The Jasper Project Announces the 2025 Galleries Season by Christina Xan

Christina Xan is wrapping up her time as Galleries Manager with the Jasper Project as she pursues her academic career. We thank her for her dedicated efforts to exhibit and make available for purchase art by hundreds of South Carolina artists via the Jasper Project Galleries Series and wish her great happiness and success in her coming endeavors.

~Cb

Down Home by Christopher Lane

The Jasper Project is delighted that, for another year, we have the privilege to show the work of 50+ artists via the Jasper Galleries Series. Starting in 2018 with the Tiny Gallery, Jasper Galleries has now grown to a 6-location series across the Midlands, including our original fully online space. 

Mark your calendars for a full slate of talented local artists, who Jasper will share more info about as their individual shows draw closer. Make sure to follow Jasper’s social media and newsletter (Sundays with Jasper) for all updates!

Tortoise Tears by Rebecca Horne

Harbison Theatre

Running alongside Harbison’s programming, Jasper features two artists in the theatre’s lobby in 2025: a Spring and a Fall artist. While the Fall opening will be announced along with the theatre’s 2025-2026 season, the Spring opening is January 24th at 6:30pm, before Patrick Davis performs at 7:30.

SPRING (January–May): Jeffrey Miller

FALL (September–December): Rebecca Horne

 

Jordan Sheridan with her installation The Mother

Koger Center for the Arts

The gallery at Koger Center for the Arts, fondly named “The Nook,” is located external to the upstairs gallery, on the wall across from the main staircase. New art opens every Third Thursday (except most Decembers) with a reception from 5:30pm-7:00pm.

January: Jordan Sheridan

February: Toni Elkins

March: Thomas Washington

April: Richard Lund

May: Chris Lane

June: Jakeem DaDream

July: Virginia Russo

August: Lori Isom

September: Jeff Amberg

October: Colleen Cannon-Karlos

November: Sean Madden

Lauren Tillar - Compton Sun

Meridian Sidewalk Gallery

These windows proudly feature along Sumter and Washington Streets, at the base of the Meridian Building, with art rotating quarterly. Each quarter, Jasper shows a pair of 2D artists alongside one 3D artist.

January–March

       Emily Wright

    Chris Lane

        Marion Mason

April–June

         Mark Dreher

         Vanessa DeVore

         Sharon Licata

July–September

         Camille Johnson

         Lauren Tillar

         Renee Rouillier

October–December

         Beth Morgan

        Robert Sargent

 

Laurie McIntosh - Low Country Boil

Motor Supply Company Bistro

Jasper’s second quarterly space is a solo show at the Motor Supply Co. Bistro, where opening receptions typically take place on the second Friday of the opening month from 6:00pm—8:00pm.

January–March: Mary Ann Haven

April–June: Rodgers Boykin

July–September: Steven White

October–December: Laurie McIntosh

Judy Bolton Jarrett of Art Can Studio, Chapin

 Sound Bites Eatery 

First Thursday fun is had monthly at Sound Bites Eatery at 1425 Sumter Street, with (mostly) solo shows happening from 5:30-8:00 on each respective Thursday. In August, Sound Bites throws their own party for their birthday month!  

Important note: January 205 Opening Reception will be held on January 9th! 

January: Josef Berliner and Wilma King

February: Sharon Funderburk

March: Lucy Spence

April: Kelley Pettibone

May: Devon Jeremy

June: Pat Gillam

July: Judy Jarrett

September: Candace Catoe

October: Renea Eshleman

November: Judy Maples

December: Holiday Show – Artists TBA!

Tiny Gallery

Last, but certainly not least, the show that started it all. Moved online during the pandemic and kept online due to its success, the Tiny Gallery provides a 24/7 haven of art, rotating artists out every month.

January: Betsy Kaemmerlen

February: Lindsay Radford

March: Mia Estrada

April: Linda Cannup

May: Colton Giles

June: Lisa Alberghini

July: Jean Capalbo

August: Abby Short

September: K. Wayne Thornley

October: Devon Corley

November: Yyusri

December: Ornament Show – Artists TBA!

 

Keep up to date with Jasper for any opening reception changes, artist details, and updates on holidays shows and one-off gallery events!

Al Black's Poetry of the People featuring Bo Petersen

My last Poet of the People for 2024 is Bo Petersen.  I have known Bo Petersen for several years, but had never engaged him as a poet until a couple years ago.

Bo is a kind, gentle and quirky (in all the ways quirky can be good) poet who has the gift of making his readers smile and want to become his friend. Hearing Bo read his work is to sit in his living room with a cup of hot chocolate, a plate of Oreos, and sharing the fragile beauty of being alive.

~Al Black

Bo Petersen is aimlessly good on his feet. Published since he was a child, relieving him of having to grow up. (Or if you have to: Wrote the non-fiction Washing Our Hands In The Clouds, Kachi, a book of verse and photography, Fezziwig Press, 2023. Also, Soldiers Stories - a book of vignettes about World War II veterans, published by the Gaston Gazette. Short stories and verse in nearly four dozen journals.)

                                       Aurum 

    “Know who you are. Know the mystery you celebrate”

                                                      burnishing,

burnishing,

                   burnishing           

                                     tongues

               ice rill fingers puckered numb, the steel sieve      

                                 sun

                                “he’s his own worst enemy”

                                                       a crude pan in a cold hand

                                                                     burnishing

                              new blaze

                                                         *                                              

                                       who has sinned so he is blind? neither

                                                   is he blind or do we see

                                             all it takes is spit

                                                             a little humility

                       “well, theoretically it’s a good scenario

                           but there’s a practical impediment”

                                                     so i glean 

                                                                          fool’s gold

                                           flecked  

                                                        insensibility

     civilization demands emancipation, demands

                      or all is intrigue 

                                the grave weight of this given earth                                                   frees                                                         

                                                                into Whose hand we

                                                      sieve, despite what we believe                           spirit agleam a particle stream  

                                                       shook of space, dust

shining

              spirit                 

                                       is beauty, beauty is

                                                                            spirit

 all we know of earth

                                                           imperfect

                                          cultivate

                                                           create           

                   love 

                                                                     perfects

                                                                                               or all is just creed

                                                      *

                                    o i’d like to be Learn’d, i guess

                                  adeptly key in a daunting Op-ed

             screed a piece out of Poetry to bleed their heads

                                    o i’d learn’d to be like, i guess

                                                   *

                                all i yearn is beauty,

                                      simply,

                                                   beauty

                            suffices 

                                            go on, ask

                                         what it is i dream 

                               in chanting streams, in ulule tongues, ulule

                                             reeds, 

                                       i am stealing wings.       

                               as dismissive as these

                                  radiate coals in the cold 

                                                                              i leave 

                      flights of white ibis flashing dawn

                          egret in pairs lifting in shine

                                                                    from a shook pan in mist freeze

                    (who died waiting sale)

               gone, gone, no mournful white

                            joy

                               8,000

                            souls unslaved

                             off Gadsden’s pitch dock

                         to the salt harbor

                                       splayed

                 blanched bones scraping hissing sands

                                      with no grave

                                                   - for the IAAM, Charleston

                                         Nativity

                        ignorant would it be to whisper

 Lord

                               we’ve blasted past

                      the purpled robes, the mock angelic

                         thinlit candle in the cold sepulchre

                                           of our souls

                               light years

                   we are weaned

                                      past pretense

                                               past dwarf planets

                          swelled of gravid moons

                                      out the far womb of what we now know 

              pulses

                              I tell you

                                                   yet

                                          push

                          not in the patinas you don’t see

                                the blood, the spew

                                         bowels

              the dread in the eye of the man who had been told

                         there is nothing like this    

                                        to be

                   the strangely agape sheepherders

                           the magical jangles

                 of robed wanderers of stars

              nothing, he must have thought, nothing

                                     like this

                           you could conceive

                                             (the point)                       

                                                      poetry,

                                                 the point is,

                                                     where

                                    metaphor becomes parable

                                             song,

                                                       sense.

