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February Issue
2011
Francis Marion University in Florence,
SC, Offers Several Exhibits on View in February
Francis Marion University in Florence, SC,
is presenting several exhibits for its Art Gallery Series on view
in the Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery including: an interactive
cross media exhibit featuring works by Lucas Charles and Charles
Jeffcoat on view through Feb. 10, 2011; an exhibit of 2-dimensional
works by Jennifer Appleton Ervin on view through Feb. 10, 2011;
USC Ceramics: Creation and Innovation, on view from Feb.
15 through Mar. 31, 2011; and works by Larry Schuh on view from
Feb. 15 through Mar. 31, 2011.
Lucas Charles was born in Memphis, TN, and spent his formative
years in Strawberry Plains, TN. He studied graphic design at The
University of Tennessee, Knoxville and North Carolina State University,
College of Design. He graduated with an MGD in 2002. He has been
an educator at the University of Memphis for seven years teaching
courses including Interactive Media I, II + III, Principles of
Time Based Media, Typography I + II, graduate studio and seminar
courses and several others. While teaching Charles ran his own
studio in Memphis for four years (The Commissary), working on
a variety of projects including websites, posters, catalogues
and identities. In 2006 he formed Faculty of Design.
Charles' work has been published and has received many awards
including Gold, Silver and Bronze Addys from Knoxville and Memphis
Ad Federation, Gold, Silver and Bronze metals from the Aiga Ten
Show and Design Excellence awards from Push and UCDA. His work
is featured in 1,000 Greetings: Creative Correspondence Designed
for All Occasions, 1,000 Type Treatments: From Script to
Serif, Letterforms Used to Perfection, Adbusters Magazine, Screenfluent.com,
CSSmania.com as well as other publications.
Charles Jeffcoat earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design
from The University Of South Alabama in 1994. After working in
the field of advertising and design for several years he was asked
to take an adjunct position in design at The University Of South
Alabama where he taught for two years. From there, Jeffcoat moved
to earn his Master of Fine Arts in graphic design from The University
Of Memphis in 2005, where he also taught in an adjunct position.
Currently he is an Assistant Professor of Visual Communication
at Francis Marion University. His classes have included Interactive
Communication I and II, Typography I and II, History of Graphic
Design, as well as numerous others.
Throughout his career Jeffcoat has maintained a professional freelance
design business through his own company, Visual Ventricle. His
clients included The National Civil Rights Museum, Art Museum
of the University of Memphis, Movie Gallery, Sony Music, Universal
Records, and Warner Music, The Florence Symphony Orchestra, Francis
Marion University, and others. He has also donated his time and
design work to several charitable organizations including St Jude
Children's Research Hospital, and the National Civil Rights Museum.
Besides his applied professional design practice, Jeffcoat's current
research is in the area of the cross-mediation of hypertextual
environments and the two-dimensional printed book. This exploration
and research will cause us to ask specific questions concerning
narrative, authorship, linearity, and believability and from it
we can gain knowledge applicable to the future of both the two-dimensional
printed book and the hypertextual environment.
Born in rural New Jersey in 1971, Jennifer Appleton Ervin moved
to South Carolina in her formative years. Originally a painter,
she earned her BA in Fine Art from Francis Marion University in
1995. Ervin then went on to receive her MFA in Graphic Design
in 2002 from Boston University's School of Visual Arts. At the
end of that year, Ervin returned to South Carolina with her husband.
Motherhood soon followed, initiating the re-creation of a more
personal, creative path for her through photography as medium.
Ervin worked as a freelance portrait photographer from 2004-2009
and left to focus on her own creative endeavors. In August 2009,
Ervin was awarded the Jo-Ann Fender Scarborough Award for first
place in the 56th Annual Pee Dee Regional Art Competition,
the longest running art competition in South Carolina.
"Transitory moments, the spaces between expressions, continue
to ignite my passion for remaining behind the lens," says
Ervin. "They are unguarded places where imperfection can
become synonymous with poetry and fiction. With genuine curiosity,
I set my intentions to find these visceral moments of time that
often hide for an inattentive eye."
