Koger Center Upstairs Gallery to Open a New Group Exhibit - “Beat of the Heart” curated by Keith Tolen

“What is the beat of a heart?”

Keith Tolen - artist

The Koger Center for the Arts’ next art exhibition in the Upstairs Gallery features five of Columbia’s finest visual artists: Keith Tolen, Fred Townsend, Rodgers Boykin, Jeffrey Miller, and Ryan McClendon. The exhibit opens April 29 and will be housed in the Koger Center until July 1. The exhibit’s opening reception is scheduled for May 23, from 6 – 8 p.m., and is free to the public.

Tolen, a fellow member of the Jasper Project Board of Directors, approached the four other artists with an idea. A group exhibit showcasing artwork that answered the question “what is the beat of a heart?” in connection to the heart of South Carolina. The work engages the viewer to view the artist’s perspective on the idea and reflect on their own interpretations.

Exhibition Statement: “What is the beat of a heart? It is the contraction of your heart as it pumps blood to the rest of your body. One organ--made of valves, chambers, veins and arteries--is responsible for keeping an entire body--movement, consciousness, breathing--in working order. The thumping in our ears, the press of fingers to palm to check pulse, these are how we know our hearts beat, that we are alive. This exhibition features five moments represented by the work of five artists; each artist may be a key part of this show’s artistic body, but what connects them is this beat. Specifically, this heartbeat seeks to infuse the Carolinas with a pulse of new blood as each artist shares their Carolina experience highlighting the richness of living in this area.

Jeffrey Miller - artist

Each artist will share their images based on personal interpretation of the theme: what is art, and how does it serve as a heartbeat living in the Carolinas? The Carolinas pose a beauty that stretches across the terrain from the mountains and foothills to the piedmonts and swamps and, finally, out to the ocean. The diversity of the creative experience will be showcased as these five artists bring to visual light the magic of colors, shapes, and special details to share their stories. The goal of this collection is to engage the viewer with a creative journey into the broad array of expressionism that connects with our rich surroundings. The collective artworks seek to enrich the heart of every viewer as they explore the unique designs displayed in their bold beauty--arteries and veins that run through our state and ourselves. Leaving this body of work will have the viewers longing to purchase a piece in order to continue sharing in the lifeforce of these talented artists. This new blood represents a dose of new energy, pumping throughout not just the show, but each of our bodies, our community. The answer to the question, "what is art?" will become clearer to the audience as they savor each individual image, feeling it beat behind their own chests.”

Ryan McClendon - artist

The Koger Center Upstairs Gallery is open to the public Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and an hour prior to any Koger Center for the Arts performance

-Emily Moffitt

Join The Jasper Project for Dogon Krigga’s Closing Reception and Artist Talk at Koger

The Jasper Project and the Koger Center for the Arts have teamed up to showcase the work of Dogon Krigga in The Nook, the rotating Jasper Gallery in the latter’s second floor lobby. The work will be up until the third week of March, but we will host a Closing Reception and Artist Talk for the exhibition on March 13 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Dogon will be present to give a talk about Afrosurrealism in art, what inspires them to create, and the intentions behind each piece. Additional prints and merchandise of Dogon’s will be available for purchase during this reception! We are excited to work with Jared Johnson, the onsite photographer and reporter, for the evening, who will be moderating the talk.

Dogon’s Artist Statement:

I use vinyl, paper, and other media on a variety of surfaces to create mixed media collages and murals printed on vinyl, paper, and other adhesive substrates. I draw inspiration from spiritual principles and esoteric concepts found across the African Diaspora to create surrealist artworks at serve as portals into other worlds, and viewsations of Queer, Black people, culture, and identity in an alternate dimension. I use these materials and approaches to encourage the viewer to experience and seek the subtle and unseen worlds, while reflecting on their place in it. I use my work to challenge the status quo and disrupt the conventions of what we know to be cisgendered, heteronormative, and patriarchal ideologies, while offering something beautiful and uplifting in its place. Through this creative process, I seek to make a real way of being in, thinking of, and viewing the universe that celebrates, preserves, and restores historically excluded communities.

Jasper Welcomes Dogon Krigga to the Koger Center’s Nook for February’s Third Thursday

The Jasper Project is proud to present Dogon Krigga as our featured February artist in the Koger Center’s Nook Gallery. The opening reception is February 15, from 5:30 – 7 p.m. in the Grand Tier lobby of the Koger Center. The event is free and open to the public, and features DJ Nori Noir providing live music.

