Jasper Welcomes Charles Hite to the Warm Walls of the Jasper Sound Bites Gallery

As we come out of our cozy holiday shells and start blinking in the cold winter sun, Jasper invites you to visit Sound Bites Eatery where both the food and the walls are comforting and warm.

Jasper’s featured artist for January is photographer Charles Hite, whose work is engaging and inspiring.

Charles is a lifelong resident of Lexington County. A retired U.S. Army veteran Hite started paying closer attention to his art in 2009 at the tender age of 60. His love of nature in all aspects can be seen in his images. When asked, he enthusiastically shares the stories of his images with others and he enjoys listening to their experiences, thereby gaining information about interesting subject matter. Many of his images are of nature, old buildings, historic sites, and astronomy related events.  

Most of his images are visually accurate, but he no longer feels constrained to “take what the camera gives him.” Instead, he embraces the freedom to use available tools and capture techniques to render his impression of the scene before him, much like a painter, to make the subject his own. 

In the artist’s own words …

I have lived in Lexington County of SC all but 2 years of the 74 years I have been alive.  The other 2 years were spent in Germany while serving in the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1971.  During my time in the Midlands, I have seen a lot of change.  Some good and some not so good…but mostly good.

I do not photograph people (except family) …for money or pleasure.  It is too much like work for me.  Instead, I enjoy nature and “things” …especially old “things.”  And it seems the older I get the more I like old things.  I like to be outdoors and take my time with my subjects.  I like to be at the site well before the good light begins and watch the scene develop and well after the good light in the evening. I capture the scene and then I spend leisure time there.

As you can see from my images, there is no rhyme or reason to what interest me. Fortunately, some of my work has been juried into several shows and exhibitions.  Some shows that I’m especially proud of are these: 

• Columbia Metropolitan Airport 2014 Exhibition

• Rosewood Art and Music Festival…several years.    

• ArtFields in Lake City, SC, 2015, 2017 and 2018.

• SC State Museum 30th Anniversary Art Exhibition - 2018

• Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston, SC – 2019, 2022

Jasper Project presents Keith Tolen at Sound Bites for April's First Thursday

THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2023 AT 6 PM – 9 PM

1425 Sumter Street in Columbia

You’re invited to help Jasper welcome Keith Tolen and his art to First Thursday this month at Sound Bites Eatery on Sumter Street.

Retired educator, protegee of Leo Twiggs, devoted husband, father, and full time artist, Keith Tolen is a man of surprises and his new show at Sound Bites, opening Thursday night as part of April’s First Thursday festivities, makes that clear.

According to Tolen, “My art experience has been both fulfilling and complex. I love the process of creating. In many ways I am more attracted to the process than the product that is produced. The artwork in this collection is an extension of my personal story of searching for meaning in the everyday activities that are around us. Music has always provided me with inspiration for new ideas. I am a big fan of live music, especially jazz. Jazz musicians have provided me with a wealth of subject content. Recently my art has taken on another turn as I explore the nature of the dot or point. The relation of the shape of the dot whether standing alone or clustered in groups has assisted me in finding a new language for my visual communication methods.”

The title of Tolen’s Sound Bites show is Mask-A-Raid III. The evening kicks off at 6 pm and we’re also welcoming instant-portrait artist Jamie Peterson back to help us save our memories of the night and the show.

Free and open to the public. Grab a soup, sandwich, or salad as well as a drink or two, and make yourself at home at Sound Bites, Columbia’s coolest arts cafe!

Colleen Critcher and the T.Rex as Consumer and Consumed

Colleen Critcher is a Florence, South Carolina based artist who finds inspiration in consumerism, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and all things kitschy and gauche. She describes herself as a “painter at heart,” her favorite being oil painting, though she’s worked with a variety of mediums. She also finds herself turning to printmaking often, a process that matches much of her work thematically in the way that it, according to Critcher, “mimics the industrial production model in a completely inefficient way.” 

Critcher has known she wanted to be an artist since she “learned that it could be a profession” in Kindergarten. She’s always felt called toward it, and always found herself admirably aware of its capabilities. “I’m also addicted to the basic alchemy aspect of art making,” she says. “Making something from nothing feels like magic to me.” 

And make something from nothing she does, over and over again. Critcher’s recent series, entitled Consumed, is a scathing commentary on the American consumerist obsession with excess and features a series of pieces in which the subjects literally consume multicolored plastic dinosaurs.

“I love the fact that decades after I collected them, the T.Rex remains a pop culture icon,” Critcher says. “People are still obsessed with this dinosaur who was once the “ultimate consumer. It’s a bizarre cultural phenomenon.”  

“Beyond the connection from childhood toys and popular culture, I’m also interested in the fact that Rex was once the apex predator. It’s a reminder that humans pretend their dominance is somehow guaranteed to be permanent. There is also a sad irony to the fact that the remnants of dinosaurs (as petroleum) are what we make plastic with, and plastic is slowly killing everything. Yikes.” 

There is something to be said for the deadly consumerist infatuation with plastic, especially considering Critcher’s idea that our induction into consumerism starts with childhood– “I think for most of us it starts with toys.” 

Relatedly, Consumed also includes several pieces with children as the subjects. What A Good Little Consumer and Pretty Please both feature the full body images of children, a girl and a boy respectively, with T.Rex masks on their heads, dressed in what appears to be play costumes. Something about the way the children stand, the way the little girl in What A Good Little Consumer cradles the T.Rex toy in her arms, feels eerie, more sinister perhaps. Is there something to be said here about consumerism eating us back? 