USC Ceramics: Creation and Innovation highlights ceramic
work from current students and Virginia Scotchie, head of the
ceramics department at USC. These students have worked diligently
to create, learn, and grow as artists.
The program in studio ceramics has flourished greatly since 1992
and the progress achieved could not have been done alone. Through
support of talented and dedicated USC College of Arts and Sciences
Administration, faculty, staff, and students, we have been able
to build a program in ceramic arts that is both nationally and
internationally recognized.
This exhibition highlights some of the great ceramic work created
by current students at USC. Included will be works by Allison
Brown, Christina Carlisle, Dana Childs, Danny Crocco, Frieda Dean,
Hayley Douglas, Robin Jones, Jon McMillan, Katherine Radomsky,
Stetson Rowles, Justin Scoggins, Virgina Scotchie and Laura VanCamp.
The ceramics program has attracted students of the highest caliber
from not only the southeast, but from all over the United States.
Recently, the program has also encouraged international involvement
within programs established at institutions in Taiwan, China,
and Australia.
Virginia Scotchie is a ceramic artist and area head of ceramics
at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC. She holds
a BFA in ceramics from UNC-Chapel Hill and in 1985 completed her
Master of Fine Arts at Alfred University in New York.
Scotchie exhibits her work extensively throughout the US and abroad,
and has received numerous awards including the Sydney Meyer Fund
International Ceramics Premiere Award from the Shepparton Museum
in Victoria, Australia. She has lectured internationally on her
work and been an Artist in Residence in Taiwan, Italy, Australia
and the Netherlands. Her clay forms reside in many public and
private collections and reviews about her work appear in prestigious
ceramic publications.
"In my work I am interested in the quality of the familiar
thing we see everyday but really don't see because we see them
everyday," says Scotchie. "Then I work at putting the
objects I make together. Making objects is a habitual activity.
The objects I make are often abstractions from the intimately
known things that populate my everyday world. My son's toys, my
father's hat or an old kitchen funnel. Sometimes objects I make
come into being through the act of making, making, making. It
is not always about the objects, it is also about the making.
This is what I know and what I am passionate about. Then I begin
to understand the what I am seeing."
Scotchie goes on to say, "I have an obsession with spouts,
handles and knobs. This probably comes from being a potter when
I first worked in clay. I think it is also about wanting my work
to be verb-like in its reference to the everyday. Because I work
with objects, I think about the arrangement of these objects in
space. This is often an intuitive, spontaneous act. I want the
space that my work inhabits to serve as a domain that is halfway
between the concrete reality of the things I make and that of
the meaning objects acquire when they are perceived in the subjective
terms of the self."
Larry Schuh is a producing artist and educator living in Crowley,
LA. Currently an associate professor at McNeese State University,
he has taught courses in drawing, printmaking, gallery internship,
screen printing, photo itaglio and lithography. His work has been
featured in dozens of national and international exhibitions,
and he is in demand for panels, lectures and workshops around
the country.
"I made a decision to work in a variety of processes a long
time ago. The evolution of my concepts grew with my increasing
ability to draw and conceptualize. Printmaking and drawing, along
with painting, were my areas of interest," say Schuh.
"Images and ideas come to me often. So, rather than casting
past ideas aside, I find it refreshing to go back in and bring
some of those images from my 'image bank,' back to life."
"The computer has been a wonderful tool for me," continues
Schuh, adding, "I do not use it exclusively to make art.
I do use the technology at times to prepare for an original print.
My printmaking experiences have given me an advantage when working
digitally. Some people actually will argue with me that some finished
digital prints are screen prints when in reality they are digital
prints. That is a sign of success for me."
For more info check our SC Institutional Gallery listings,
call 843/661-1385 or visit (http://departments.fmarion.edu/finearts/gallery.htm).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2011 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2011 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.