Supper Table Spotlight: Kirkland Smith’s Portraits

Kirkland Thomas Smith is a self-employed artist who specializes in many mediums and creates stunning portraits. Born in Charleston, SC, and currently living in Columbia, Smith received her BA in Studio Art at the University of South Carolina. She is currently a resident artist at Stormwater Studios.

Smith’s artwork is influenced by everything that surrounds her: the books that she reads, the music that she listens to, the lectures and sermons that she hears and the conversations that she has in encounters with friends and strangers. She takes notice of the way in which light falls on an object, allowing us to see the beauty of the form. These passions of hers are a trend throughout her work.

Smith has used her passions to take on a specifically important role in the Supper Table – she has created hand-drawn charcoal portraits for each of the 12 featured women represented at the table. Each of these portraits, as Smith says, represents the women at an early point in their lives when they just started to “break the glass ceilings and really be inspirations for the women that followed them.”

For Smith, one of the most special parts of this project is how many amazing women are involved. Not only are each of the 12 featured women unique and “walking different paths” in their lives, but every artists’ hands involved in this project are those of female creators.

Smith is passionate about all art forms, believing that they play a vital role in not only educating but in humanizing and connecting with each other in our communities. She believes that art helps us make sense of this complex world that we live in, and it’s clear that these portraits resonate this belief.

Want a copy of these portraits? Right now, you have two opportunities to own copies of these remarkable art works. On our Kickstarter campaign, at two of our premium levels, your donations will not only help fund our project and go directly to artists like Kirkland, but you will receive copies of these portraits for yourself.

At the $5,000 level, you will receive a copy of all 12 portraits, of which only 5 copies are being made – ever. These portraits would look absolutely stunning and empowering on any home or office wall.

At the $1,000 level, you will receive one copy of the woman of your choice’s portrait, but that’s not all. You will also have a plaque bearing your name placed with the place-setting representing said woman at our installation, four tickets to opening night, our book Setting the Supper Table, and a t-shirt/tote bag bearing art about and a quote from Eartha Kitt.

The Kickstarter only has 12 days left, and once these portraits are gone, they’re gone, so if you’re interested, head over to the campaign page and make your donation. Smith herself just made a video about these portraits as our newest update, which you can check out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table/posts/2569961

Hansel and Gretel: Columbia Marionette Theatre’s new production puts an emphasis on experimentation -- A guest blog by Lyon Hill

At Jasper, we hate spam. But what we hate even more than spam is when real messages -- important messages -- get mistakenly relegated to our spam file. Grrrr.

That's what happened last week when this important guest blog by local marionette genius Lyon Hill got lost in our spam file and never saw the light of day. We just found it. Like 5 minutes ago.

But rather than throw the wooden baby puppet out with the shredded pieces of blue paper that look like bath water, we're going to go ahead and run this guest blog anyway. (And when you get to the part where Lyon is inviting you to become a part of their almost-over kickstarter campaign -- don't freak out. It was successful!)

And now, for a few words from Lyon ...

Hansel and Gretel: Columbia Marionette Theatre’s new production puts an emphasis on experimentation.

The classic Grimm’s fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel has always been a favorite of mine and I yet rarely see it adapted well. The dark forest, the lost children, the gingerbread house, the sinister witch; all of these are potent images and they are perfect for our puppet stage.

Awhile back, I began experimenting with telling this story in a look inspired by early animation; particularly the cartoons of the Fleischer brothers. They created surreal and silly Betty Boop and Popeye shorts that are still intriguing today for their humor and ingenuity. My first take on the characters can be seen in the issue of Jasper in which I am interviewed.

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of working with Wade Sellers of CoalPowered Filmworks (also featured in Jasper) to create a vignette for a ‘Playing After Dark’ event. We coupled these puppets with projected computer animation and it clicked. The puppets seemed to be moving through a deep and dark, dimensional forest.

At that point, I knew we had something and we decided to flesh out the concept and put it on CMT’s main stage. I knew music would be a key factor, so I contacted Dave Drazin, who scored my short film, Junk Palace. He is an accomplished silent film accompanist and well versed in the sound of the time.

We have been hard at work bringing these diverse elements together. While there is still much left to be done, I am excited by the progress so far. One of the things I am most pleased with is the warmth and humor. While we do deliver on a spooky forest and a nasty witch, the show has been written with a very young audience in mind. I think children will connect with the characters of Hansel and Gretel, and the whole family will find it enjoyable.

CMT traditionally creates almost entirely in-house, so we have created a kickstarter  fundraising campaign to offset the expenses of hiring collaborators. While we have had many generous offers of donations, we are only a couple of days away with more money to raise.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1246949395/hansel-and-gretel-collaboration-creates-a-unique-p/posts

We have tried to make the rewards enticing, so please have a look and consider contributing to this unique project. In any case, please come see the show, opening September 22 and running through the end of the year. We have performances every Saturday at 11am and 3pm, as well as the third Monday of each month at 10 am.

