Five honorees to receive 2023 S.C. Governor’s Awards for the Arts
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina Arts Commission is happy to announce it will bestow five recipients in 2023 with the state’s highest award for exceptional achievement in practicing or supporting the arts: the South Carolina Governor’s Awards for the Arts.
The SCAC presents the Governor’s Awards for the Arts annually in the spring. The appointed members of the agency’s board of directors vote on panel recommendations for the award. In 2023, the SCAC board approved the recommendations of the following honorees from their respective categories to be recognized for outstanding achievement and contributions to the arts in South Carolina:- SPECIAL AWARD: Nigel Redden; Mystic, Connecticut
- ARTIST: Ray McManus, Lexington
- INDIVIDUAL: Carlos Agudelo, Spartanburg
- ARTS IN EDUCATION: American College of the Building Arts, Charleston
- ORGANIZATION: Aiken Center for the Arts, Aiken
About the 2023 S.C. Governor’s Awards for the Arts Recipients
Nigel Redden (Special Award) retired as the general director of Spoleto Festival USA in 2021 having rejoined the festival in October 1995 after having previously served as its general manager from 1986 to 1991. Redden was director of the Lincoln Center Festival from 1998 to 2017. He has also served as executive director of the Santa Fe Opera (1991-1995), artistic consultant to Philadelphia’s American Music Theater Festival (1992-1994), and consultant to the chairperson of the New York International Festival of the Arts (1991-1992). He was director of the National Endowment for the Arts’ dance program from 1981 to 1986 and has served on numerous panels for the NEA, regional arts organizations, and various foundations. He is president of the Spaulding-Paolozzi Foundation and serves on the board of South Arts. In 2001 he was awarded the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters and was promoted to Commandeur in 2019. He has received honorary doctorates from the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina. He is currently the project leader for the Anson African Burial Memorial in Charleston which will honor 36 Africans/African Americans buried in the late 18th century whose bodies were disinterred during the renovation of the Charleston Gaillard Center.
Born and raised in Lexington County, Ray McManus (Artist Category) is frequently active in poetry initiatives across the state. He serves as the writer-in-residence at the Columbia Museum of Art. McManus founded Split P Soup, a creative writing outreach program that places writers in schools and communities across South Carolina, and former director of the creative writing program at the Tri-District Arts Consortium that serves Columbia area schools. He coedited a collection of writing responding to historical photographs from South Carolina archives. He is the author of five collections of poetry. His first was selected for the S.C. Poetry Book Prize and published in 2007 and a fifth, Last Saturday in America, will be published by Hub City Press in 2024. His poems and prose have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies of Southern and Irish-American writers. McManus earned his master’s in poetry and his doctorate in rhetoric and composition from the University of South Carolina. Now an English professor at USC Sumter, he teaches creative writing, Irish literature, and Southern literature. He is division chair of both arts and letters and humanities and social sciences and director of the school’s Center for Oral Narrative.
Carlos Agudelo (Individual Category) has been Ballet Spartanburg’s artistic director since 1991. Among his choreography are classic and contemporary favorites; some of these have been performed at Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Columbia, Greenville, Greenwood, and Rutherford County, North Carolina. Under Agudelo’s direction in 2012, Ballet Spartanburg formed a resident professional company comprised of a diverse group of dancers from across the world. For 10 years, it has performed from Spartanburg to North Carolina, Texas, and Las Vegas, in the process staging more than 85 presentations of his choreography. The native of Colombia, Agudelo began his training in Florida under the direction of Ruth Petrinovic. He received a scholarship to study at the Harkness Ballet School in New York City and danced with the Israel Classic Ballet in Tel Aviv and the International Ballet de Caracas. Alvin Ailey coached him in Ailey’s ballet, The River. He also danced with Ballet Hispanico of New York. Mr. Agudelo received the 2021 Civitan Servant’s Heart Award for the community of Spartanburg and the 2022 Spartanburg Citizen of the Year awarded by the Spartanburg Kiwanis Club. In 2018, Ballet Spartanburg was awarded the S.C. Governor’s Award for the Arts in the organization category.
