Koger opens Laura Spong exhibition
Laura Spong: A Passionate Perspective runs through Dec. 18
[caption id="attachment_51085" align="aligncenter" width="770"]
Big Red | Laura Spong | 2013 | 96" x 192" | Oil on canvas[/caption]
An artist has serious influence when her voice remains loud and clear even after her passing.
Laura Spong has that influence. See for yourself now through Dec. 18 at the Koger Center for the Arts (1051 Greene St., Columbia), which opened a new exhibition of her works last week.
Laura Spong: A Passionate Perspective covers works from her later years. Included are Big Red (pictured above) which has not been on exhibit since 2015, according to the Koger Center website. It continues:
Recognized as one of South Carolina’s leading abstract painters, Spong began painting in the 1950s, quickly receiving awards in local and state art exhibitions. Through the years Spong continually worked and exhibited while raising her family, but it was not until the late 1980s that she committed to being a full-time artist and embarked on a period of enormous productivity and growth. During these later years, Spong moved from her earlier more angular compositions to the organic, complex oil paintings that defined her mature style. In 2015, Spong commented on her work with these words, “First of all, I like to paint – it’s my passion. I move around shapes, forms, textures and colors until the components fall into place, like a child on the floor arranging and rearranging blocks.”
Spong’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the Carolinas, Tennessee and Georgia with pieces acquired for the permanent collections of the Columbia Museum of Art, the South Carolina State Museum and the Greenville County Museum of Art as well as many private collections ... Spong continually painted, completing works until shortly before her death at 92 in 2018.
The SCAC presented Spong the Governor's Award for the Arts for Lifetime Achievement in 2017. Two of her works are included in the State Art Collection, which the SCAC manages. Laura Spong: A Passionate Perspective can be viewed Monday-Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Koger Center's Upstairs Gallery. Free.
The South Carolina Arts Commission expresses its sadness after learning that Prof. Steven F. Gately passed last week according to reports.
Gately was a long-time tenured faculty member at Francis Marion University. He coordinated its visual arts programs and in 2006 was named an endowed chair as the C.B. and Marlene Askins Professor of Art. His work is included in the permanent collections of notable South Carolina museums, including the Gibbes and Columbia museums of art, and the 
WHO: Greenville Center for Creative Arts + South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC)
Philip Mullen belongs to the South Carolina Arts Commission’s first class of fellowship recipients in 1977. Represented in New York for 35 years by David Findlay Galleries, he’s had 15 solo exhibitions there. If you’ve ever been to the Koger Center, his large artwork adorns the lobby walls. As part of the Artist Talks Series at the South Carolina State Fair, he will discuss Wet Fog, on display at the State Fair exhibition; his painting technique; and making it in New York.
Tyrone Geter is not a South Carolina native, but he’s made it home after teaching and curating the art gallery at Benedict College since 1999. The Elgin artist received the state’s highest arts award, the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts, just this spring. His portrait of Gani Odutokun, a contemporary Nigerian painter and friend, will jump-start his discussion about his career as an artist in Nigeria and the U.S. Geter will also touch on how his work evolved from straight painting and drawings to mixed media techniques.
Both presentations take place in the Rosewoods Building at the State Fairgrounds. 
Wait, what?
To help celebrate its 150th anniversary, the 
Join the University of South Carolina’s McKissick Museum at the South Carolina State Fair for FOLKFabulous@theFair. This year, the museum's signature folklife festival celebrates South Carolina’s rich textile arts heritage, including Native American, African American and Mennonite quilting traditions in conjunction with the McKissick exhibition, Piece by Piece: Quilts from the Permanent Collection. You’re invited to participate and engage with artists and cultural traditions that make the Palmetto State home!
Come to the Rosewoods Building to enjoy arts displays, demonstrations and hands-on craft activities, concerts and hands-on music workshops. You won’t want to miss the chance to try your hand at making a story quilt block or contribute to our yarn-bombing display. You’ll also find music to move your heart and dancing feet at a Harvest Dance featuring old-time music by Andy Brooks, a bluegrass concert by the Carolina Rebels, and Gullah music and storytelling by internationally renowned performers Ron and Natalie Daise.
The South Carolina Arts Commission notes with sadness the passing this week of Larry Lebby at age 69. Lebby was a former commissioner and an artist of note in our state.
Among the many accolades and achievements in his career is his being chosen to memorialize slain State Sen. Clementa Pinckney with a painting that now hangs in that body's chamber of the South Carolina State House. A portrait of President Jimmy Carter completed and presented to the president in 1977 made its way to the White House for the remainder of Carter's term.
Fittingly, the State Art Collection includes one of Lebby's works.
The commission board of directors and staff offer our most sincere condolences to his family during this time.
An obituary for Mr. Lebby is still not available online, but 
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"Tuning Up" is a morning post series where The Hub delivers quick-hit arts stories of interest to readers. Sometimes there will be one story, sometimes there will be several. Get in tune now, and have a masterpiece of a day. And now, in no particular order...
The South Carolina Arts Commission and the South Carolina Arts Foundation, in partnership with United Community Bank, the Peace Center, and Table 301, are working together to create a memorable evening of art, art experiences and music to celebrate 50 years of public and private support for the arts.
As senior vice president, global director of strategic partnerships at Christie’s, Lydia Fenet leads a global team forging significant collaborations with other luxury brands. Building on her 15-plus-year career at the historic auction house, Ms. Fenet pioneered the Strategic Partnerships program at Christie’s in 2010, leveraging skills sharpened both as special events director from 2004-2010 and during her time on Christie’s client advisory team. Under Ms. Fenet’s purview, innovative brand partnerships have grown into a valuable marketing and business development platform for Christie’s and its partners, producing dynamic co-branded initiatives worldwide. These initiatives include major exhibitions, special events, and targeted digital activations.
Since leading her first auction in 2001, Ms. Fenet has become Christie's global head of benefit auctioneering and the top performer in the field, raising hundreds of millions of dollars for some of the largest non-profit organizations around the world and training Christie’s new classes of charity auctioneers. Some of her recent auctions include The Clinton Foundation, AMFAR, Tipping Point, the Naples Winter Wine Festival, and The Bob Woodruff Foundation. In 2014 she partnered with Glenn Close and Robert DeNiro to launch the Bring Change To Mind auction benefiting mental health.
Ms. Fenet is currently writing her first book, The Most Powerful Woman in the Room, which will be published by Touchstone, a Simon & Schuster imprint, in spring 2019.
Ms. Fenet graduated with a bachelor's degree in both art history and history from Sewanee - The University of the South. She currently resides in New York City with her husband and three children, Beatrice, Henry and Eloise.