Dogon is known for their mixed media collages and murals printed on vinyl, paper, and other adhesive substrates. They draw inspiration from spiritual principles and esoteric concepts found across the African Diaspora to create surrealist artworks. The viewer can then view their artwork as a kind of portal that allows them to peer into other realms, providing perspectives of Queer and Black people, identities, and cultures in a type of alternate dimension. Dogon’s work aims to challenge the status quo and disrupt the conventions of what we know to be cisgendered, heteronormative, and patriarchal ideologies, while offering something beautiful and uplifting in its place. The featured collection of work in the Nook is a body of work completed from 2021 through 2023. These pieces have also shown at the Columbia Museum of Art, Mike Brown Contemporary Gallery, Tapp’s Outpost, the 1013 Co-Op, The Bakery ATL (Atlanta, GA), and The Space (Charleston, SC).

Even if you can’t make it to the reception, Dogon’s art will be available for viewers to stop by and admire until mid-March. The Koger Center is open from 9 am – 5 pm Monday-Friday, and an hour prior to any Koger Center performance.

Artist Bio: Dogon Krigga (they/them) is a Columbia based multidisciplinary artist. Their interests in journalism and music production brought them into the community with musicians for whom Dogon began creating commissioned works of digital collage. They received early creative mentorship and influence from Tom Feelings and Walter Rutledge.

Krigga evolved their practice from digital art to include hand-cut paper collage and assemblage with printed and cut vinyl on acrylic and metal as well as installations. Krigga is a graphic designer with experience in commercial print, signage design, and signage project management that includes wide-format printing, metal fabrication, and acrylic fabrication. Krigga has created murals, exterior and interior signage displays for the main branch of Richland Library, SC State University, the 1801 Extension of SCSU, and Urban Wok restaurants.

Their works have been shown in several solo and group exhibitions including Tapp's Fine Art Center, The Sumter County Gallery of Art, Columbia Museum of Art, and The Goodall Gallery. Krigga's work can be found in numerous public and private collections, including the IP Stanback Museum. In 2023, they were Artist-in-Residence for Richland Library in Columbia, SC, producing and hosting community-based art programming and an exhibition Time & Time Again: Exploring the Antique Blacks--A Rootworker's Tarot. Dogon's artistic ventures also include the Collaborative Cohort Residency with the Highlander Center in New Market, TN (2020). Krigga is a recipient of grants from the SC Arts Commission.

Publication features of their work include "The African American Dream" by De Volkskrant (Amsterdam, March 2018), Volume 25.1: Yemassee Journal (USC, 2018), and "Dogon Krigga and Afrofuturism" by Jasper Magazine (2017). Krigga has been commissioned to design artwork for the covers of "Black Quantum Futurism" by Rasheedah Philips, and "BloodFresh" by Ebony Stewart. Dogon served as the lead designer for Ingrid LaFleur's 2017 mayoral campaign for Detroit, MI. Krigga has designed album artwork for King Britt, Kyle Bent, Hieroglyphic Being, Monty Luke, and Vibes Records. Dogon currently serves as the Art Director for the Atlanta-based music festival, Camp N Trip.

A Musical Mosaic of the South – Short Stories, vol. 1 by David Garner and Greg Stuart By Emily Moffitt

The University of South Carolina’s School of Music is filled to the brim with ambitious creative minds, all leading the newest generations of musicians while simultaneously maintaining their own artistic endeavors. One of the newest projects born from the walls of the Assembly Street building is Short Stories, vol. 1, a new collaborative album by David Garner and Greg Stuart. Garner and Stuart are both Associate Professors at the School of Music, with the former teaching Composition and Theory and the latter teaching Experimental Music Performance and Music Literature. This album is composed of original accompaniments by Garner and Stuart, performed along archived recordings of Southern folk songs. 

Ever since his graduate school years, Garner found the genre of American roots music fascinating, and he continues to use the genre as source material and inspiration for his own work. The existing relationship with the genre led Garner on the path to creating Short Stories, vol. 1, but he notes that “I don’t know that there was a single ‘a-ha’ moment to start this project, but rather a thousand small discoveries that built up over many years.” Short Stories, vol. 1 utilizes recordings from the Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip collection, which Garner has worked with since 2016, composing a piece called “DwnByThRckyMtns” that was also built around a recording from the collection.  The Lomax collection is a massive one, containing nearly 700 sound recordings, field notes, dust jackets, and other pertinent manuscripts that encompass a 6,500-mile trip taken by the eponymous travelers. Garner notes that listening to the original recordings before his renditions is not necessary but worthwhile. “I think some listeners might enjoy hearing the original field recordings in order to hear how the recordings were transformed in our album,” Garner says. “There are many thousands of hours of incredible early 20th century field recordings...these recordings might not be beautiful on the surface—with amateur performers and grainy, crackly recordings—but I find they are all so intriguing and rich with history, meaning, and culture.” 

