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Artwork by eight award-winning Upstate women on display at Lee Gallery

Article by Meredith Mims McTigue, Center for Visual Arts [caption id="attachment_146728" align="alignright" width="217" class="wp_custom_caption"]"13th level of the 13th Pit," art by Linda McCune, is included in the exhibit. Linda McCune, 13th level of the 13th Pit. Image Credit: Linda McCune[/caption] CLEMSON — An exhibit celebrating the artwork of eight award-winning Upstate women is being presented at the Lee Gallery at the Clemson University Center for Visual Arts through Nov. 8. The “Upstate 8: SC Fellowship Women Exhibit” is part of a larger endeavor to highlight artists during a yearlong 50th anniversary celebration of the South Carolina Arts Commission. On June 7, 1967, Gov. Robert E. McNair signed legislation that established the South Carolina Arts Commission. This historic moment signaled a new era of public support for the arts. The exhibition highlights the work of artists who were direct beneficiaries of this historic legislation through the support they received from competitive fellowships awarded to them by the South Carolina Arts Commission. These eight women are leaders in the arts, mentors through their creative research and contributors to the thriving cultural climate that the state of South Carolina now enjoys. Students enrolled in an undergraduate Creative Inquiry program called Clemson Curates were charged to develop an exhibit that showcased the fellowship program. The students, advised by Lee Gallery director Denise Woodward-Detrich, reviewed all of the artists and made the final selections. “We are honored to be chosen to curate such an important collection of women artists from the Upstate,” said Woodward-Detrich.

[caption id="attachment_146725" align="alignleft" width="250" class="wp_custom_caption"]This piece by Patti Brady is in the exhibit. This piece by Patti Brady is in the exhibit.[/caption] The participating artists are Alice Ballard, Patti Brady, Diane Hopkins-Hughs, Terry Jarrard-Dimond, Ellen Kochansky, Linda Williams McCune, Jane Allen Nodine and Susan Wooten. Intersecting subject matter presented in the exhibition includes connections to nature through materiality, imagery and the capacity for symbolic meaning. Other related content includes the exploration of feminine forms and sensibilities associated with nature as an embodiment of the female, traditional feminine materials and processes through textiles, connections to family, place, the personal and the emotional. This innovative art collaboration is part of the commitment of the Lee Gallery at the Clemson University Center for Visual Arts to support the university’s ClemsonForward strategic plan to provide educational activities that expose students to research through artistic means. There will be an exhibit reception at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 5, and an artist panel discussion at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 19. The public is invited to attend the reception and the panel discussion exploring the artists’ creative processes, methodologies, work as women artists and the roles they embraced as mentors and educators. The exhibition, reception and panel discussion are free to the public. This project is funded by First Citizens Bank, the South Carolina Arts Foundation and the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Florence County Museum launches first 50th Anniversary Fellowship Exhibition

[caption id="attachment_31300" align="alignright" width="250"]Terry Jarrard-Dimond Terry Jarrard-Dimond[/caption] The Florence County Museum is the first organization to launch an exhibition of South Carolina Arts Commission Fellows as part of the 50th Anniversary celebration. Evidence, an exhibition of works by veteran South Carolina artist Terry Jarrard-Dimond, is on display June 20 - December 3. Jarrard-Dimond received the S.C. Arts Commission Craft Fellowship Grant in 1987 and is represented by three works in the State Art Collection. The Florence County Museum has a unique relationship to the history of the S.C. Arts Commission. The first president of its board of trustees was E.N. Zeigler, who later became a state senator and the author of the legislation that created the Arts Commission in 1967. The Fellowship Exhibition program was developed to celebrate 50 years of public support for the arts in South Carolina, with emphasis on the achievements of artists who have received the commission’s Visual and Craft Fellowship awards. The exhibition is supported in part by First Citizens. Since 1976, the South Carolina Arts Commission's Fellowship program has recognized the artistic achievements of South Carolina's exceptional individual artists. Fellows are among the most artistically accomplished artists in the state. Find out more about the exhibition. Find out about other 50th Anniversary Fellowship exhibitions.

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