Lyon Hill is the art director and puppetmaker at the Columbia Marionette Theatre.

www.cmtpuppet.org

803-252-7366

401 Laurel St

Columbia, SC 29201

info@cmtpuppet.org

Catching up with Wade Sellers and the production of Lola's Prayer -- a guest blog

As soon as we at Jasper heard about the production and Kickstarter campaign for the film Lola's Prayer, we were hooked. For starters, we've been watching filmmaker Wade Sellers for a while and keeping tabs on his work. Wade is one of those filmmakers who can take the wildest of hairs and prune it into the most beautiful of topiaries. Then, when we put two and two together and discovered that Wade's latest project is the adaptation into film of a short story written by Lou Dishcler and published by our good friends at Hub City Press in Spartanburg -- well, we were just flat out psyched. Some of us at Jasper have jumped on the Lola's Prayer bandwagon by supporting Wade and his esteemed cast as they raise funds via their Kickstarter campaign -- (we'll be writing about Kickstarter campaigns soon ourselves) -- and we'd like to encourage you to do the same. There's something about knowing that your 5 or 10 or 50 bucks, combined with that of someone else, can make a real difference in facilitating a fellow artist to reach her or his goal that makes us feel good about the use of our cash. It makes us feel good and, actually, a little privileged to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

If you'd like to know more about Wade and his film Lola's Prayer, please read his guest blog below. And then, if you can spare the price of a beer or a venti latte, or even a pizza -- please think about visiting the Lola's Prayer Kickstarter page and joining Jasper and at least three dozen other backers as we become a part of something that is, well, neat. It'll be money well spent.

A Message from the Filmmaker, Wade Sellers

My friend, filmmaker Chris White, sent me a notice a while back about the Expecting Goodness Short Film Festival in Spartanburg. The concept was that filmmakers would create short films from short stories included in Expecting Goodness, a collection of short stories published by Hub City Press in Spartanburg. The project deadline was March 19^th, so I decided to pass. There were plenty of excuses - there wasn't enough time, we have no money, blah, blah, blah. Sitting at home that night I couldn't stop thinking about the project so I took another look on the project website.

Big on my own personal list was to eventually adapt someone else’s written work. I have produced and directed many of my own short films, most written by myself. But, when I read through the stories in the book I had trouble finding a way I could interject my voice into them. I should have started reading at the beginning. “Lola’s Prayer” is the first story in Expecting Goodness and by the second page I was hooked. As I turned the pages and was introduced to the different characters I began casting immediately, picking actors I knew from Columbia. I had no choice. I had to make this story a movie.

I trudged through a first draft. It’s a beautifully written story, but it is mainly driven by Lola’s internal monologue. Narration is something I usually frown upon in films. The job of the filmmaker is to tell the story with pictures. So the hard part began–how do we show these things to the audience and remain faithful to the story. Four drafts later we have a script that is faithful to the story, but communicates Lola’s character and her interaction with her world in a cinematic way.

My needs were for a small, but talented, crew that could get us from location to location without sacrificing the vision that has been established for the film. As I went down the list of actors I wanted, each responded with a big “yes.” Lorrie Rivers plays Lola. She had been planning to travel back to Los Angeles, her current residence, but after she read the script, she pushed her travel plans back and we moved our shoot schedule up. The rest of the cast made adjustments to their schedules as well. The amount of support for this project has been overwhelming.

When I began making films many years ago, I could shamelessly ask people to work for free on indie projects. I can't do that anymore. Understanding and working with professionals has made it impossible for me to ask someone to give their time without some sort of compensation.

To raise funding for the project we began a Kickstarter campaign for Lola's Prayer. A budget of $4,200 was extablished. The money raised from this campaign will go to pay the cast and crew for their time, location costs, props, food and other expenses that can't be ignored. I am taking no money as part of the project. This is the first time I've turned to others to fund a project. It's hard. It's a big old gulp of your pride. Our first response has been overwhelming. The deadline for the Kickstarter campaign is March 17^th and it is an all or nothing proposition. If we don't reach our goal, we don't get the funding.

This is a new experience. Every time we have begun production on any project there is a big twinge of excitement. This is why we do what we do. This is how we express ourselves. Being surrounded by a community, in Columbia, that supports those goals is a rare and humbling experience.

The cast of “Lola's Prayer”

Henry --                                 Alex Smith

Lola-                                        Lorrie Rivers

Mozzie-                                   Jocelyn Sanders

Bethany Ann-                        Kim Harne

Lola's Sister-                          Vicky Saye Henderson

Lola's Brother-in-law-          Steve Harley

Jed-                                         Bill Kealy

The Farmer-                          Tom Hall

The Farmer's Son-                Galen Hall

____

If you'd like to join with Wade and your fellow film lovers and supporters in Columbia, please click on the link below. Every little bit helps make this film a reality and we all appreciate the support so very much.

Kickstarter Link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340665409/lolas-prayer

tumblr link:

http://lolasprayer.tumblr.com/

For more information on Lola's Prayer, please feel free to contact Wade at the number or email address below.

Wade Sellers - Director

803.467.4206

wade@coalpoweredfilmworks.com