Poetry of the People with featuring Richard Garcia

This week's Poet of the People is Richard Garcia. Richard Garcia is one of the stalwarts of poetry in the low country of South Carolina. I knew of him long before I knew him. He is a wonderful advocate and mentor for other poets as well as a wonderful award winning poet in his own right.. I encourage you to buy his books and attend any of his readings in your area - he will not disappoint.

~Al Black

Richard Garcia's poetry books include The Other Odyssey, Dream Horse Press, 2014, The Chair, BOA 2015, and Porridge, Press 53, 2016. He has received a Pushcart Prize, and been in Best American Poetry.

Then 

A knock on the front door,

but no one is knocking. 

My mother is upstairs again

threatening to jump out the window.

And there is my best friend Tito.

The swish-swish of metal roller-skates.

Father Harris from All Saints Episcopal Church 

crosses the street holding my book

with two hands as if it were heavy.

He wants an inscription, something clever,

for his future granddaughter—should I tell him

that my book has not been written yet,

that he is dead now, and I am dead now,

that my mother's house

and All Saints Episcopal Church have taken wing

like two swans made of smoke,

swans that I might have imagined?

But that was now and this is then.

Tito says, Let's go back to Buena Vista Park,

let's go cardboard-sliding down the musical sand dunes.

•

 American Gothic  

My grandfather was the captain of a tall ship that sailed around the horn bearing rum and whiskey and always, just for me, a barrel of rock hard candy from the isle of Madagascar. My grandfather told me stories that made me dream of pirates, nice pirates that never hurt anyone. My grandfather waved goodbye to my grandmother as his ship sailed away with the tide. My grandmother and I waited for the sails of Grandfather's ship to reappear on the horizon. Tell me again, Grandma, What was the name of Grandpa's ship. It was called, she reminded me, The Constellation of Falsehoods. OK, I lied. I never knew my grandfather or my grandmother but I recall their picture on the wall. They appeared to be sad farmers. He was holding a pitchfork. She looked like she had just swallowed a large sour ball.

•

Message from Garcia 

 My brother was the rain.

He was also the sun.

My brother was a sun shower.

We used to sleep in the flames

of the gas fireplace when it was turned on.

but, since my brother was the rain,

the fire never harmed us.

My brother sang to make the moon come out.

He read to me from the pages of sand dunes.

Sad stories, always, sad stories.

Back in the olden days, television    

was not invented yet.

We would cut a hole in a box and stare at it.

My brother was the first Mexican-American

 basketball star. San Francisco

News Call-Bulletin—Headline:

message from Garcia:

He breaks the record for points in a game.

Next game, double, triple guards on Garcia.

Me, I was an expert at dying.

I would clutch my chest and slowly spin

to the sidewalk. I would lie there

for a long time, twitching spasmodically.

The players from the other teams

complained about my brother.

That Mexican, they said,

he slips through us like rain.

•

Freedom  

You are sitting up in bed reading a detective novel. Your eyes are open but you are asleep thinking you are awake. In this novel you are at Roosevelt Middle School with your girlfriend at your first sock hop.  You have never been to a sock hop, and don't know how to do the bop, the dance the white kids are doing.  So you do the steps taught to you by your Black friend, Felton, although at that time he was a Negro. The dance he taught you was called the Texas Hop. Soon all the white kids in the gym are dancing the Texas Hop. But your mind is flowing backwards. It's the case you are working on: The Case of the Missing Tar Baby and the Pillsbury Doughboy. Where they stolen, lynched, or did they run away together? The Tar Baby and the Pillsbury Doughboy have escaped from a chain gang. They have built a raft and are drifting down the Mississippi river toward freedom.

•

--

Jasper's Poetry of the People Featuring Brittany Jones

This week's Poet of the People is Brittany Jones. Brittany has been writing poetry for quite some time and has recently started performing spoken word. Spoken word has expanded her depth and reach as an artist. Her recent performance at Mind Gravy was a well accepted success and we look forward to her future on the spoken word and poetry scene.

~Al Black

Brittany Jones, also known as Shai (pronounced “shy”) Moonlight is a Columbia based poet, host and artivist. After over two decades as a strictly page poet, Brittany began performing spoken word in March 2024. Now a member of the Poetree Family and New Danger, she works as a healthcare professional by day and is the mother of three amazingly unique kids. She feels her purpose in poetry is to be an ever-changing and ever-present light.

_______

Momentary Distraction 

There

Is extra femininity in my stride

When I walk by

A HARD working 

Black man

It is instinctual

I see him and feel my posture correct

Subconsciously straighten stray locs

Anticipating potential admiration 

He may not be my type

And I don’t have to be his

But maybe

He’ll be drawn to my melanin

Or my proportions 

BUT…if I am his type

I want him to enjoy watching my hips sway freely

The see the subtle jingle and bounce that naturally reverberate with each step

And, I don’t need to see him

Watch me walk by to know that he might

So I

With my head held high

Nod, smile

Find something to compliment

“Have a blessed day, handsome!” 

And go on about my business

And him to his

I hope you appreciate 

This momentary distraction 

As much as I 

_____

Jahzara Nicole

On April 8th, 2007

The prettiest little girl we laid on my chest

I had seen her big brown eyes in my mind 

Before I knew she was in my womb

And at that moment

I chose to mother her

Despite offers and ours

I

Chose 

Raising her to be who she was called to be

Over the potential of what my life could have been

Mind you — I was a child

Just 6 months into adulthood 

More years then I could imagine away from womanhood

Yet thrust 

By my own hand

Into motherhood

At least two statistics 

Teen & Single

Now 

Throw in “Black”

And the fact that her father would die before knowing that she would be born 

So I named her in an effort to combat all of that

‘Jahzara’

It is Ethiopian for ‘blessed princess’

Because despite my immaturity 

Or his non existence 

She would be

Blessed

My Ace is now 17

Less than one year from my age I was when

She was conceived

And she

Had grown to be

My very best friend

The first person to know me through and through

She’s 

The reason I can never give up

Beautiful in heart, mind and spirit

She has my face…

Copy. Paste. 

She is

The coolest chick with

Signs if my personality 

Like interests discovered daily

The best big sister

More like the “little mama”

And every time I look at her

I see those 

Big, brown eyes 

I’d seen in my mind

Before I knew she was….. 

_____

Now. Then. Again. 

Every now & then

My mind runs so fast 

I almost lose it

In fact

I have a time or 2

But 

Grace & mercy allowed me to catch up

I am

Educated, medicated, therapized

And still

I’ve found myself sinking

Again?!

Longing for non-existence 

Teetering the fine line between coping and addiction

Why won’t this thing loose me!?

After all the alter calls…

I’m still finding more peace in alcohol

and I’m  tired

Butttttt

My therapist says she’s proud of me 

That I’ve made so much progress

And I agree…

Today

But what about tomorrow??

When my chemicals get to “imbalancing” again

When

Focusing on

Mindfulness, gratitude and moon phases 

Make no changes 

And all I can do is……

Ruminate on

What could have been

And what should have been 

Or what would have been

Seemingly, blind to my  blessings

Just Praying 

“God please, let me make it through this feeling…

Again…”

Join Jasper for Vista Lights this Thursday - featuring Lisa Alberghini, Adam Corbett, Karen Sargent, Candace Catoe, Carla Damron, and Valerie Lamott

by Cindi Boiter

In my heart I’m just now switching over from sandals and sundresses to blue jeans and boot weather, but in my brain the calendar tells me that the holidays are sneaking up on us and I think I have to believe it. Unless we’re deep in the darkest timeline, which isn’t out of the question, numbers don’t lie. This Thursday is November 21st and that means Vista Lights is happening this week. Already.