Real-world implications led Charleston’s School of Building Arts to become the American College of the Building Arts (Arts in Education Category) in 2003. A 1968, a warning came that American artisans in the traditional building arts were aging out of the job market. As school systems cut traditional crafts training, no new generation was being trained to create or repair, restore, and preserve American architectural, historic, and cultural treasures. Then, owners of historic Lowcountry properties had to look to Europe to find artisans who could repair and restore damage after Hurricane Hugo. A group of Charleston’s preservation leaders created ABCA as a unique higher education experience that fills a gap. ACBA was the first to combine old-world apprenticeship training with a liberal arts core curriculum. ACBA students graduate with the skills to practice their trade and broad liberal arts foundation that allows them to design while leading their fields. They understand not only how to do something, but to think critically within the context of their specialization, manage a business, and communicate effectively with clients. ACBA students have trained through a wide range of community service projects, restoring or creating from the Oval Office back to the Lowcountry.
Making art more inclusive and accessible is a high priority for Aiken Center for the Arts (Organization Category). Staff and board of directors use this lens to make the vision a reality for the 40,000 people who come through its doors yearly. Three galleries change exhibitions every six weeks. ACA staff work to incorporate each exhibition into their ongoing educational programs, making a cohesive experience for the community. ACA provides instruction from local artists and musicians, enabling community members to find a creative voice through lessons, camps, workshops, and classes—with scholarships available. ACA works closely with the Aiken County public schools. A program brings Aiken Head Start 4K students into the gallery, and ACA places authors and artists in schools as the arts that are integrated to connect learning and life. Further, ACA serves individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities in its community. Youth summer workshops and year-round adult workshops provide for the development of communication skills, teamwork, and decision making at no cost to participants, and art experiences relating movement and painting reach the Alzheimer’s/dementia community.
About the South Carolina Arts Commission
The mission of the South Carolina Arts Commission is to promote equitable access to the arts and support the cultivation of creativity in South Carolina. We envision a South Carolina where the arts are valued and all people benefit from a variety of creative experiences. A state agency created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967, the SCAC works to increase public participation in the arts by providing grants, direct programs, staff assistance and partnerships in artist development, arts industry, arts learning, creative placemaking, and folklife and traditional arts. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the SCAC is funded by the state of South Carolina, by the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts, and other sources. Visit SouthCarolinaArts.com or call 803.734.8696, and follow @scartscomm on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for #Arts4SC and #SCartists content.
Summer STEAM Institute at Northside Elementary School in Colleton County presented by Arts Grow SC partner Engaging Creative Minds. Provided photo.[/caption]
Grants from the SCAC and programs run directly by the agency or with diverse partners reached 43 counties. They assisted 550 artists and providers of arts experiences and arts learning. The SCAC’s annual grants made up $9.15 million through 447 grants. Arts Emergency Relief, made possible by CARES Act funding, made up $2.8 million through 103 grants.
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) is happy to announce four recipients who are to be honored in 2022 with South Carolina’s highest award for exceptional achievement in practicing or supporting the arts.
The SCAC presents the South Carolina Governor’s Awards for the Arts annually each spring. The appointed members of the agency’s board of directors vote on panel recommendations for the award. In 2022, the SCAC board approved the recommendations of the following honorees from their respective categories to be recognized for outstanding achievement and contributions to the arts in South Carolina:
DARION MCCLOUD (Artist Category) is an actor, director, storyteller, educator, arts activist, and children’s literature advocate from Columbia. He is also the founder and creative director both of NiA Theatre Company and Story Squad. McCloud is a Riley Institute Diversity Fellow and the 2019 recipient of the Theatre Artist of the Year Award from The Jasper Project. A formally trained visual artist with a bachelor’s in art studio from the University of South Carolina, he found his way to the stage via telling stories and stayed, acting and teaching there for more than 20 years. He enjoys crafting theatre, storytelling, and art experiences for old and young and the initiated and the un-initiated in environments as varied as classrooms, corporate settings, libraries, campfires and, of course, theatres; he is a company member for Columbia-based Trustus Theatre and the South Carolina Shakespeare Company. McCloud has numerous statewide partnerships to his credit in higher education, the humanities, and the arts. He considers himself as having committed his life to the transforming power of art.