When asked about the process of choosing which pieces to adapt, Garner mentions that he has kept a list of favorite recordings over the seven years he has worked with the collection. The six he chose were picked after “lots of play and experimentation to see which ones would work well in these transformed settings.” He took into consideration the particular nuances, shapes, timbres, and emotions of each recording, then set on the journey to create something new but still complementary. Garner started making entirely electronic settings for the pieces he chose a few years prior, but it was not until the fall of 2023 that he brought them to Stuart’s attention after working on a new composition together, and the duo followed through to create Short Stories. Garner shares an interest in archival field recordings and has played pieces that incorporate recorded sound as well as pieces that focus on timbre and noise elements. After long periods of brainstorming, structured improvisation, and testing what worked and what did not, the duo came to conclusions that achieved their ideas yet allowed room for the addition of piano, vibraphone, and percussion: the path to creating a finished piece finally laid bare. The structured improvisation is a key aspect of the creative process for this album. Garner says, “A few of the pieces are almost completely written out in traditional notation, but most of them are left much more open for improvising using a set of guidelines that we follow—note choices, rhythms, chords, gestures—we are improvising within predetermined time spans.” Garner also values the power of nostalgia and acknowledges the power it holds to shape how someone listens to music; he says “I think I have been fascinated by nostalgia and have felt it deeply my whole life; it is so important in music and so crucial to how I listen.” With the nature of the album’s contents focusing on folk music and storytelling, it is natural for the listener to also long for a time and place they may or may not have been to before, yearning to listen to a new voice that could remind them of another. This is intentional on Garner’s behalf—in his own words, he is also fascinated by the cultural and societal nostalgia that influences and informs how we listen to older music. 

Amplifying marginalized voices is a key goal for Short Stories, vol. 1. Many of the folk songs featured stem from southern African American communities, and Garner’s work celebrates that. The listener is beckoned into feeling a sense of longing and contemplation, with a vein of Southern Gothic darkness and mystery throughout. The pure emotional connections made via this music show through on "Lost Train," where the recorded voices are but a suggestion, looped in as an additional undercurrent to Stuart and Garner's instrumentation. On "All The Way Round" takes a Livingston, Alabama field recording that sounds like a playground chant and lays it bare in its repetitive style against minimalist accompaniment." Garner continues to compose pieces that surround the histories of other recordings in the Lomax collection, which also includes work from white and Mexican American performers. Garner beautifully describes the importance of a collection like this in his description of the album: “I hope to give forgotten voices another chance to be heard, histories to be told, and to highlight moments of particular beauty that might otherwise be overlooked. Embedded in every crackly field recording is a wealth of knowledge, experience, history, and humanity from which we can learn.”

You can listen to Garner and Stuart’s album on YouTube here. The album will be released on all streaming platforms starting January 24; Garner and Stuart will also perform the album in two concerts at Emory University and the University of Georgia on January 24 and January 26, respectively. 

Koger Center’s Third Thursday Lineup in the Nook Kicks Off with Wilma King

It’s a new calendar year, which means a brand-new lineup of talented artists from the Midlands will decorate the walls of each Jasper Gallery location. In the Nook at the Koger Center, Wilma King is the opening artist. King is a South Carolina native who endeavors to combine her experiences of living around the United States with her educational background into a visual storytelling collaboration through her painting.

King’s featured exhibit in the Nook is titled Love Heals: The Margins and Time In-Between. This body of work expands upon her Love Heals collection, which debuted at our Bernie Love Valentine’s Day event in 2023. The addendum includes 14 new works and received funding by the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Emerging Artist Grant. King notes that the pieces are a “series of montages comprised of memories of two generations before and after [her] -- thus, the time ‘in-between.’” She highlights the dreams, hopes, and desires of individuals at different stages of their lives while facing different obstacles like cancer or mental illness. Much of the subject matter derives from King’s own memories of adolescence and the relationships she fostered with her family. No moment is too small or grand for King to make compelling subject matter. Memories and storytelling often mesh to create a brand-new path for her work to take.

The opening reception will be held from 5:30 – 7 p.m. on January 18, 2024, on the Grand Tier Lobby of the Koger Center. The event is free and open to the public.

Excerpt from Wilma King’s Artist statement:

“I tell stories of my parents, their lifetimes, their influences. There are memories of me playing with my grandfather Manuel’s gold pocket watch; wallpapering the walls of my aunt Sedonia’s house (which was destroyed by a Louisiana storm last year); me ritually painting my mother’s nails; or dancing like nobody’s watching just to keep my cousin upbeat during her last few months!

We all have turning points in our lives -- some are cataclysmic. But I believe that the persistent, more powerful triggers are those that are slow, unforgettable images, sometimes rising out of nowhere, that quietly give us a heartfelt thump. Words are not needed, but touches, smells, soft sounds, and even tastes lend to the very intimate and secret thoughts that we hold close inside. These moments are the perfect companionship and fulfillment – a very pure form of love and loveliness – for whatever voids we need or want to fill. Although faceted, these “ordinary” and “frequent” thoughts and memories are what I wish to capture in my art.

