‘Communal Pen’ virtual writing workshop is back in October
Two-part writing workshop continues S.C. tour
Medlock Bridge ParkChattahoochee River National Recreation Area
Communal Pen, a creative writing workshop presented by the S.C. Arts Commission and South Carolina Humanities, is back for more on Saturday, Oct. 24 to help you write to celebrate memories, stories, and traditions of place... continuing its reimagined virtual format with a brand-new theme!
What are the memories, stories and traditions that make your community home?
What landmarks, customs, sights and sounds connect us with family, friends and neighbors, while highlighting our unique experience and identity?
Sometimes, you’ve just got to write it down!
Facilitator EBONI RAMM will lead the virtual workshop as you write to celebrate and explore connections to place and community. Often, it is in our written words that memory lives. The writing process can itself help us to awaken and preserve thoughts and traditions, offering insight, understanding and respect to present and future generations. In conjunction with the traveling exhibit, Water/Ways, the South Carolina Maritime Museum in Georgetown is hosting this two-part writing workshop, which will be conducted over two Saturday mornings next month:
- 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24
- 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31
The Communal Pen writing workshop draws inspiration from the new Smithsonian exhibit, Water/Ways, which is touring South Carolina with the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street (MoMS) Traveling Exhibition Service from June 2020-April 2021. MoMS provides access to the Smithsonian for small-town America through museum exhibitions, research, educational resources, and programming. Exhibit themes and images are a springboard for igniting our own stories, giving voice to our shared and individual experience of place. Communal Pen is developed through the S.C. Arts Commission’s place-based initiative, "Art of Community: Rural SC," a new framework for engagement, learning, and action in rural communities. The writing workshops are coordinated through the SCAC’s Folklife & Traditional Arts and Community Arts Development programs, with generous support from South Carolina Humanities.
Deeply rooted in South Carolina, "Communal Pen" writing workshop creator and facilitator Eboni Ramm fell in love with the arts at a very young age and was encouraged throughout her youth to express herself. Today, an accomplished poet and jazz singer, she invites audiences of all ages to share her passion for combining these art forms, highlighting her belief in the powerful influence of jazz on the American literary experience and aesthetic. She has taught her unique Jazz Poetry Salon at residencies with the Richland County Public Library, Arts Access South Carolina, Youth Corps, Fairfield Middle School, McKissick Museum, and ColaJazz’s partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center, among others. Other selected accomplishments include her publication, Within His Star: The Story of Levi Pearson, celebrating Eboni’s ancestor who added strength to the unprecedented Brown vs. The Board of Education case, and the release of her poetry CD, Passion, and her jazz CD, The Look of Love. Learn more about Eboni at www.EboniRamm.com.
"Communal Pen: Water/Ways" coordinator Laura Marcus Green is program specialist for community arts & folklife at the S.C. Arts Commission, where she provides statewide outreach and project coordination through the Art of Community: Rural SC initiative and other projects, while managing folklife grant and award programs. She holds a Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University and an M.A. in folklore/anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. Selected prior positions include folklife & traditional arts program director at McKissick Museum, community engagement coordinator for the Museum of International Folk Art’s Gallery of Conscience, and work as a folklife fieldworker and researcher, writer, curator and consultant for various arts and culture agencies nationwide. Having attended, coordinated, and facilitated diverse workshops, she is a devoted believer in the power of community writing.
Works in the GSSM Student Art Exhibition were created through multiple modes of learning including traditional visual arts courses and innovative, student-choice opportunities in GSSM’s on-campus art studio. Various media represented in the student exhibit include graphite, charcoal, Conté, pen & ink, colored pencils, acrylic on canvas, watercolor, carved wood, altered books, printmaking, stained indigenous terracotta, glazed stoneware and sculptures created in non-traditional media.
Students engaged with professional artist Patz Fowle to deepen their understanding of visual art while developing skills, techniques, and processes to create meaningful 2-D and 3-D
works. In addition to the courses Fowle teaches, she also offers residential students innovative, student-choice opportunities. Such opportunities include access GSSM’s art studio to work independently, invitations to attend various creative workshops, and the opportunity for students to lead their own workshops. Students are also invited to participate in public art exhibitions and collaborate on significant endeavors like the Mother Earth Project; Frederic Douglass portrait, or other works created with traditional and non-traditional media.
“Art is a strong unifying element within a community,” says Fowle, visual arts coordinator at GSSM. “Creative collaboration between the Hartsville Museum and the South Carolina Governor’s School for Science & Mathematics is a beneficial bridge connecting Hartsville’s history to Hartsville’s future, through art, education, and culture.”
Exhibiting student artists include:
The orchestra is continuing its year-long celebration of 250 years of Beethoven with his first piano concerto. Out front on the Steinway will be Phillip Bush: music professor at the University of South Carolina, frequent presenter at the Southeastern Piano Festival, well-traveled and highly regarded concert pianist, recording artist and—oh by the way—the S.C. Arts Commission's 2009 music performance fellowship recipient. The Peabody alum has taken the stage across the U.S. and Japan, where he performed some 25 concerts over a 10-year period. His repertoire includes works from the 16th century to the 21st, as he is a devoted advocate for contemporary music.
And that is where John Fitz Rogers comes in. He also received an S.C. Arts Commission fellowship in 2009, his for music composition. To start the concert, the orchestra will reprise his The Passing Sun, a work commissioned by the Phil to celebrate its 50th season in 2014/2015. It is an orchestral piece, but Fitz Rogers has composed for works featuring bassoon, guitar, piano, saxophone, and vocal soloists (with orchestras, including chamber ensembles). He holds degrees from Cornell, Yale, and Oberlin and is currently professor of composition at the UofSC, where he founded and, for a time, directed the widely acclaimed Southern Exposure New Music Series. His works have been recorded and released by multiple labels.
The concert is Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Koger Center for the Arts (1051 Greene St., Columbia). $16-$50. 
North Charleston Arts Fest 2018 by Zan Maddox/Social Design House
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