Spartanburg artist’s first Kickstarter project is staff pick of the day

Spartanburg artist and printmaker Jim Creal’s first Kickstarter campaign just launched, and it’s already enjoying a day in the spotlight as a Staff Pick on the Kickstarter website.

Jim CrealCreal, one of the first artists to participate in the Artists’ Ventures Initiative, developed his Kickstarter campaign, the South Carolina Coastal Lithograph Project, to draw attention to the beauty of South Carolina’s coastal islands and help preserve their habitats. His project is also about preserving his own work.

“I turned 60 this year, and I wanted to create a cohesive body of work — something of lasting value,” said Creal.  “I jokingly call this my legacy project.”

Creal will create original, stone-drawn, hand-printed, lithographic images devoted to capturing the mood, spirit and rich diversity of South Carolina’s coastal habitats. The finished product will be a limited-edition series of museum-quality lithographs that capture a vision of the breathtaking scenery and animals of the South Carolina coast. Some of these lithographs will be used as rewards for supporters of the Kickstarter campaign. (Example of Creal’s work pictured left.)

Work by Jim CrealThe first step is photographing the 25 sites Creal wants to include in the project. Many are well-known — Brookgreen Gardens and Huntington Beach State Park — and others are less popular — Dungannon Heritage Preserve in Hollywood, S.C., and Nemours Plantation in northern Beaufort County. Some places are accessible by car, some only by boat and some will be photographed from the air. High-end donors to the Kickstarter campaign can join Creal on an expedition and photography shoot of some of the sites.

Creal’s love for South Carolina’s coastal habitats is a life-long passion.

“I have had a love for the magnificent beauty of the South Carolina coastal islands since I was young. When I am in these extraordinary places, I feel connected to something transcendent and primordial.”

“My hope is that this body of work will help audiences appreciate South Carolina’s coastal habitats’ timeless beauty, their significance as vital ecosystems under stress, and their value as national treasures that need to be preserved for future generations.”

Find out more about Creal’s project, including a description of how he creates the lithographs, on his Kickstarter campaign site.

About Jim Creal
Jim Creal creates landscapes, still-lifes and non-representational images through lithographic, etching and monotype print processes. His work, which has been exhibited in numerous solo, invitational and juried exhibitions and recognized by many awards, is held in private, institutional and corporate collections. In 2000, Creal exhibited in Winterthur, Switzerland and was a resident artist there in a cultural exchange. Creal teaches in the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Arts in Education Program and received a South Carolina Arts Commission’s Artist Venture Initiative grant in 2010, which allowed him to set up to produce stone lithographs in his Spartanburg studio.