I usually rely on memories, and sometimes collaborative storytelling with family and friends. Most often, the fusion of these memories and recollections are didactic approaches manifested in the art that I enjoy creating. I fully enjoy the outcomes as I see the bits and pieces of the storytellers’ realities and attempts to bring the pieces together in a relationship-building effort and artwork.”

— Emily Moffitt

Visit Sound Bites Eatery on Sumter Street for Delicious Food, Welcoming Vibes, and this month, Art from the Jasper Project's Board of Directors Visual Artists!

One of the great joys of working with the Jasper Project is becoming warm friends with members of our hard-working board of directors as well as the owner/operators of the institutions that work with us and the venues that host us. A perfect example would be the good people at Sound Bites Eatery who welcomed Jasper as soon as their doors were opened and invited us to make use of their walls to hang art by local artists. This month we are combining our appreciation for both by featuring the art of Jasper Project Board Artists, Emily Moffitt, Laura Garner Hine, Keith Tolen, and Kimber Carpenter in the Jasper Gallery Space at Sound Bites Eatery.

Curated by a committee chaired by Christina Xan who serves as the Jasper Project’s gallery manager, Jasper hangs local art throughout the city at Motor Supply Bistro, Koger Center for the Arts, Harbison Theatre, the Meridian Sidewalk Gallery Space as well as Sound Bites Eatery. But we’re always looking for new permanent or temporary spaces to feature the work of Columbia-based artists.

While we enjoy celebrating new shows with receptions, one of the advantages of showing art in these public spaces is that the art is available for purchase any time day or night by accessing a QR code attached to every piece of art. So if you’re still looking for the perfect gift for someone you love, consider giving art by visiting one of the Jasper Gallery spaces easily accessible in the greater Columbia area!

Virginia Russo Joins Saul Seibert for Artists Showing Artists THIS THURSDAY

For the first installation of the Jasper Project’s Artists Showing Artists series taking place this Thursday night at 7 at The Living Room, Saul Seibert chose Artist Virginia Russo as one of the artists he would like to feature. 

Kara Virginia Russo is a visual and performance artist who grew up in the tiny lake towns of 1980's central Florida, before moving north and earning a BFA from Converse College in Spartanburg, SC. After living for a while in both Asia and Europe, she returned to settle with her husband and two children in South Carolina, where she splits her time as an artist between Columbia and Greenville. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions from Charleston to Asheville.  

Most recently, she collaborated on Zion: a Composition by Saul Seibert, contributing album art, projection visuals, merchandise design and creation, and live ritual based performance art.

According to Russo, “My job as an artist is primarily to SEE, and only secondarily to communicate what I see. In expressing what is unseen (both within and without), I have found it helpful to use the visual language of an inner world I think of simply as The Planet. I like to explore the tension of navigating the wild terrain of the unseen from the safety of the imaginary. Think of my work as paintings, photographs, and explorer’s notes from a place you’ve never been, but one which feels immediately familiar.

“My pieces are built of layers upon layers of wet in wet watercolor and ink, relying on long experience to predict what the unleashed media might do, while staying open to surprise. Over the wet media (or occasionally under), I layer pencil, oil and chalk pastel, collage, and embroidery. I think of the wet media as attempts to paint mystery, and the dry media as attempts to expound and interpret to myself what I have painted, like notes in the margin of a well-loved book.” 

Russo continues, “My collaboration with Saul on Zion happened one day while he was looking at some of my recent work. I remember him sending me a message in response to some pieces that read simply, "I know this place."  I felt the same way the first time I heard the beginnings of the music. The work we've done together has been based on that ever since. We are artistically walking the same landscape. I see my role as simply making visible what is already there inside the music. When I listen to Zion, I'm transported to this place that is unique to Zion but is set in some other corner of my own imaginary world that all my work comes from. I can walk around, explore, see the features of this world, and then come back and paint it. The performance art is the same, I use the body as an instrument to convey visually the emotions and narrative of the piece in real time for the audience at live shows. I contribute all visual art for the project, from designing and hand printing the shirts, to the album art, to the bank of film that Ash Lennox, who does our live visual sets, pulls from. It's an incredible piece of music, and I still can't believe I get to collaborate on it. The musicians are phenomenal, I'm blown away every single time they play it.  

“Zion as a project was more or less part of my life as an artist for two years, from the very beginning of the project. It provided the steady thread all through an overseas move back to America, and all the transition that came with it. Zion stayed the same, I think the project kept me sane.  