Luckily, the Jasper Team has been at the planning table and we have an evening of local art and festivities planned for you when you join us on Thursday, November 21 at 6 pm at Coal Powered Filmworks at 1217 Lincoln Street in Columbia’s historic Vista. As usual, we’ll have a fun roster of local artists who will be sharing their wares – ornaments, jewelry, small art, surprises!

Among our featured artists are Lisa Alberghini, Adam Corbett, Karen Sargent, Candace Catoe, Carla Damron, and Valerie LaMott!

We’ll have some light snacks, friendly faces, and loads of good cheer as we pretend our political world is still on its axis and we take refuge in the reciprocated pretense of joy on all your smiling faces.

There may be booze.

Join us!

Join the Jasper Project and SCAA for a Reading and Launch Celebration of Southern Voices – Fifty Contemporary Poets Edited by Tom Mack and Andrew Geyer

By Cindi Boiter

Poetry and place come together beautifully in Tom Mack and Andrew Geyer’s (editors) new book, Southern Voices – Fifty Contemporary Poets (Lamar University Press) Which launched on October 1st on the campus of University of SC at Aiken, where Mack is a distinguished professor emeritus and Geyer serves as chair of the English Department. The two previously worked together editing the fiction anthology, A Shared Voice: A Tapestry of Tales (Lamar University Press, 2013), and have joined forces once again to bring us a new and intriguing look at contemporary poetry from the South.

“Because of the overwhelming success of that collection of paired tales, the folks at Lamar University Literary Press wondered if we could put together an equally attractive book of poems,” Mack says. Mack also edited Dancing on Barbed Wire (Angelina River Press, 2018) which Geyer co-wrote with Terry Dalrymple and Jerry Craven. “We knew from the outset of the multi-year project that we wanted to cover the whole South from Virginia to Texas, from Arkansas to Florida; and we thought that 50 would be the minimum number of poets (4-6 poems by each) that we would need to do justice to the complex geography and culture of this distinctive region of the country.”

South Carolina poetry aficionados will not be surprised by the list of distinguished contributors to Southern Voices, among them Jasper’s own poetry editor and inaugural Columbia city poet laureate, Ed Madden, along with Libby Bernadin, Marcus Amaker, Ron Rash, Glennis Redmond, and forty-five equally accomplished poets from across the region.

“Once we decided on how many poets to include in the book,” Mack says, “we divided the South in half. Because I had edited the South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to South Carolina Writers (USC Press) and managed the USC Aiken writers’ series for over a decade, I volunteered to invite 25 poets from the Atlantic coast, the part of the South I know best. Drew (Geyer), a native of Texas and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, focused on Southern states from Alabama to west of the Mississippi.”

The theme of “place” features prominently in this collection, Mack says. “It thus made sense to invite as many state and local poets laureate as possible since those individuals had already been selected by governmental entities to represent a particular locale. All of the Southern states have state poets laureate; and some states, such as South Carolina, have poets laureate who have been selected to represent cities and towns. Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, and Rock Hill, for example, have municipal poets laureate. Thus, we were expecting that most of the poems submitted by each invited poet would focus on place: physical, emotional, spiritual, or psychological. We were not disappointed.”

But the co-editors recognized early on that the representation of contemporary Southern poets looks increasingly different than in decades past, as it should. “From the very beginning of the process, we wanted to put together a book that reflected the changing demographics of the region, its growing diversity and burgeoning equality of opportunity. Thus, in choosing our invitees, we kept gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation in mind,” Geyer says.

In his introduction to the volume Mack writes, “Perhaps no other region of this vast country is haunted more by the past. In the case of the American South, heavy lie the legacy of slavery and the specter of the Civil War. … Yet, the winds of change can be felt throughout the American South, due in large part to both a generational and demographic shift—the region is consistently being enriched by transplants from other parts of the country and other nations of the world.”

“This Southern Voices collection is a testament to how far we’ve come,” Geyer agrees. “The poets in this anthology are Black and white and brown, straight and LGBTQ+, native Southerners and northern transplants—a mélange of artists from across the Greater South most of whom have served as the poets laureate of their states and/or local communities. These are the poets whose work everyday folks living in the South chose to represent them. The diversity of voices that you’ll find in this incredible volume is reflective of the people who make the place what it is.” 

Launch celebrations and readings for Southern Voices are scheduled  throughout the state. The public is invited to attend the Columbia event, sponsored in part by the Jasper Project and the South Carolina Academy of Authors, from 6 to 8 pm on November 14th at All Good Books in Five Points. Poets scheduled to read from the collection include Ed Madden, Glenis Redmond, Libby Bernardin, and Ellen Hyatt.

A version of this article appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of Jasper Magazine - Available now throughout Columbia

Welcoming Jean Lomasto to Jasper’s First Thursday Gallery at Sound Bites Eatery

This Thursday!

After an abbreviated showing of her work in 2023, the Jasper Project is delighted to welcome back Jean Lomasto to our First Thursday celebration by featuring the artist and her work in the Jasper Gallery space at our beloved soup, sandwich, and salad home, Sound Bites Eatery at 1425 Sumter Street.

Visual artist Jean Lomasto was born in Brooklyn, New York, but  when she was 15 years old her father took a job in Greenville, SC and moved the family to the SC upstate area. After attending college at the University of South Carolina and pursuing Costume Design, two of her undergraduate teachers, Lyn Carroll (costume design) and Terry Bennett (scene design) encouraged her to go to graduate school.

Lomasto says, “Many principles of design transfer easily from theatre to painting or seemed to for me. I have a Master of Fine Art in Costume Design from UVA. I have taken a few introductory painting classes locally and in LA. I took drawing classes at the Art Students League in New York, when I was working there in the field of costuming.”

With an MFA in Costume Design and a cover piece in Theatre Design and Technology magazine, Lomasto traveled to NYC where she worked in many costume shops, including the Julliard School as well as for a few Woody Allen films designed by Santo Loquasto. She became wardrobe supervisor for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and toured the world with the company, designing Dudley William’s finale costume for his performance at City Center.

Jean has two sons. While they were growing up, she taught elementary school in California for steady income and health insurance, occasionally doing some theatre work. They lived in Mestre, Italy for several years. 

She returned to Columbia, SC in 2014 and designed many shows for Trustus Theatre:  Peter and the Starcatcher, Marie Anntoinette, Appropriate, Marly’s Christmas Carol, among others.

“One of the greatest influences for my painting was Nicholas Wilton,” Lomasto says. “I signed up online at the start of COVID for a 10-week painting course. Design elements and using paint were important, but the biggest factor for me in this course was psychological.  ... meaning Nicholas Wilton encourages students to find what is in them and then paint. Locally, I find Columbia to be filled with amazingly talented people who support each other, but the following two take the cake for me: One day I was working in the library and Stephen Chesley walks up to me and says, ‘Hi, I like your work. Go bigger...just go bigger.’ I picked myself up off the floor and said, okay. I have had the opportunity to reconnect with Philip Mullen, who is kind enough to really look at my work and comment on it. This is such a generous thing to do on his part.” 

Lomasto says that she has “no official university training in painting. I was married to an art student as an undergraduate and hung around the art department a good bit, when I wasn't at the theatre.” Lomasto goes on to explain that “Philip Mullen was my husband's teacher in undergraduate school. I have always lived in places with easy access to art.”

