Volume 3, No. 16. August 22,2003
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Wherefore
Art thou?
In Charleston, South Carolina, if you are getting into the business of displaying
art, you better make a significant showing of it. After all, this is the city
that, in the spring, annually hosts the Spoleto Festival USA (26 years) and
the “Duck People” of the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (21 years).
Now
add JAWS: “Just Art With Sharks.” This new juried art show at the
South Carolina Aquarium attracted more than 40 artists from around the country
to submit pieces in a variety of mediums, of which 32 were selected to be displayed
as part of the aquarium’s current, four month-long SharkFest.
The
aquarium had often been approached about using its space as an art gallery,
but aquarium staff resisted, said Angel Postell, the aquarium’s public
relations manager. “Our main focus is animals and conservation, so we didn’t
jump aboard,” she said. “We’re not a gallery, we’re an aquarium.”
Last year, however, the College of Charleston took part in SharkFest with an
art show featuring students’ works. The show proved to the aquarium that
its space would, indeed, make a great gallery, and that it could be done in
concert with the overall mission. The work, however, “was not as professional
as we had hoped,” Postell said. “We wanted to bring it up a notch.”
She
therefore put together a juried show open to anybody, the only requirement that
the finished work relate to sharks. Publicity went out through local and statewide
media, but she also put notices in national art magazines. Participants came
from throughout the Carolinas and Georgia as well as Virginia, Florida and California.
Three staff members also submitted works, including the “Snapper Crapper,”
a toilet that accepts money done by Nigel Bowers in the husbandry and facilities
department. Other media included print, sculpture, ceramic, fabric, furniture
and paintings ranging from illustrations and traditional paints to cubist style.
Judging the show were Ellen Dressler Moryl, director of Cultural Affairs for
the City of Charleston, local artists Rhett Thurman and Margaret Petterson,
and aquarium Director Christopher Andrews and Curator Steve Vogel.
The
jury not only culled the number of pieces to display, it awarded a best of show
and three place prizes, plus, because of the “overwhelming quality and
variety of the art,” said Postell, three honorable mentions, each earning
cash prizes from $25 to $150. Winning best of show, and $150, was Boyd Boggs
of Charleston whose “Dinner Guest” is a cafe table carved of walnut
and maple resembling a dorsal fin with a top “raised and carved, expressing
movement and announcing the arrival of the guest.” Fourteen-year-old painter
Honey McCrary of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, won first place and $100 for
“Shark Attack” featuring a mosaic of colored broken glass glued on
an old window portraying two sharks with mouths open.
Last week the show opened with a sold-out gala of live music and chef-prepared
food attended by Charleston society and some of the artists, including third-place
winner Randall Scott of Palm City, Florida, who has been conducting underwater
research and painting his observations for more than 25 years. His “Lost
Treasures” depicting a Caribbean reef shark gliding through a school of
horse-eyed jacks is one of the show’s most expensive pieces, priced at
$9,500 (“Dinner Guest” is available for $2,500 and McCrary’s
mosaic is $500, but “Snapper Crapper” is not for sale, Bowers describing
it as “priceless”). Also attending the gala were several local artists
expressing their regrets that they had not entered the competition.
But this show likely will continue, Postell said. She’s not ready to announce a rivalry with either the Duck People or Spoleto, though “this would be cool to do during Spoleto,” she said. “We might want to try it in the spring. It takes a long time, eight months to plan everything and get everything out.” The pay off is that, for the next four months, the South Carolina Aquarium is doubling as a first-class art gallery.
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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