“When the collaboration began, I had only been making art again for a year after a decade long hiatus. Zion provided the framework I needed to find my voice and confidence. I would ask Saul his opinion, and he would just say that he trusted me completely. I had complete artistic freedom, which was intimidating at first, but challenged me to grow as an artist in ways I'm grateful for. I grew into the project, in a sense. Every now and then, Saul would say something like "wouldn't it be cool if..." and I knew I was about to learn to do something I didn't think I could do. I picked up whole skill sets I had never tried before, ranging from stop motion, to illustration, to block printing. Saul had such confidence in my abilities, anything seemed possible. On top of that, Columbia has welcomed me into the creative community, and I can't imagine making art without all this support.” 

Join Jasper on Thursday night as we facilitate Rebekah Corbett’s project, Artists Showing Artists with Saul Seibert. Saul has invited poet-songwriters, Alyssa Stewart, and NoN (Keith Smyly), as well as his band King Saul and the Heretics. Art will be on display and available for sale by Virginia Russo, Adam Corbett, and Emily Moffitt. 

Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door. 

The Living Room, 6729 Two Notch Road #70, Columbia, SC, 29223

Tickets

jasperproject.org/artists-showing-artists/tickets

Refillable Jasper cups for beer and wine will be available for $10 as well as hotdogs and a selection of baked goods. 

All proceeds go toward supporting the Jasper Project’s mission.

Photog Caleb Brown of Saucewithspoons Photo-Documents Jasper's 1st House Show - October 2022

Last Saturday, Jasper board member and local arts leader Bekah Rice hosted a house show at the One Columbia co-op as a fundraiser for the upcoming issue of Jasper Magazine. Featured bands included Death Ray Robin, Opus and the Frequencies, and Joseph Hunter Duncan, all of whom blew the crowd away. And by the way, let’s send out one more happy birthday to Joseph Hunter Duncan and thank him for spending his special day on our stage.

Featured artists included Gina Langston Brewer, David Dohan, Adam Corbett, Emily Moffitt, and Olivia Pope, who showed their work pop-up style inside the house at 1013 Duke Avenue, the old Indie Grits homeplace. This is the same place where Al Black hosts his monthly Front Porch Swing Sunday afternoon concert series as well as his once-a-month Jasper’s Tuesday night Poetry Salon.

By the way, Gina Langston Brewer is Jasper’s featured artist-in-residence at the Jasper First Thursday Gallery at Sound Bites in November — and David will be in residence in January 2023.

The bands were sponsored by board members Libby Campbell and Paul Leo with Eric Tucker, the wine and popcorn by Coal Powered Filmworks, and the beer by Muddy Ford Press. We also had a boat load of new helpers, most of whom were friends and family of Bekah. We can’t thank all of these sponsors and volunteers enough. You all rock!

But we were also lucky enough to be visited by local photographer Caleb Brown of Saucewithspoons who grabbed some pretty fabulous shots of the night. Caleb shared some of these shots with us; now we happily share them with you.

THE BEAT: Sam and Illia The Duo of All Trades

By Emily Moffitt

Sam & Illia are not your average cover duo. Based out of Columbia, the two talented musicians met up through a mutual association with the local music instruction school Freeway Music and decided to form a performing duo with Sam playing bass or guitar and Illia on vocals. Both of them have been around music for most of their lives, with Sam picking up the guitar in college after playing piano as a child, and Illia participating in theater groups while taking voice lessons since the age of 4. Falling in love with the idea of musical performance was what set them on the track to pursue music as a career.            

There is no preferred genre of the duo; rather, they perform everything they love to hear from soul and jazz to punk rock. Both musicians developed their craft on their own at first; Sam learned to utilize one of the most powerful tools a musician can use: his own ears. “I love bands like Pink Floyd, and drew a lot of bass specific influence from Flea,” he says. “What was big for me in learning to play would be putting on some recordings of my favorite songs and just listening to the bass lines by ear, or I would just have to learn the song by ear entirely.”  

Illia herself grew up through an emo phase with the music she listened to, finding Paramore to be heavily influential. She eventually got into the R&B scene, citing Bruno Mars and Kehlani as two beacons of inspiration for forming her own lyrical style. Her secret weapon to developing her voice and deciding what style works for what song is repetition. “I try to get creative with runs when I’m singing, and repetition helps a lot with that. I try to do something different every time I record, so I can go back and pick out something I like, then try to repeat what I did that sounded the best.”  

Sam and Illia each have their own creative techniques when it comes to creating the duo's distinct sound. Sam’s own guitar playing is heavily influenced by guitarists like John Mayer, and the desire for the cleanest sound. Illia’s solo sound is rooted in a balance between punk or soul. For Illia, her goal is to be a true individual; “I don’t want to sound like anyone else,” she states. “I really want my voice to be my own.” Put them together, and the duo accomplishes beautiful covers of everything they touch, from jazz pieces to pop music.