1st Thursday w/ Sound Bites Eatery & The Jasper Project

featuring

Visual Artist Jean Lomasto

Thursday, October 3rd 5:30 - 8 pm

Sound Bites Eatery

1425 Sumter Street

Poetry of the People with Evelyn Berry

This week's Poet of the People is Evelyn Berry. Over a decade ago, led by Evelyn Berry, an inspired group of Aiken High School students would pile in a car and journey to Columbia to attend Mind Gravy Poetry. I am fortunate to still know several of them through the wonder of Facebook—and Evelyn continues to lead and soar above us all. Some day, we will say we knew and were energized by Evelyn Berry on her way up and be grateful for the experience.

-Al Black

Evelyn Berry is a trans, Southern writer, editor, and educator. She's the author of Grief Slut (Sundress Publications, 2024). She's a recipient of a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship and lives in Columbia, South Carolina.

Self-Portrait at Nineteen 

All summer, I worked shifts at Old Navy

& snorted molly from an iPhone screen

in the backseat of a car parked nowhere,

a happy heathen not yet grief-plundered.

Once, I was a boy unafraid to die.

I would swallow almost anything meant

to kill me if, at first, it got me high:

pills left over from surgery pilfered

from my parents’ medicine cabinet,

coffee cups of dark liquor, gas station

feasts, bounty of grease, sugar, cigarettes.

How else to parachute from the body?

Aliveness, this useless extravagance

I have wasted once before, but no more.

prodigal daughter 

what I know of sin, i learned in the sty

amid the swine, slurped mud and called it wine.

femme-fouled boy, faggot-spoiled sacrifice

offered at the altar and abandoned.

forgive my reckless want, lord, to belong

as more than soiled sacrament, fat sow

knife-split to gorge the prophets of gendered

violence. prayer, in their hands, a blade.

what do i know of penitence, patience,

except once the lord sent frenzied demons

into a drove of blameless pigs to drown?

how did we decide which beast to slaughter?

lord, i too am an impure animal.

i left home a son, return a daughter.

Eos 

After Mary Evelyn Pickering De Morgan

Once, the goddess of dawn cried out, forlorn,

her son cast into dirt beyond the walls of Troy,

Achilles’ sword drawn through his chest,

his soul gone, replaced with a feathered flock.

Her tears poured graceless as swans,

like a vase overflowing with morning dew

until grief bloomed new gardens.

Describe to me the weight of this.

Mourning replenishes the earth, ushers

Soil into rebirth, new river traced

from the boy’s doomed blue veins.

What is a song worth without its wound?

Let me, for once, taste paradise without the tinge of blood.

Let me glimpse the cusp of dawn without the flood of night.

The Decoy

            After John Collier

To be painted femme fatale, condemned fatal:

a woman’s beauty is a dangerous deception

in the hands of a man who demands

to own her like a plucked rose.

Let me be the decoy instead,

damsel in undress, glinting

luminescent like a knife

bound to my ankle.

One Book Winner Cassie Premo Steele Leads Community Discussion on Her Novel Beaver Girl

On Tuesday, August 27th, Cassie Premo Steele will offer insight into her 2023 novel Beaver Girl during her author’s talk at All Good Books (734 Harden St). 

The Jasper Project, in conjunction with One Columbia, and All Good Books, announced Steele’s novel as the selected community reading for the 2024 One Book project earlier this year.

One Book was first adopted by Columbia in 2011, modeled after the One Book, One Community project that started in the Seattle public library system in 1998. The goal is to highlight literary art by South Carolina authors and to emphasize a sense of community around storytelling. 

Beaver Girl is “set against the backdrop of a post-pandemic and climate-collapsed world” as it follows 19-year-old Livia through a journey with a beaver family in Congaree National Park. The story both reveals the unique role of beavers in the world’s ecosystem and the “redemption, resilience, and interconnectedness of all living beings.” 

Next week’s Community Book Discussion will give readers of the book a chance to pick Steele’s brain and interrogate the themes of the story. Even locals who have not had an opportunity to read the book can take advantage of the evening to get to know a local author and learn more about this community-oriented project. 

Jasper talked with Steele ahead of the event to find out just why this event is so vital—both as part of this project and beyond.

JASPER: Why does this discussion matter to you as an author?

STEELE: For the past five months, the 2024 One Book Project has hosted events giving people the opportunity to read and learn about the themes in Beaver Girl. I’ve led workshops on beaver ecology and ethics from Congaree National Park to Oregon and Washington State. I’ve engaged in panel discussions about the novel with beaver scholar Emily Fairfax online and a host of scholars and activists here in our community at the Nickelodeon Theater. And I’ve given classes on writing “the code of the water way” to writers and science educators from across the states of Oklahoma and South Carolina. 

Tuesday’s discussion, though, will be a homecoming, returning back to the local bookstore where the Jasper Project, One Columbia for Arts and Culture, and All Good Books chose Beaver Girl for this year’s community reading selection. And as the characters Livia and Chap learn in Beaver Girl, there’s no place like home. 

JASPER: Why might people want to get a behind the scenes look for this book specifically? 

STEELE: The community book discussion will be an opportunity for people to share stories about their fears about environmental disasters and the losses the pandemic and political upheavals have caused — themes addressed in the novel— but also their [positive] experiences with the natural world, their strategies for self-care and connection, and their hopes for a future where we enjoy the abundant richness of diversity in our human and more than human communities. 

JASPER: Why should people take the time to meet local artists? 

STEELE: We have a rich, diverse city filled with creative people, and we live in a unique biosphere region that is unlike anything else on earth. The book shows us how we can learn to live together in harmonious ways — and what can happen if we do not. 

JASPER: Why should the community be excited for this event, specifically?

STEELE: In the end, Beaver Girl is really a book about family and community. Who do we love? How can we learn to trust again after great trauma? What members of our community need care, and how can we be open to communicating with those who are different from us? The moderator of our discussion, Ruth Smyrle, took care of my stepdaughter when she was a baby, so there’s an element of family woven into the event itself. I hope people will feel that reading and discussing Beaver Girl gives them an opportunity to feel part of a beautiful and diverse community. 

The Community Book Discussion will be Tuesday, August 27, from 6:00pm—7:30pm at All Good Books.

If you can’t make it on the 27th you can also meet Steele at one of the following events:

• Monday, September 9 at 6:30-7:30 PM - Queer-Themed Book Discussion with Cassie Premo Steele, Author of Beaver Girl, Moderated by Maggie Olszewski, Queer Poet and Employee at All Good Books, to be held at The Hoot, 2910 Rosewood Drive, Suite 1, Columbia SC

• Saturday, September 7 at 10 AM-12 PM - Summer Forest Journaling with the Author of Beaver Girl and Earth Joy Writing at Congaree National Park : Free but space is limited. Register here.

• Tuesday, September 17 6:00-7:30 PM - All Booked Up, the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium’s Coastal Reading Club for formal, non-formal, or homeschool educators, discussing Beaver Girl. Online. More info here.

• Sunday, September 22 at 3:00-6:00 PM - ONE BOOK 2024 Round-Up Party and Potluck Dinner with BYOB. Music, Art, DJ, Poetry, Cozy Conversations and Hugs! One Columbia Co-Op, 1013 Duke Avenue, Columbia, SC

Alex Ruskell Creates Whimsical Friends for Jasper’s Tiny Gallery

Nighthawks by Alex Ruskell

Alex Ruskell is a man who wears many hats, serving as the Director of Academic Success for the University of South Carolina’s Law School by day and parading around stages with his band, the Merry Chevaliers, at night. 

All the while, strange little figures plague his mind, and fortunately for those who call Columbia home, those whimsical dudes materialize into joyful paintings patrons can hang on their own walls.