ED MADDEN (Individual Category) is a poet, activist, and a professor of English, with a focus on Irish literature, at the University of South Carolina. There, he is also director of the women’s and gender studies program. His academic areas of specialization include Irish culture; British and Irish poetry; LGBTQ literature, sexuality studies, and history of sexuality; and creative writing and poetry. In 2019 he was named a Poet Laureate Fellow of the Academy of American Poets and a visiting artist fellow at the Instituto Sacatar in Bahia, Brazil. In 2015, Madden was named Columbia’s first poet laureate, a post he maintains today. Madden has been a South Carolina Academy of Authors Fellow in poetry twice and was South Carolina Arts Commission Prose Fellow in 2011. He has been writer-in-residence at the Riverbanks Botanical Garden and at Fort Moultrie in Charleston as part of the state’s African American Heritage Corridor project. He also was 2006 artist-in-residence for South Carolina State Parks. His numerous publishing and editing credits include four of his own: Nest, Ark, Prodigal: Variations, and Signals, and his chapbook So They Can Sing won the 2016 Robin Becker Chapbook Prize. Photo by Forrest Clonts.
CARRIE ANN POWER (Arts in Education Category) has been an arts educator and advocate in South Carolina for more 30 years. Beginning in 2004 she was the fine arts department chair, grant manager, and visual arts teacher at East Aiken School of the Arts (EASOA) until 2015. During that time, she transformed EASOA by adding full-time dance and theatre programs, developed and implemented all aspects of the EASOA after-school arts program, and secured donations to fund scholarships providing low-income families access to programs. During that tenure she coordinated the Curriculum Leadership Institute in the Arts, which improves and enhances arts lesson plans based on the 2010 S.C. Visual and Performing Arts Academic Standards. She then served as the education associate for visual and performing arts at the South Carolina Department of Education from 2015 until 2019, where she oversaw the development of K-12 Design Standards for visual and performing arts and later coordinated their revisions. Power served an active role on notable state arts or arts education boards and, in her community, supports educational outreach programs that bring professional artists into schools.
Founded as a non-profit in January 2012, ONE COLUMBIA FOR ARTS AND CULTURE (OC) (Organization Category) served as de facto office of cultural affairs for Columbia until being officially named as such earlier this year. Its mission is to “advise, amplify and advocate for strengthening and unifying the cultural community of Columbia” and does so by promoting cultural activities taking place in the city through various means. In 2014, OC facilitated the formalization of Columbia’s public art program, which has resulted in the creation of more than 60 public artworks and an online directory of public art throughout the city of Columbia. The organization facilitates other projects related to tactical urbanism, creative placemaking and enhancing public space. When Columbia established the honorary position of city poet laureate in 2015, it tasked OC with creating the selection committee that resulted in Dr. Ed Madden being awarded the title. OC is responsible for Amplify, a comprehensive cultural plan approved by city council in 2020. In recent years, it undertook the lengthy process of developing of a modern flag for the city adopted by city council in 2020.
An Arts in Basic Curriculum Project site classroom. SCAC file photo.[/caption]
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: Tom Flowers, Greenville (posthumous)
The erstwhile poet laureate of South Carolina, MARJORY WENTWORTH (Special Award) is its second-longest serving. She received her appointment to the position from Gov. Mark Sanford in 2003 and served until 2020. Wentworth is New York Times bestselling co-author of Out of Wonder, Poems Celebrating Poets and author of prize-winning children’s story Shackles. Her lengthy list of published titles includes several of her own poetry books, additional co-authored titles, and she is co-editor, with Kwame Dawes, of Seeking: Poetry and Prose Inspired by the Art of Jonathan Green. Wentworth serves on the board of advisors at The Global Social Justice Practice Academy, and she is a 2020 National Coalition Against Censorship Free Speech is for Me Advocate. She teaches courses in writing, social justice and banned books at the College of Charleston and formerly taught courses at The Citadel and Art Institute of Charleston and Charleston County School of the Arts.
The mission of the South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) is to promote equitable access to the arts and support the cultivation of creativity in South Carolina. We envision a South Carolina where the arts are valued and all people benefit from a variety of creative experiences.