 The duo appreciates how great the music scene of Columbia is for anyone wanting to kick off their career; “The scene in Greenville was extremely competitive, and in Columbia I’ve never had an easier time getting gigs for us than now,” Sam states. The two value the business side of the music scene highly, something that both musicians believe other musicians should take into consideration when they’re starting their own careers. “It matters a lot more than some realize,” Sam and Illia say. “Learning marketing and how to make the money work for your gigs is super important.”  

Illia’s biggest piece of advice for other musicians emphasizes both talent and persistence; “It really matters how much you pursue it. You could be the best musician ever but if you don’t put yourself forward, you’re not going to get to the place you want to get, which I’ve learned even more since we started working together.” 

Sam & Illia can be found on Instagram (@samandillia), Facebook (@samandillia), and their personal website (https://www.samandillia.com/). Upcoming performances include a show at Gardeners’ Outpost on Franklin Street on June 24, Lexington Farmer’s Market on June 25, Steel Hands Brewing on July 17, and more! 

Laura Valtorta's Bermuda is the Dream Vacation You’ve Been Looking For: An Interview with the Filmmaker

By Emily Moffitt

If you’re looking for a brand-new comedy to watch and rave about this summer, you need not look any further than “Bermuda,” a brand-new film directed and written by Columbia’s own Laura P. Valtorta. Featuring an all-star cast of local actors and prominent thespians around the state, the film follows Mildred, played by Pat Yeary, who so desperately wants to take a vacation for herself that she steals her son’s disability benefits to fund a trip to Bermuda. Other notable actors within the cast include Peri S. Jackson, Kit Phillips, Rob Sprankle, Cris Griffin, and Ursula Robinson.  

Laura started her film career in 2011 and has plenty of experience filming documentaries and short films. Bermuda is her first narrative feature, but Laura is no stranger to the genre of comedy. “Everything that I write turns into a comedy,” Laura jokingly says.  

Laura’s documentary portfolio includes White Rock Boxing, Water Women, and Water Stories: the Pee Dee Indian Nation of South Carolina. The good humor of the cast of Bermuda and the resonance with the script made the filmmaking process a lot easier for Laura and revealed the amount of talent that the cast held with their craft. “For some reason, this cast just clicked. Everyone has a unique sense of humor. They sound natural with the most ridiculous lines.” 

Laura’s love for Columbia and the greater Midlands area shines with the involvement of local companies and producers. Much of the film was shot in both Columbia and Newberry, and Bermuda is not unlike Laura’s past projects as it focuses on the diverse, small-town communities of the Midlands and the problems they face every day. Laura’s mission statement for filming is clear; “My goal in filmmaking is to get an audience that is diverse in age and community,” Laura states. “I want the film to reflect the community in large and not one particular one or the other.”            

The filming of Bermuda was an extremely personal project for Laura; aside from being her first narrative feature, there was plenty of involvement from her family in the production of the movie. Laura, her husband, and her son all feature in small acting roles within the movie. Prior to the start of filming, the table readings of the movie at Tapp’s and local libraries really showed to Laura that she had an extremely special and impactful work on the table. The audience’s reactions to the humor of the movie’s script helped bolster that sentiment even further. If there’s one thing Laura wanted to highlight, it’s a sense of humor; “Sense of humor is very personal to me. I’m glad I find Bermuda very funny, and my family thought it was funny too.” While Laura has plenty of professional experience as a lawyer, her love for filmmaking has shifted from a side hustle to a serious business practice. Keeping in mind her father’s passion for side projects and achieving any goals he set his mind to, Laura decided to follow suit and put this mentality towards filmmaking.  

There’s a lot of multidimensionality within the movie's plot, which was part of Laura’s intention as she wrote the script. Despite the overt comedic tone and crazy hijinks that the characters get into, there’s a deeper commentary about the lifestyle choices women often find themselves having to make. “The film is a comedy, but the themes are serious. It’s about women’s rights, and sometimes their backs are up against the wall,” Laura states. “If they want to live the way they want to, sometimes they have to resort to crime. It’s about the fact that women need to be empowered more.” Mildred’s character represents the side of womanhood that aims to reject traditional gender standards for what a real mother looks like; rather, she lives for herself and makes decisions to make herself happy, all the while still making sure her children are secure and happy as well. As Mildred herself does not believe in marriage, Laura hopes that audience members who face criticism for their own life choices can see themselves reflected in a character on the screen. “Not every woman wants to be settled down and to live a very traditional life. There’s a conflict between Mildred and her daughters about this. Mildred wants to stay single and be a bit freer with her life choices.”  

Bermuda is available to stream on Tubi TV and Amazon Prime. Laura’s other films are also available on Tubi and Amazon Prime. Laura P. Valtorta is the director and writer of Bermuda, with Clifton Springs as the Cinematographer, John Collins as the Editor, and Genesis Studios of Cayce, SC working as the movie crew.  