Crooner by Alex Ruskell

“When I started painting, all I really wanted to do was make people happy,” Ruskell shares. “I know that sounds dopey and saccharine, but that was it—along with making enough money per art show that I could take my family out to dinner without feeling guilty about it.” 

For his Tiny Gallery show (which has made his work available to those nearly as far-and-wide as the outer space dwellers he often paints), Ruskell has put together 8 new works alongside prints of 2 popular pieces.  

On the gallery site, patrons will see dinos and dragons floating in space (with astronaut helmets for their tails, of course); crooning, karaoke monsters; and kings and goths alike just trying to get by. Essentially? The usual.

Spaced by Alex Ruskell

“The painting thing has worked out better than I could hope for,” Ruskell says. “I've got paintings in my yard that the neighborhood children have named; I see my paintings in the backgrounds of college dorm photos; and I get asked to do commissioned paintings for family birthdays, baby nurseries, and wedding gifts.” 

Alex Ruskell’s Tiny Gallery show will be live until August 31st, so be sure to check out his funky friends filled with heart before then on Jasper’s virtual gallery space. 

“Life is wonderful, but everyone has their down moments,” Ruskell says. “I like to think that a person might buy an alien eating a slice of pizza, stick it on his or her wall, and get a chuckle out of it now and again."

Click Here to Shop Jasper’s TINY GALLERY

REVIEW -- Trustus Theatre's Workshop Premiere of Dandelion: An Original Musical

by Chad Henderson

Trustus Theatre opened its doors on Friday, August 9th to a sold-out audience that had been long-anticipating the first downbeat of Dandelion. This original musical was created by composer and lyricist Colleen Francis and book writers Jessica Fichter and Sean Riehm, with some additional music and lyrics from Hailee Beltzhoover-Zuniga and Bill Zeffiro. This work is a slick and well-devised exploration of trauma, mental illness, and the sinewy bonds of family. It will move you, you will relate to one or more of the characters in this multi-generational story and it will actually make you laugh quite a bit. So, if you’re reading this to find out if you should see Dandelion at Trustus - then let me go ahead and direct you to their website to buy tickets: trustus.org. Your Columbia artists are in your own backyard creating something new and you don’t have tickets yet? Shame on you. This is why we can’t have nice things in this town. The show runs through August 25th, so you’ve got plenty of chances to experience Dandelion and stick around for talkbacks after every performance if you wish.  

Now, for posterity, I will pontificate about the production as it stood on opening night. (As this is a workshop production, that means it can and probably will change on its journey to the next production. Hell, it might have already changed before the second weekend.) 

Dandelion tells the story of a teenager named Jane and her family. They live in Georgia, USA. Jane’s mother, Lilah, has endured a long struggle with mental illness and opioid addiction. Jane’s parents have split up, but her fun-loving parrothead of a father is still in the picture. At an impasse with Lilah, Jane’s brother Jordan has also left the house and raises a family away from his mother’s illness. So, this leaves Jane as the sole caretaker of her mother for quite some time, but she finds solace in the company of her best friend Gabbie as they begin the process of applying for college and going to the prom. Will Lilah find a pathway to a healthier life? Will Jane make the move to North College without her mother getting in the way? Are the systems that are supposed to protect those with mental illness totally fucked in America? Well, the audience will hope for the best as the inevitable answers to these questions are revealed. All the while, we’ll keep truly wishing the best for these characters, because they’re all really likable (and word on the street is that the story is based on an actual family from around these parts).  

On the road to this workshop production, one would assume that the script has undergone alteration and subtraction. The end result is a satisfyingly paced production that is dense but moves with plenty of locomotion. The play’s translation from page to stage was directed by co-book writer Jessica Francis Fichter (and Trustus Executive Director), and it is a winsome evening in the theatre through her collaboration with music director Steven Gross, choreographer Terrance Henderson and the production’s design team.

left to right Stann Gwynn, Sadie Wiskes, Katrina Garvin, and Sean Stephens photo by Thomas Hammond

Colleen Francis’ music and lyrics are clearly the result of an industry professional. Her work in her career spans from country to hip hop, and if you listen to Franky C (her performer name) you will joyfully experience music that would be at home on top 40s stations. The songwriter’s prowess comes front and center with the haunting “Lullaby” that serves as the introduction of Lilah’s mental illness, and one of the play’s most useful devices: the utilization of three actors to personify the character’s depression, rage, and paranoia. This storytelling gambit seems to have given Francis the permission to dive into some inventive places with numbers like “Nightmare,” “Throwing Me Away” and, truly one of the strongest of the production, “Bottom of a Bottle.” These tunes feel connected and original to this musical. Also noteworthy is “Not the Perfect Daughter,” which is a moving solo from Jane that boasts a memorable melody and hook.  

With Francis’ ability to be a songwriting chameleon, it was somewhat surprising that the team behind the show desired to lean into some of the more prosaic tropes of modern musical theatre. Much of the music that doesn’t center around Lilah’s internal journey sounds like some other song you’ve heard from some other musical in recent history, and sometimes even the moments in the show can seem (intentionally?) echoic. For example, with the device of having a present-day and younger Jane to demonstrate the story’s links to the past - one could remember Alison Bechdel in Fun Home. It was also hard to ignore the similarities between the Act II opener and Next to Normal’s “My Psychopharmacologist and I” - right down to the waltz and the list of side effects in the lyrics that end in “death” (or “use could be fatal” in N2N). It is entirely possible that a different approach to the arrangements or orchestrations could bring something unique to the sound of the show.

Left to right Mel Driggers and Hannah Bonnett — photo by Thomas Hammond

There are plenty of theatre fans that love the familiar, and Dandelion will ultimately feel safe with a cutting edge here and there to jar the viewer on occasion. The team and the cast give this new work sturdy legs to stand on, because it is indeed tight, well-crafted, and realized by professionals with proven track records. That is undoubtedly why the audience connected to the characters, pulled for them, related to them, and wiped the tears from their eyes as they stood for an ovation that was well-deserved by the cast and all in the show’s orbit.  

Speaking of the cast: new work can be stressful, fast-paced and a bit disorienting - but this group didn’t flinch. The quartet of Katrina Garvin (Lilah) and the voices in her head played by Kristin Claiborne, Terrance Henderson and Brittany Hammock provide the thrills in this story - both narratively and musically. As these characters build into moments of destruction (literally), the group illustrates the expanse of Lilah’s inner-struggle and how powerful her illness can be when confronted by others. Katrina as Lilah uses her toolbox to keep the character teetering on the brink of a possible breakthrough, while believably navigating the waters of hitting rock bottom (we hope they record  “Bottom of the Bottle” so we can relive her powerhouse performance).  

The Three Voices — Brittany Hammock, Kristin M. Claiborne, and Terrance Henderson - photo courtesy of Trustus Theatre

It must also be mentioned that the Three Voices get to play a grab-bag of other characters in the story, especially in “Welcome to Your New Life.” Some of these briefly-lived creations are some of the funniest in the show. Case in point: Brittany Hammock as Carla, the college tour guide. Some of the laughter she generated lasted longer than the built-in holds-for-chortle. 

New to the Trustus stage is guest artist Hannah Bonnet in the role of Jane. Bonnet is a magnetic performer, and she does a commendable job of holding the audience’s hand throughout the story and bringing them along. Jane’s best friend Gabbie is played by local actor Mel Driggers, who gets to play the clown a lot in this performance. Driggers’ Gabbie is an homage to all of our best friends in high school, and the friend who pushed us harder because they truly loved us. Seeing these two actors work together presents much needed levity between some of the darker moments. However, we did wonder if there might be more signaling in the playing of Jane that shows how her mother’s conditioning has set in over 18 years. Beyond her own guilt as a caretaker, what else is the character escaping in herself? 