A state agency created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967, the SCAC works to increase public participation in the arts by providing grants, direct programs, staff assistance and partnerships in three key areas: arts education, community arts development, and artist development. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the SCAC is funded by the state of South Carolina, by the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts, and other sources. Visit 
“Camden has had a strong arts community for well over half a century, and downtown Camden hosts several arts spaces, including the Arts Center of Kershaw County, private galleries and studios, music and maker spaces,” said city of Camden Main Street Program Manager Katharine Spadacenta. “We’ve identified 60 cultural assets in this area to be designated as the Cultural District. We are very excited for the arts and culture of our community to be recognized as an official South Carolina Cultural District.”
For Immediate Release
COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina’s highest award for achievement in the arts is to be presented to six uniquely qualified arts practitioners and supporters announced today by the South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC).
The SCAC Board of Directors approved panel recommendations for the following recipients from their respective categories to be recognized for outstanding achievement and contributions to the arts in South Carolina:
Philip Mullen (Lifetime Achievement) has been a mainstay in the South Carolina arts scene since coming to Columbia to join the University of South Carolina faculty in 1969. Five of his works are included in the State Art Collection and others adorn the collections of Guggenheim Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Brooklyn Museum, Columbia Museum of Art, Greenville County Museum of Art, and McKissick Museum among others. He has had solo exhibitions in at least eight states and Washington since 1972. He is the only living South Carolina artist to have been featured, in 1975, in the prestigious Whitney Biennial by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, regarded as one of the world’s leading art shows.
Poet and teaching artist Glenis Redmond has a love of words that’s taken her across the country and Atlantic Ocean to performances at the White House, Library of Congress and London. She is currently poet-in-residence at the Peace Center in Greenville and The State Theatre in New Jersey as well as a teaching artist for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. She is the founder of the Greenville Poetry Slam and co-founder of a youth poetry slam in Asheville, North Carolina. Her work with the Peace Center led to her founding in of Peace Voices, a poetry program dedicated to poetic outreach and engagement in the community, in 2011.
As an ex-patriate South Carolinian in New York City, Mary Inabinett Mack became a registered nurse and psychiatric/mental health nursing instructor. She earned a certificate for psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and two National Institute for Mental health fellowships. Mack fed on the New York arts scene and came home to “her Gullah folk and the sweet, salty air of the Lowcountry” in 1977. The art retail business she started became Red Piano Too Art Gallery, a leading folk art gallery that launched the careers of many artists. The first female chair of the Penn Center’s board, she is a lifetime member of its advisory board and was inducted into its 1862 Circle for embodying the spirit of the center and advocating for the enduring history of the Lowcountry, civil rights, and reconstruction it celebrates.
Cindy Riddle began teaching art in the Upstate in 1999. She worked at two schools before joining Spartanburg District One as a fine arts instructional coach for a year, then becoming the district’s coordinator for visual and performing arts, gifted and talented services. She is now an assistant superintendent in the same focus area. Riddle has national board certification in early and middle childhood art and is the current president of the South Carolina Education Association. She holds degrees from Anderson and Lander universities and Converse College and has been recognized six times with various awards for teaching. An artist and entrepreneur, she operates and creates and gives lessons from her Chicken Coop Art Company.
Headquartered in Greenville and in operation for almost 70 years, United Community Bank has $12.9 billion in assets and operates 149 offices in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. They abide by the Golden Rule, according to Chairman and CEO Lynn Harton, and are committed to maintaining extraordinary culture, creating meaningful relationships and earning the trust of customers, all with the goal of improving lives. Nominators and supporters of United Community Bank pointed to lengthy and generous support of South Carolina arts institutions like Artisphere and South Carolina Children’s Theatre in Greenville and Chapman Cultural Center in Spartanburg. The support comes from not just funding, but also the investment of time and service by its associates.
One of the Holy City’s most notable spaces, Charleston Gaillard Center provides the Lowcountry with a world-class performance hall, elegant venue space, and vibrant educational opportunities. A massive renovation project made possible by a $142 million public/private partnership created an iconic performance and event space appropriate for one of the world’s leading cities. In the last four years, Charleston Gaillard Center’s education and community program has provided arts-enhanced education programs to 130+ schools, covered the cost of transportation for 757 buses, and impacted more than 67,000 students in the tri-county region, all while remaining a 66% barrier-free program.