Jasper Project Intern Stephanie Allen Opens Honors Show at McMaster

By Emily Moffitt

One of our interns with the Jasper Project, Stephanie Allen, has put together her undergraduate honors solo exhibition on UofSC campus!  

Her exhibition, titled “In My Skin, Her Skin” is a culmination of works and themes from her undergraduate years in combination with her experiences and the experiences of other women and nonbinary individuals. The works called for plenty of experimentation, incorporating new surfaces to work on like acetate and media like graphite powder. Experimentation was crucial for the large-scale pieces to work as the use of acetate added the layering effect that Allen needed for her messages to shine through the portraits.  

“I wanted two separate spaces for different facets of identity,” Allen states. “I finger painted, used India ink, and had a lot of flexibility with materials. It was also my first time working on such a large scale and working on each corner of the page was definitely a challenge.”

 The exhibition calls back and converses with previous works by Allen as the perception of the body-most often female-through the lens of the church or more conservative ideations has always been something Allen critiqued. Now, “In My Skin, Her Skin” highlights the feelings of others through layering of abstracted mark making and fine-tuned, anonymized representations of the interviewees.  

For this particular series, the interview process was completely integral to the work,” Allen states. “The work was wholly dependent on how that person expressed their relationship with their body.” Each of the larger-than-life portraits have two layers; the first graphite layer is based on a photograph provided by each of the interviewees, with the freedom of posing and positioning completely in their hands. The project captures not only the freedom that these interviewees feel in regard to their bodies but is indicative of how they wish to present themselves to the world. The interview process takes on a grander meaning with the second, abstracted layer as Allen listened carefully to the answers of her subjects in order to provide inspiration for color palettes and the style of mark making that she would opt for on that particular person’s portrait.  

Allen’s mission for her exhibition lies within creating and portraying a wider visual vocabulary of what can be considered feminine. “The point of the show is to show that a body does not dictate identity. The pieces share commonalities of queerness and femininity, and those things don’t have a specific aesthetic.”  

By creating works of art with a variety of body shapes and posing, they force us to question what our predilections of femininity include, questioning the heteronormativity of gender roles. Allen notes that we as humans are often predisposed to associating looks with the character of an individual, causing our perception of femininity to often lie within physical attributes rather than mentality or emotion. Through the grand scale of the models and universal theme of questioning what we perceive as a feminine individual, Allen hopes to evoke self-reflection in the audiences as we view her work, letting ourselves reevaluate how we see femininity out of the liminal scheme of exclusively womanhood.  

Viewers of Allen’s past work definitely see that the connecting threads between her existing body of work, and the passion she harbors for this exhibition is clear.

“In My Skin, Her Skin” is on display in McMaster College’s Passage Gallery on the first floor through May 14th. A reception will be hosted at 6 PM on May 5, and some of Allen’s earlier but relevant work is also still up on display in Cool Beans! across from Wardlaw College.

Columbia Open Studios April 2nd & 3rd -

By Emily Moffitt

48"x60" oil on canvas, Walking a Tightrope by Christopher Lane

Columbia Open Studios returns on April 2nd and 3rd! The event is a “self-guided, weekend-long, free tour of artists’ studios in the Greater Columbia, South Carolina area, including all of Richland and Lexington Counties” and gives South Carolinians an opportunity to check out some of the most prominent inventive minds Columbia has to offer.  

It is a free event that offers time to meet with the participating artists individually at the Preview Party, and the event aims to create a direct connection between the artists and audiences both in person and on the web through social media promotion and interpersonal marketing.  

Patrons get to have a sneak peek into the individualized studio life of their favorite local artists by touring their studio spaces.  

Many artists who participate in COS are repeat participants; 2022 will be the fourth year that Christopher Lane participates in the event. A highly successful artist with a passion for making large format paintings that make large statements and one who finds beauty in every inch of landscape that South Carolina offers, Lane finds great value in being a part of the COS artists. “I enjoy it immensely as it allows patrons to observe my work in a more intimate setting and connect in a way we can’t always do in galleries.”  

This sentiment is surely shared amongst the other participants, both on the part of the artists and the audiences. The participant roster features a wide variety of artists from multiple disciplines, with painters, ceramicists, and everything in between, creating lots of chances for visitors to find a new artist’s body of work to fall in love with.  

The event will be free to the public and last from 10 AM to 6 PM on Saturday April 2nd, and from 12 PM to 6 PM on Sunday April 3rd.  

For more information, you can check out their website columbiaopenstudios.org and subscribe to their newsletter! The participating artists with pertinent information about their work and locations are all featured on the website.

THE BEAT: Art Bar Concert Review March 12, 2022 by Emily Moffitt

Video game track covers, electrifying synths, and rock and roll; Art Bar’s live music concert on March 12 had it all.

The night featured performances by Outer Ego, Dead Spring, Harry and the Hootenannies, and Bad Stars, giving the audience a plethora of genres and new music to listen to.

Several of the bands debuted new music they were working on, and some performed excellent covers by other well-known groups, like Outer Ego’s great cover of Daft Punk’s “Something About Us” and Harry and the Hootenannies’ getting the crowd going by performing the original Powerpuff Girls theme song.

With so much variation between each group, there was enough to go around for the crowd to enjoy and dance to. The intimate spacing of the stage to the audience in Art Bar bolstered the mood of the entire room, encouraging conversation between the performers and the crowd through the music and during breaks.

It was a great night and a fantastic concert and gives us plenty to look forward to in terms of future gigs for all of the groups involved here.

THE BEAT - Turbo Gatto: Purr-fectly Good Mewsic

By Emily Moffitt

Kevin Jennings and Gina Ercolini are Turbo Gatto - photo by The Wolf

Ever heard of “Cat Rock”? The creativity of guitarist Kevin Jennings and drummer Gina Ercolini, under the band name Turbo Gatto, originally invented the genre to adapt the lyrics of Motorhead songs to be about cats. 

“It was a blast and a lot of laughs for a second, but it led us to discover our own idea,” she adds, “Original garage rock/punk music with lyrics about anything related to cats.”

It has been an entertaining formula, and with musical inspiration from the Cramps on the two-person band’s new album “Bad Mewsic For Bad Cats” they have built upon the original foundation of Stooges power, AC/DC riffs, and Ramones frenzy that have informed the project from the start. It’s all about the riff, Ercolini admits. “A good riff is almost always our starting point; we trust each other to follow where the music takes us from there.” 

They are fully invested in the genre they’ve pioneered, utilizing the self-proclaimed “cat life and love of rock and roll” to not only build their sound, but engage audiences. Their most devoted fans can be seen at shows sporting their best sets of cat ears, willing to play along with the feline frenzy happening on stage. Playing for the fun of it is one of the guiding principles of Turbo Gatto, and it offers Jennings and Ercolini a respite from their other bands, which include MNRVA, and a way to spend more time together making music–they’ve also been a married couple since 2016.  

“We met at karaoke at Art Bar and somehow decided that we had all we needed to start a band,” Ercolini recalls. “We held our first practice three days later and have been inseparable ever since.” 

Turbo Gatto purrs loudest in a live setting, and Jennings and Ercolini are both happy to be back in that environment. 

“Our live shows are always a bit chaotic and teetering on the brink,” Ercolini says. “It takes a certain kind of energy and focus in the moment to hold everything together–it’s both exciting and terrifying.” 

Over the pandemic months, the bandmates used the down time from live shows to write as much new music as they could, and experiment with different influences, but they found that their basic methods of working, and recording, didn’t change much. When it came time to record the new material for a proper album, they also chose not to change anything there. 

“We record everything with Jay Matheson at the Jam Room Recording Studio,” Ercolini says. “He’s spectacular in guiding us to produce the best record we can in a matter of only two days spent in the studio.” The results, she adds, are meant to be fun, no matter how good the playing or the recording process makes them sound.

“One thing you cannot do when playing in a cat rock band is take yourself too seriously,” she concludes. “This is the kind of record you can listen to while driving around town or jumping up and down on the bed eating pizza.”            

The album release for “Bad Mewsic for Bad Cats” will be held at Art Bar on Saturday, February 12th at 7 PM. Also, on the bill in addition to Turbo Gatto are The Transonics, The Buzzards of Fuzz, Warfare Check, and the Black Stare of Soledad Miranda.

THE BEAT is a rotating lineup of music coverage under the direction of Jasper Magazine music editor, Kevin Oliver, that includes local album reviews, in-depth artist interviews and profiles, live show reviews, and all things related to local music in the greater SC midlands area arts community. If you have story ideas, or you’re a local musician, band, or involved with a local project that you think deserves some attention, drop Kevin a line at kevingoliver@gmail.com. 

Welcome New Jasper Project Intern Emily Moffitt

Hello! My name is Emily Moffitt, and I'm an intern for The Jasper Project!

I am a student at the University of South Carolina pursuing a BA in both Studio Art and English. I was raised in an arts inclined household and as such have an affinity for fine arts-particularly music performance and visual arts-so I always search for creative outlets where I can exercise my appreciation and skill.

I've been a flute player since I was 11 and want to pursue a career in either fine arts or illustration, so I wanted to find a means to connect my passions with a third interest: writing and literature. I've had experience with social media outreach and press release marketing but wanted to expand my horizons into something more specialized and in tune with my passions. I'm especially interested in exploring the intersectionality between all facets of fine art and how to properly capture an experience through writing.

Jasper Magazine's mission statement and content align perfectly with my interests, so I'm super excited to experience the internship process with them!