Also in Jane’s sphere are her father Daniel (Stann Gwynn), her brother Jordan (Sean Stephens) and the memory of her younger self played by Sadie Wiskes. Young Sadie is there to show us Jane’s innocence, the child before the veneer is chipped away - and she does a lovely job. Stann Gwynn and Sean Stephens’ characters provide a lot of the uncomplicated familial love for Jane, though both characters have clearly abandoned her in some form or fashion. Both actors shine throughout the proceedings, but their turns in the chaotic “Get Your Shit Together” really turns up the energy on stage and the anxiety in the audience.  

The show’s title references an endearing moment early on in the play where Lilah tells the young Jane that when you blow a dandelion and make a wish, that your “wishes have wings.” I might be compelled to pick up the next few dandelions I come across. I hope I won’t jinx it by publishing it here, but I think I’ll wish for the following: 

1. More original plays and musicals by local artists

2. More producing organizations presenting new works 

3. Audiences showing up for new work

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. Check out the show's dedicated website, see Dandelion and enjoy the conversation afterwards. 

CALL for Visual Artists -- Jasper is Accepting Applicants for the 2025 Jasper Galleries Series

We’re looking for a few good artists!

It’s already time for Jasper to plan our schedule for the 2025 Jasper Galleries Series and we want to hear from YOU! Just follow the instructions on the handy graphic above to let us know you are interested in sharing your work with the Jasper Project and your adoring fans.

In addition to our online 24/7 Tiny Gallery, Jasper has gallery spaces at Motor Supply Bistro, Sound Bites Eatery, The Nook at the Koger Center for Arts, the Lobby Gallery at Harbison Theatre, and at the Sidewalk Gallery in the Meridian Building Windows at Washington and Sumter Streets in downtown Columbia.

Application Deadline is October 15th.

We’re looking forward to hearing from YOU!

Special thanks to the good people at Motor Supply Bistro, Sound Bites Eatery, Koger Center for the Arts, Harbison Theatre, and the Meridian Building for supporting Columbia’s visual arts community by opening their walls to the Jasper Project for programming. We encourage you to support these businesses with your patronage. And if the walls need some love in your place of business, please contact our

Galleries Manager, Christina Xan at cxan@JasperProject.org,

to make plans for a Jasper Galleries arrangement custom created for you and your clientele.

Art Reception Double Feature at the Koger Center by Emily Moffitt

The Koger Center for the Arts underwent a large cosmetic upgrade during the summer months, including new carpet and the installation of telescopic seating in their large rehearsal room to create a black box theatre. Aside from the physical facelift of the building, the two gallery spaces now hold new exhibitions for patrons to enjoy before an event or any time throughout the day. The two new exhibits are “The Project 2023 Winners’ Exhibition” in the Gallery at the Koger Center, and in the Nook, one of our Jasper Galleries locations, Marius Valdes is the featured artist of August. A large-scale opening reception for both exhibits is scheduled for August 15, 2024, from 5:30 – 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.  

The Project 2023 Winners’ Exhibition features the winners of the Koger Center’s annual art competition. The 2023 iteration winners are Yvette Cummings, Roberto Clemente de Leon, Gerard Erley, Jo-Ann Morgan, and Susan Lenz. “The Project: A Call for Art” is a competition that began during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and is dedicated to uplifting and featuring visual artists across the state of South Carolina.

A variety of media is included in this exhibit: from oil paintings to sculpture, from collage to quilting. Stop by the Gallery at the Koger Center and mingle with artist peers from across the state!

 As a member of the Vista Guild Association, the Koger Center for the Arts is proud to partner with the Jasper Project in Third Thursday Art Night. We feature a different artist every month in our rotating gallery, The Nook, with an opening reception on the month's Third Thursday. August 2024's featured artist is Marius Valdes.

Marius Valdes is an artist currently based in Columbia, SC. Valdes has been recognized by design publications such as Graphic Design USA, HOW, Print, Communication Arts, Creative Boom, Creative Quarterly, Step, and industry competitions including American Illustration, and The World Illustration Awards. In 2022, the UK's Creative Boom website named Valdes as one of its "20 Most Exciting Illustrators" to follow.

Valdes is a Professor at the University of South Carolina. He teaches graphic design and illustration in the GD+I program in the School of Visual Art and Design. He lives in Forest Acres with his wife, Beth, and their daughter Emma. Mary, the dog, is always around for a good laugh.

Cassie Premo Steele's BEAVER GIRL is the ONE BOOK 2024 Selection!

The Jasper Project, in partnership with One Columbia for Arts and Culture and All Good Books, is delighted to announce that Cassie Premo Steele’s novel BEAVER GIRL has been chosen as the community reading selection for the ONE BOOK 2024 Project.

Set against the backdrop of a post-pandemic and climate-collapsed world, Beaver Girl follows the journey of Livia, a 19-year-old confronting the aftermath of environmental upheaval. As wildfires encircle her, Livia seeks solace in Congaree National Park, where an unexpected alliance with a beaver family becomes a central theme in her fight for survival.

Steele skillfully intertwines elements of a morality tale, shedding light on humanity's role in climate disaster. The novel delves into the ecological significance of beavers as keystone species, emphasizing their ability to shape landscapes and create sustainable water sources.

Beaver Girl  transcends traditional genres, offering a narrative that explores themes of redemption, resilience, and the interconnectedness of all living beings. Anxiety and Outcast Press, through this joint venture, bring forth a powerful story that challenges readers to reflect on the consequences of environmental negligence.

Jasper, One Columbia, and All Good Books have joined hands to provide a summer-long celebration of the project with programming, readings, an arts competition, and a culminating project party in September.

Pick up your copy of BEAVER GIRL,* read along, and join us for the following free events!

• April 21 – Earth Day Celebration with Jasper and One Columbia Arts and Culture

• April 27  – Congaree National Park Spring Forest Wellness Journaling

• May 2 – Can Beavers Really Save the World? Ask the Author and Scholar

• June 10 – Uniquely Close: Biodiversity at Congaree and Diversity in Columbia

• July 1 – The Art of ONE BOOK 2024 Contest Deadline                                                      

• August 27 – Community Book Discussion with Cassie Premo Steele

• September 7 – Congaree National Park Summer Forest Wellness Journaling 

• September 22 – ONE BOOK 2024 Round-Up Party and Contest Winners Showcase

*Beaver Gril is available at All Good Books, Liberation is Lit, Amason, Barnes & Noble & Bookshop.org

Jasper Partners with One Columbia & All Good Books to present 2024 ONE BOOK Project -- Book Announcement Celebration April 21st at Bierkeller

A few hints: the author lives, works, and writes in Columbia, the book’s theme centers around nature, environmental responsibility, and climate change, and there are characters in the book that transcend perceived racial, gender, sexual orientation, and even biological divisions to remind us that we are all citizens of this planet.

The public is invited to join the Jasper Project, One Columbia, and All Good Books, along with our host, Bierkeller Brewing Company on Sunday afternoon, April 21st from 3 – 5 pm for the announcement of our new book selection for Columbia’s 2024 ONE BOOK project!

As an Earth Day Eve event, the Bierkeller has invited representatives from local environmental organizations to be on hand to help us set the stage for the announcement of this year’s book selection.

A few hints: the author lives, works, and writes in Columbia, the book’s theme centers around nature, environmental responsibility, and climate change, and there are characters in the book that transcend perceived racial, gender, sexual orientation, and even biological divisions to remind us that we are all citizens of this planet.

