013 until September 15 2014. Committees of experts in each of the disciplines reviewed the nominations and narrowed the candidates down to three finalists in each field. The public was then invited once again to vote on their choices in each of the five categories. Finalists in dance were Smoak, Thaddeus Davis, and Caroline Lewis Jones; in literary arts, Cavanaugh, Julia Elliott, and Alexis Stratton; in music, Stuart, the Can’t Kids, and the Mobros; in visual arts, Robbins, James Busby, and Eileen Blyth; and, in theatre, Hunsinger, Robert Richmond, and Frank Thompson.

Outgoing JAYS for 2013 include Terrance Henderson for dance, Vicky Saye Henderson for theatre, the Restoration for music, Philip Mullen for visual art, and Janna McMahan for literary art.

For more information on Jasper and the 2014 JAYS visit www.Jaspercolumbia.net.

Jasper likes Tall Girls

If your Thursday night isn't booked yet, or even if it is, Jasper recommends you take a few moments to stop by City Art Gallery in the Vista between 6 and 8 for the opening of the Harriet Marshall Goode exhibit, Tall Girls.

In addition to being an arts supply shop, City Art Gallery is a beautiful venue that speaks both of old Columbia, in its rustic brick walls and elegant wooden floors, and of new Columbia, in the art -- classic, as well as innovative -- that adorns its walls. We like the spaciousness of the gallery -- how we have room to step back and study the works in the main gallery hall from many different vantages. And we like the vibe. Randy Hanna and Wendy Wells are always on hand to answer questions or chat for a bit. It's inviting -- not stuffy at all.

Jasper will be popping by City Art Gallery -- maybe sipping a little vino and chatting for a while on Thursday evening. We hope to see you there as well.

~~~

For more information on the Tall Girls exhibit, here's a little something we bold faced stole for the City Art website itself:

Columbia, S.C. – An exhibit of oil paintings by Harriet Goode will open with a public reception for the artist between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. Thursday September 8 at City Art Gallery in the Congaree Vista. The exhibit runs through October 1, 2011.

City Art Gallery Director Wendyth Wells describes the event as an interactive installation combining the historic authenticity of the building and the drama of the nearly 7 foot tall paintings of females. “We are creating an atmosphere,” Wells said, “Those who experience it will feel the power of the paintings and the call of the historic architecture. It’s all about what one feels standing among these ‘tall girls’.”

All the paintings are oil on wood panels that Goode based on characters from short stories.

“If we allow words to flow freely in our minds, the experience of reading fiction is immeasurably enhanced,” Goode said. “My paintings are about the often overwhelming power written words have over us, and the rich imagery our minds can create when those words are set free.”

Goode has a life-long love of these stores. “Each month when my mother’s magazines arrived in the mail, I’d curl up in a big chair to read the short stories”, she said. “Even at an early age, I had vivid mental images of the fictional characters. And the dark stories were always my favorites. My own childish interpretation of the characters filled my sketchbooks, and now, many years later, I’m still finding subject matter for paintings in short story and poetry anthologies. I return to old favorites, Steinbeck, St. John, Cheever, and in the last few years have added new names to the list, like Raymond Carver and Alice Munro. Each painting is a short story or one-act play. The viewer has to figure out the plot.”

Goode says she paints because she cannot imagine her live without painting. “I invent women,” she said, “some with vulnerable personalities and some with the strength to transport them to another world; but they all tell a story.”

Goode has had a distinguished career as a gallery director, free-lance illustrator and advertising director. She currently lives in Rock Hill where she is a fulltime painter, commercial art consultant and art competition juror. She attended Converse College and later studied with William Halsey in Charleston, SC and at the Silvermine School of Art in New Canaan, CT. Her paintings are part of museum and private collections throughout North and South Carolina. In addition she has work in corporate and private collections in Mexico, Europe and China. She has been featured on SC-ETV and her paintings have been on the cover of “The Evening Reader Literary Journal”, “Artifacts”, “Best of Watercolor: Painting Color” among other publications.  (http://www.cityartonline.com/current-exhibition/)

City Art Gallery is located at 1224 Lincoln Street. The exhibit runs through October 1st.

~~~

And while we're talking calendars, we hope you have yours marked for next Thursday, September 15th when, as promised, Jasper Magazine - The Word on Columbia Arts debuts in print!

Please come and celebrate with us at Columbia's own Speakeasy at 711 Saluda Avenue in Five Points, starting around 8 pm. We'll have a birthday cake for Jasper and music from Josh Roberts. Andy Shadday will also debut a new drink dedicated to yours truly -- The Jasper!

In the meantime,please visit us online at www.jaspercolumbia.com.