Critcher answers this question with more questions: “I’ve been making work about American consumer culture for a decade now and I’m constantly asking questions about our participation. Are we passively implicated in the process? Are we fully engaged with both feet in this complex system? Are we consuming the things or are they consuming us? What are the benefits and what are the negative effects of a culture built on the necessity to constantly buy more things? When I had children it made me recognize that they, we, become consumers almost immediately.” 

Another unique facet of Critcher’s work is its ability to be self-referential–she puts the literal image of herself into her paintings. Within Consumed, she can be seen chowing down on a purple dinosaur in Devouring Her T. Rex and a neon green one in Keeping Up With The Joneses (Suburban Mom). Perhaps this is a nod to her own participation in consumer culture, a reminder of its inescapable impact on all of our lives. It certainly adds to the uncanny aesthetic of the series.  

Critcher received her MFA in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Since then, her work has been shown at numerous galleries, including The Southern, Redux Contemporary Art Center, Kai Lin Art, Gutstein Gallery, and 701 Center for Contemporary Art, and she has taught several arts foundations courses at Coker University, Coastal Carolina University, and Francis Marion University.  

Critcher is the featured artist in the Jasper Project’s First Thursday Series at Sound Bites Eatery at 1425 Sumter Street. Join us on Thursday, March 2nd as we celebrate the opening reception for her work which will hang throughout the month of March.

For more information about Critcher and her projects, and to check out her delightfully bizarre series Consumed, visit her website, colleencritcher.com.

Lucas Sams is the Featured First Thursday Artist at Sound Bites for February 2023

Jasper welcomes Columbia-based artist Lucas Sams to our First Thursday Home Away from Home, Sound Bites Eatery, this Thursday, February 2nd starting at 6 pm.

Sams is a multi-media artist living and working in Columbia, SC; an alumnus of the SC Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, the University of South Carolina and Temple University, Tokyo, working in painting, sculpture, film, digital/multimedia, sound, and installation art, with works exhibited in major art festivals, galleries and alternative spaces. Sams has been featured in Jasper Magazine, the SC State Newspaper, Garnet and Black Magazine, and the Timber Journal of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Sams says of the upcoming show, “Nothing has been more fun in recent memory than painting like I did before Art School. This organized mess is a collection of drips and splashes, recorded action, crystallized snapshots of steps in undefined processes. Imagery ranges from the completely non-objective to portraits from the Artist’s Unconscious, both the intimate and the unfamiliar. 

Jasper presents Line-Up for First Thursday Featured Artists at Sound Bites Eatery

It almost feels like we’re back to normal.

But really, what is normal? Will we ever be normal again? Were we ever normal to start with?

You can help answer these questions and more by joining Jasper as we bring back one of our favorite pre-pandemic events - gathering with the Jasper tribe (that’s YOU!) to welcome art from a featured artist to our walls. But now, given that the Jasper Project no longer has walls on Main Street we’ll be gathering for First Thursdays Slightly Off Main at Sound Bites Eatery at 1425 Sumter Street, one block off Main Street between the Taylor and Hampton Street blocks.

After an exciting launch of our new series in April with featured artist Michael Shepard, we’re thrilled to announce our line-up for the season below:

May 5 – Alex Ruskell

June 2 – Kimber Carpenter

July 7 – Ginny Merett

August 4 – Marius Valdes

September 1 – Quincy Pugh

We’ll start at 6 pm and the artists will be in the house to chat with you about their art and maybe grab a photo with you when you pick out a treasure to take home.

Terri Mac and Mai Turner will have the kitchen open so plan on grabbing a delicious dinner or glass of vino or beer to enjoy while you check out new art and either catch up with friends or meet some new ones.

In the meantime, stop by Sound Bites Eatery by the end of April for some yummy food and the art of Michael Shepard!

WELCOME VALERIE LAMOTT to Jasper's TINY Gallery

At Jasper, we can’t get over the work Valerie Lamott has put together for our April Tiny Gallery show!

So many descriptors come to mind when writing about Lamott’s art — grounded in place, meaningful, sentimental, powerful, pristine, Cola-centric — but mostly, exquisite! The detail the artist brings to her jewelry, with each piece being hand-made, unique, and personally inspired, makes the opportunity we have to show and offer this work to Jasper readers a real honor.

Valerie Lamott is a Columbia, SC, based jewelry artisan, but can rarely be found there. She's more likely to be hiking or camping or kayaking in any one of America's state parks. She uses these places as inspiration for her artwork and hopes it inspires others to play outside too.

WE hope you enjoy seeing and perhaps purchasing Lamott’s work as much as we enjoy presenting it.

Visit Tiny Gallery for many more pieces.

Check out the whole lineup of Tiny Gallery Artists for 2022.

Do YOU Have your Birthday Party Tickets Yet?

We have limited the number of attendees to 150 including all the participating artists, so don’t sleep on locking your ticket down!

We have music from Post Timey String Band, pop up art performances from Columbia Reparatory Dance Company & others, live painting by Michael Krajewski & Lucas Sams, an art show featuring work from 20 Soda City - based artists, a raffle like you’ve never seen before, food from Chef Joe Turkaly, a VIP Champagne reception and so much more!