Columbia city poet laureate Jennifer Bartell Boykin will read a poem dedicated to the city, and southeastern regional poetry event host Al Black has created a new poem inspired by the selected book. Dr. Melissa Stuckey, USC professor of History, will speak as will One Columbia’s Xavier Blake, All Good Book’s Jared Johnson, and the Jasper Project’s Cindi Boiter. There will be an interactive arts table for the children, environmental information booths, and various arts and crafts vendors will share their wares and talents with attendees. And, of course, beer, wine, and authentic German dishes will be available from the Bierkeller.

In addition to announcing the calendar of events for Columbia’s 2024 ONE BOOK  celebration, the pre-Earth Day event will also allow for the announcement of a Jasper Project – sponsored and ONE BOOK - inspired visual art, literary art, and singer-songwriter competition open to Midlands area artists with prizes and a 2024 ONE BOOK culminating party on September 22, 2024.

The ONE BOOK, One Community project began in the Seattle public library system in 1998 when Seattle librarians invited the community of greater Seattle to read and discuss the same book over the course of a summer. Columbia embraced the project first in 2011, and we enjoyed several years of exciting, thought-provoking programming centered around a singular book. One of our most exciting projects was in 2017 when the Columbia community read local author Carla Damron's novel The Stone Necklace, a detailed and ultimately uplifting story focusing on the power of community to combat poverty and homelessness and set in Columbia. Along with One Columbia for Arts and Culture and independent bookstore All Good Books, the Jasper Project has renewed the project focusing exclusively on books by SC authors.

While the title of the book remains embargoed until April 21st, media representatives may be made aware of the information upon request.

What will the selection for Columbia’s 2024 One Book be? Join us on April 21st from 3 – 5 pm at the Bierkeller, 600 Canal Street, Suite 1009 to find out!

For more information contact info@JasperProject.org

OVERDUE: CURATED FOR THE CREATIVE SET FOR FRIDAY, MARCH 15th - in connection with The Jasper Project's BIG TINY GALLERY featuring 20+ Jasper Artists!

Join Richland Library for This FREE, After-Hours Program

WHAT: Overdue

WHEN: March 15 | 7-11 p.m.

WHERE: Richland Library Main(1431 Assembly St., 29201)

WHO: Adults, ages 18 & olderExperience a night of creativity and entertainment at Richland Library's Overdue: Curated for the Creative event on Friday, March 15, from 7 - 11 p.m. at Richland Library Main (1431 Assembly St., 29201). Join Richland Library after hours for interactive activities like block printed stickers, zine making with Eden Prime, and more! Be entertained with live music performances by Dear Blanca, Niecy Blues, and Katera. Enjoy delicious food from Dae's Delicious Dogs and drinks from the cash bar by Transmission Arcade. This free event, open to those ages 18 and up, promises an evening of artistic exploration and community engagement.

Attendees of Overdue will have the first opportunity to view Richland Library's newest exhibit, Jasper Presents: A Big Tiny Gallery. The Big Tiny Gallery is a collection of small artworks created by a collection of local artists previously showcased in The Jasper Project’s online exhibition series. Over the years, Jasper's Tiny Gallery series has allowed artists to show a selection of smaller pieces offered at affordable prices. The exhibit will be on view in the gallery from March 15 - April 26th. A closing reception for the gallery is scheduled for April 19, 2024.

A complete list of activities, musicians and partners is available online.

This event is sponsored in part by the Richland Library Friends and Foundation.

For questions, please contact Tacara Young at 803-351-5616 or tyoung@richlandlibrary.com.

Jasper Project Announces THOMAS WASHINGTON as our FEATURED ARTIST in the 701 Whaley Hallway Gallery in February

The Jasper Project is excited to announce that ephemeral visual artist Thomas Washington will be our featured artist in the 701 Whaley Hallway Gallery for February 2024 with his one-person show LOVE QUEST.

There will be an opening reception on Sunday, February 11th from 3 - 5 pm in the gallery.

In keeping with 2023’s featured artists — Wilma King and Wayne Thornley and their two-person show Love Hurts/Love Heals — Washington’s exhibition of LOVE QUEST will show for the month of February and will coincide with the Jasper Project’s fundraising Valentine’s Day show and party INFAMOUS LOVERS on February 14th at 7pm in the 701 Whaley Market Space. (Tickets available here.) Infamous Lovers will feature the music of Fleetwood Mac cover band, BIG LOVE, Tiny Coven Dance, and more!

Washington’s reception on 2/11 is free and open to the public and will offer light refreshments.

More about Thomas Washington, in his own words …

“Perhaps the most important pursuit of an artist is the facilitation of Escapism. Perhaps each project is the equivalent of a Narnian door…or that lamppost beyond, coaxing a wanderer into another realm.  

Thomas Washington Jr. (thomas the younger) functions on that premise. Since his childhood, he has produced multitudinous works in this vein—from being hired (out of high school) to illustrate in a local graphic anthology, he has subsequently striven to bring stories in every medium; to breathe life into the fantastical by imbuing it with the familiar…and, of course, to find fun and fulfillment along the way. 

As a result, it required the birth of his children to make him care about money. (He still struggles with this.) –For years, he was perfectly fine living as a Bohemian: he laid his head in strange places among strangers, eventually becoming a pleasant strain of strange in the process. He thus entertains all sorts of bizarre notions—the importance of world peace, an unshakeable belief in fundamental similarities that make Humanity one big family, intense opinions on interstellar travel, and so-forth. 

Recently, he took the leap of emerging in his local scene. He has sat on panels, joined the instructor roster for community arts centers, partaken in various shows, (finally!) founded a website, and essentially joined the dialogue of Art’s Place in Society.

Jeffrey Miller’s Exploration of Life Through Humor, Audacity, Absurdity and Juxtaposition

I was once told by someone that they did not know if they liked my work because I wasn't doing what everybody else was doing. I have never before been so complimented— Jeffrey Miller

Jeffrey Miller’s work traces a handful of related themes, ideas, and images through a variety of mediums. He is an artist always exploring and keeping options open—and he is Jasper’s featured Tiny Gallery artist for the month of September. 

Miller grew up in small-town Campbellsville, Kentucky, a “typical child except for an oversized imagination and an unrelenting curiosity.” While he did not grow up around art, he often drew in the margins of his mom’s old textbooks—deterred from marking up the walls of his home instead. Of all things, though, it was an encyclopedia that began the blossoming of Miller’s identity as an artist. 

“One day my father drew a polar bear sketch that he copied from those encyclopedias; excited, I asked him to do it again but instead he gave me the pencil and told me to do it myself,” Miller recalls. “That was all the encouragement I needed. I was about 5 years old then, and I got my first real commission at the age of 12—I earned $100 for painting a logo for a truck driver on both doors of his truck.” 

From this moment, Miller went on to commit himself to art, receiving an art scholarship from Campbellsville University and finishing his art degree at Murray State University 

“At University I was introduced to and gained more knowledge about materials and art history; as far as process, though, it seems more I just learned the name to call what I was already doing,” Miller says. “The biggest and most influencing thing was the atmosphere and the presence of so many other people involved in the creative process…that I really miss!”

BLACK CAT BLUES

Since getting his degree, Miller has continued to grow and expand his horizons. One of his greatest fears is being trapped in a box. As he says, there are “too many possibilities to explore.” In his mind, work predicts medium, so the more mediums one is familiar with, the more the subject matter can spread its wings. 

“Being a good painter or good in whatever chosen medium is a technical evaluation—creativity is something more,” he says. “Besides which, good is a relative term so it literally tells you nothing about an art piece.” 

And art is something Miller is always doing. When asked what he does when not creating, he says that he sees everything he partakes in within his everyday life as some form of artmaking. In that vein, Miller does not have a specific theme he chases—in fact, he sees this as one of the limitations people place around artists and their work. 

In his mind, work predicts medium, so the more mediums one is familiar with, the more the subject matter can spread its wings. 

“People ask what I was thinking when I did this piece or that piece. The only answer is my thinking was absorbed in the piece I'm working on at the time. Anything else is an afterthought,” he says. “The work is complete when I've done my job as an artist and I'm on to the next canvas. The important thing is what [the viewer] brings to the piece, what do [they] think. A piece of art is not complete without the viewer, and each viewer will bring thoughts of their own.” 

If he could find a throughline in his piece, he would say it is all, in some way or another, a celebration of life in all its forms, regardless of the themes and emotions within. If art is in his every day, his art also shows the everyday.

VENUS OF THE BAYOU

“There is an ebb and flow, a push and pull, a transitoriness about life that must be reflected in one's art if that art is about life. The imagery, ideas, and concepts are a reflection of day-to-day life which I personally tend to express through humor, audacity, absurdity, and juxtaposition,” Miller says. “I was once told by someone that they did not know if they liked my work because I wasn't doing what everybody else was doing. I have never before been so complimented.” 

In this Tiny Gallery show, Miller shows off these juxtapositions of life in his newest medium: printmaking, of which he has had an introductory class and, so far, is “finding nothing about it that [he doesn’t] like.” Adjacently, he has started exploring digital art, and he has found himself particularly connected to a new digital image he made—the cover photo of this article.  

“[The piece] totally reflects the art that is me—the art just described to you in the above paragraphs. I usually work from a fleeting mental image in response to something I've seen, heard, or read,” he says. “The mental image may or may not come immediately but it always comes in the same way, like a light brush across the cheek or a fast, flashing image like from the old slide projectors. I turn to get a better look and it is gone. There are times when I only see it when the piece is done—I like it that way.”

THE FALCONER

Perhaps it is this mindset that has led to Miller winning a handful of art contests, including an advertising award from Doe Anderson Advertising Co., as well as serving as an educator for the Lexington Library Adult Education Program for four years.

 Today, he displays at various festivals and community sponsored events, and you can see—and purchase—his work 24/7 until the end of September at Jasper’s online gallery space. After the show, interested patrons can follow his journey on Facebook and Instagram @ Jeffrey Miller Artworks.

Poetry of the People with Al Black featuring Tony Pichof

Because I’ve planted a seed
That sparked a thought
And made them think

I chose Tony Pichof as my next Poet of the People for his earnestness and gentle unfrilly lyric quality. He represents the everyperson in each of us.

Al Black

Poet, Tony Pichoff (pee-shawf) retired from the Army in 2006 and has been working as a civil servant since.  He has been writing since his junior year in high school when his English teacher, Mrs. Magoo (yes, really!) accused him of plagiarism.  He has been awarded and recognized in several contests over the years and has self-published twelve collections* under the pen name, Tony Garrison (to honor his stepfather).  He is an active adult scouting leader.  He enjoys spending time with his family and working on his hobby farm.

The Best I Can 

Strangers on the street
Often ask me,
“How’re you doing?”
As they are passing,
Out of some unwritten
Rule of courtesy,
Not expecting an answer
When they acknowledge me.
“The best I can”
Is my standard reply.
Then I see them smile
As I walk by
Because I’ve planted a seed
That sparked a thought
And made them think
Just how they ought-
That everything
Will be okay
If we all do our best
Every single day.
And who knows,
I may just start a new trend
As everything, somewhere,
Sometime begins.
I sure hope it catches on
And becomes part of the plan.
But even if it doesn’t…
I’ll just keep on doin’ the best that I can.

~~~

Sick to My Soul 

We’ve all been there
In those moments we’d rather not be
When in the throes of illness
We feel helpless in our vulnerability
As nausea washes over us
And we know what’s coming next
When waves of sick crash into us
And leave us feeling the opposite of blessed.
Now, take that awfulness of being
And multiply it a hundredfold.
For only then will you be believing
How it feels to be sick to my soul,
With the difference being
There is no release to let it go
And it just keeps on festering
Way down deep within.
This smoldering betrayal
Is such a scorching sin
When I can no longer trust
Someone I once called, Friend. 

Jasper Tiny Gallery Artist Benji Hicks Profile: From a Singular Idea to Animals with Stories

Benji Hicks’s whimsical, personality-filled animals have been playing on Jasper’s Tiny Gallery site since the beginning of August. Keep reading to learn more about Hicks and how he makes his art! 

Hicks has considered Columbia his home since birth­—over 50 years now—having resided in West Columbia, specifically, since 1973. He is a completely self-taught artist, woodcarver, and woodblock print maker, though he can recall the act of creating being valuable to him from an extremely young age. 

“For as long as I can remember, I have always been an artist. Drawing with pencils and pens, and later, painting with watercolor” Hicks says. “Growing up, I got to spend many hours in my dad’s woodworking shop, learning to use tools and make things. This is when I found a love for wood carving.” 

Hicks’s professional work as a carpenter compounded with his self-driven exploration of art, ultimately leading to a new relationship with woodblock printmaking—and to handmaking unique frames for each individual print. 

A Japanese woodblock printmaking technique called Mokuhanga is what caught Hicks’s attention: “Mokuhanga can best be described as a multi woodblock printing technique where there is a keyblock (black outline) and a separate color block carved for each color in the print. My prints are made with anywhere from 2 blocks to as many as 21 blocks per print…since every print is handmade and shows subtle differences, each one is considered an original piece of art.”  

Mokuhanga is similar to other printmaking techniques in that the artist carves into solid surface before adding a colored medium and pressing some form of paper onto the surface before pulling it off to reveal a design. Since embarking on this journey, Hicks has also experimented with adjacent forms of printmaking as he becomes more comfortable with his personal style. 

When it comes to what Hicks likes to make, he is “always drawn to funny little characters and…animals doing human things,” he says. “With animals, it doesn’t matter what age they are. They can be young or old and wise, and still get away with being playful and silly or just out to have fun. I tend to let nature take its course and inspire me in my art,” Hicks says. “If you see a character show up in my artwork, then you can believe that I had an encounter with that sort of creature in nature, a dream or maybe even a song brought them to mind. Each idea is a seed. Once planted, it grows into a new series.”  

These series may emerge from a single seed, but it is just that—an idea. Hicks does not have a firm idea of how exactly an idea will emerge into its final physical form; he prefers to let the characters and their stories bloom organically. 

“If it makes me smile or even giggle a little, then I know I’m on to something. As I create one, I see the next,” Hicks says. “They lead one to another until the end of that path. Some paths are longer than others.”  

This Tiny Gallery show is a mix of old and new from Hicks—all coming together to tell a new story. A “woodsy theme” ties this collection together, with “Bear Loves Honey” being one of his favorites. 

“I was trying to make each print bring a smile and also evoke the imagining of the before and after. I try to capture the moment just before or just as the main event happens,” Hicks says. “You can imagine if there were more panels like a comic book, you would see the bear getting ready for a hike and packing his backpack to go look for honey. Afterwards, he would be happy with his found stash of honey. I tried to capture the moment he sees the bee and feels the anticipation of finding honey.”  

Hicks hopes that when people view the pieces, they “will recognize these moments and use their own imagination to fill in the before and after.” 

For more on Mokuhanga and the art of Benji Hicks’s, check out the fall 2023 print issue of Jasper Magazine, releasing October 2023 — details on release party are coming soon. In the mean time, Hicks’ Tiny Gallery show will be up until August 31st at Jasper’s virtual gallery site. 

After the show, you can see his work on his Facebook, at the Cayce Arts Guild, the South Carolina Artists Group, and the Meeting Street Artisan Market.