SCAC Board Chairwoman Dee Crawford works her way through some paperwork for Executive Director David Platts at a visit to the arts commission July 11, 2019.[/caption]
At their last meeting in June, the SCAC Board of Commissioners elected Delores “Dee” Crawford of Aiken as its chairwoman. Crawford is a former award-winning owner and operator of seven McDonald’s restaurants employing more than 400 people. She holds a mathematics degree from Fisk University in Nashville, and previously worked for IBM in the Washington, D.C. area. Crawford is a community leader, serving on numerous boards in and around Aiken and is a fellow of the Riley Diversity Leadership Institute at Furman University. She was most recently serving as a vice chair of SCAC and was chair of the search committee that reviewed and interviewed candidates to be the agency’s new executive director.
That committee’s work resulted in the hiring of David Platts of Lancaster as executive director, which was also effective July 1. Platts holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of South Carolina. He has broad experience in education, serving as a teacher, assistant principal, and principal in schools across the state. He joins SCAC from Lancaster County School District, where he served as arts and science coordinator for 15 years.
In June, the state senate approved two gubernatorial appointees to the SCAC Board of Directors.
Platts currently serves as arts and science coordinator for Lancaster County School District, a position he’s held for 15 years. He will be the first new executive director of the South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) in nine years, stepping in to lead an agency of 15 full-time staff who work to increase public participation in the arts by providing grants, direct programs, staff assistance and partnerships in three areas: arts education, artist development, and community arts development.
“While I am extremely grateful to have this opportunity, I am even more excited at the thought of serving with this dynamic team as we strive to advance the arts in South Carolina. Having worked with them as a grant recipient, an arts advocate on many levels, and in arts education, I understand the Arts Commission’s essential role. I am excited to make Columbia my home, where together we will continue working to keep the arts in the heart of each South Carolinian,” Platts said.
In his current role, Platts supports the Lancaster County School District’s arts teachers and oversees their instructional programs, six of which are for schools participating in the Arts in Basic Curriculum Project, a joint program of the SCAC, Winthrop University, and the South Carolina Department of Education. He manages the district’s arts state and federal education grants, some of which come from the SCAC. He is formerly a teacher, assistant principal and principal at elementary schools elsewhere in South Carolina and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of South Carolina.
In addition to his work as an educator, Platts has served locally on the Lancaster County Council of the Arts as a board member and president. He has statewide experience as a member, president, and current treasurer of the Palmetto State Arts Education board and as a current member of the South Carolina Arts Alliance board, where he has been active as an arts advocate.
He is involved in his community, serving on the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce board, and is an artist himself: a pianist, he is an accompanist and is involved in music leadership at his church.
“We are pleased to identify David Platts as the new executive director of SCAC. We believe he has the right skills to oversee the agency, develop a new strategic plan and implement it over the course of the next 10 years,” SCAC Board of Directors Chairman Henry Horowitz said. “David is assuming leadership of a great state arts agency and wonderful staff and on behalf of the board of directors, we wish him best of success.”
Dee Crawford, who will begin serving as chairwoman of the SCAC Board of Directors July 1, was chair of the executive director search committee.
“In thinking about the specific roles someone in this job plays, we knew we needed a proven leader and experienced advocate to be prepared for the rigors of running a state agency. David has a broad blend of board leadership and his arts advocacy locally, statewide, and on the national level made him an ideal candidate,” Crawford said.
“Further, David is an educator whose deep ties to the Arts Commission’s arts in education programs give him knowledge of the agency. Adding in his strategic planning experience, this is someone forward-looking who is focused on the future of the arts in South Carolina,” she said.
Platts will replace Ken May, who retires at the end of June after serving 33 years at the SCAC, the last nine as its executive director.
With a commitment to excellence across the spectrum of our state’s cultures and forms of expression, the South Carolina Arts Commission pursues its public charge to develop a thriving arts environment, which is essential to quality of life, education, and economic vitality for all South Carolinians.
Created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967, the Arts Commission works to increase public participation in the arts by providing grants, direct programs, staff assistance and partnerships in three key areas:
