Villa Voice Fall 2017

Grand Strand Collects Highlights the Joy of Collecting Art | A Message from our Executive Director

As the Art Museum’s 20th anniversary year enters its final months, we are getting ready to say adieu to Feast Your Eyes: Celebrating the Food of the South. I know you’ll enjoy Karen Olson’s wrap-up of the Feast exhibition and the engaging lecture series, Food for Thought, which complemented it.

Simultaneously, we are preparing to end the year with Grand Strand Collects, an exhibition celebrating art and community. In 2005, when the Museum was a mere eight years old, we embraced the concept of a Myrtle Beach Collects exhibition. This idea was introduced by then-curator Kay Teer and roundly embraced by staff, Board, visitors and community alike. To support our 20th year milestone, we thought it would be perfect to revisit collections housed in loving homes along the Grand Strand with Grand Strand Collects. As you’ll discover when the exhibition opens on September 28th, the more than 200 works in the exhibition reflect the tastes, passions and pleasures of a community that revels in a diverse and multidimensional culture life. Grand Strand Collects will be on display through December 14th . We ‘re grateful to our generous collectors for loaning us their treasures for all of us to enjoy.

Exhibitions like Grand Strand Collects wouldn’t be possible without supporters who recognize how much our Art Museum contributes to the cultural resources of our two-county area. We offer a special thank-you to Presenting Sponsor United Community Bank and to our Supporting Sponsors Ms. Nancy Cave and Burroughs & Chapin Company, Inc.

The Art Museum is also producing a catalogue for this exhibition, and a limited number will be available for purchase in the Museum Shop. Thank-you to area photographer Keith Jacobs for taking such lovely images and for Sheriar Press for their design and printing.

And while you are all perusing the engaging Collects exhibition, be sure to visit the Museum’s Reception Room Gallery, which Charleston-based artist Jocelyn Cateâuvert will have transformed into a fantasy land of light and unique, whimsical shapes, created from her handmade paper. Curator Liz Miller and I were transfixed when we first saw Jocelyn’s site-specific installation at the Jones-Carter Gallery during ArtFields 2016. We knew right away that we wanted to invite Jocelyn to the Art Museum, show her our space and discuss a possible exhibition. The timing was perfect. Jocelyn Chateâuvert: The South Carolina Arts Commission Turns 50 commemorates the 50th anniversary of the South Carolina Arts Commission by highlighting the work of one of the Commission’s fellow artists. Another anniversary celebration!

We know these two very different exhibits will delight your senses as they instill a sense of wonder at the extraordinary variety of expression we can enjoy through art. As always, it’s a great time to be part of the Art Museum.

 
Sincerely,
 

 

 
Patricia Goodwin
Executive Director

Need to Diet after a Summer of Feast Your Eyes | Celebrating the Food of the South?

How quickly the summer of 2017 has flown by at the Museum as we celebrated our 20th anniversary with Feast Your Eyes | Celebrating the Food of the South. We all may need to consider dieting after three months of being surrounded by Southern temptations such as a giant-sized slice of crispy bacon; hyper-realistic paintings of hot biscuits smeared with butter and dripping with jelly or honey and pound cake mounded with whipped cream and bountiful berries; a larger-than-life, crystal-covered bottle of Coca-Cola, or a ‘mater sandwich slathered with Duke’s mayonnaise…and oh-so-much more.

Our gratitude goes out to the many artists-more than 50-from states throughout the South and beyond who so graciously agreed to loan their works for this unique three-month exhibition, as well as to the institutions who participated: The Morris Museum in Augusta, Georgia; Charleston’s Gibbes Museum; Columbia’s Museum of Art and its State Museum; Hilton Head’s Red Piano Gallery; Artfields of Lake City and The Johnson Collection in Spartanburg. We were able to gather 112 works of art in an intriguing array of media which delighted more than 6,000 visitors throughout the summer. As an Alabama visitor shared on TripAdvisor: “…while the beach is great fun, this museum visit is the highlight of my trip. Current big exhibit is of interpretations of Southern Food in many media, and it is worth a drive!”

Our accompanying nine-part lecture series, Food for Thought, was filled to capacity each week. With speakers covering a wide variety of southern food topics, both local and regional, attendees were able to consider Southern cuisine from various perspectives. Each lecture was unique, but perhaps a highlight was the visit to Myrtle Beach’s new International Culinary Institute, where we all will be able to take part in cooking classes and innovative eating for years to come.

We also delighted in being able to share our passion for this exhibition with docent tours throughout July, August and September. As the weeks went by, our tour numbers grew as mainly area residents joined us to gather insights into the exhibition and the cuisine it celebrates.

Visitors were also very much engaged by photographer Brant Barrett’s collection of images featured in Feast | Local , a look at off-the-beaten-road eateries in this area, along with markets and food celebrations. We knew temptations were great with all the inquiries about where to find some of the local eateries in Barrett’s evocative photographs.

We all join together in thanking this summer’s most generous exhibition and lecture sponsors: Burroughs and Chapin, the Chapin Foundation, IBM, the Moglia Family Foundation, SCE&G, South Atlantic Bank, South Carolina Humanities, Susan Stevens and Wells Fargo. These individuals and organizations represent the finest in community building with their strong show of support for the arts in this area.

Now, about that diet…

Karen Olson
Special Projects Coordinator

Special thanks to our sponsors for
Feast Your Eyes | Celebrating the Food of the South

Volunteer Judy Smith Is One Lucky Lady – In and Out of the Museum

When Saturday visitors to the Art Museum meet volunteer Judy Smith at the front desk, they’re charmed by her warmth and enthusiasm, her positive attitude.

What they don’t realize is that Smith is probably one of the luckiest people alive. Just last September, Smith experienced a frightening brush with pancreatic cancer. Treated immediately, with expert medical care – and as she says, “some big-time guardian angels looking out for me” – she came through the experience and, at recent checkups, has been pronounced disease-free. But she also shares some of the credit for her recovery with the Art Museum.

“The Museum really helped my recovery,” she says. “After being gone for three months (during treatment), I was really glad to get back. It helped me get back to being myself.”

Although she had no art training – she retired from a 32-year career in Loudoun County, Virginia, as a physical education teacher before moving to the Grand Strand in 2011 – Smith had always had an appreciation for the arts. After moving to the Market Common community in 2014, and looking for things nearby to do, she happened to visit the Art Museum with some friends.

“I was just hooked,” she recalls, comparing her experience with that of many of the visitors she meets at the Museum. “So often, it’s just by chance that they find it – even though it’s pretty well publicized – but when they leave, they’re saying, ‘I’ve just got to come back.’ ”

She recalls one woman who had come to Myrtle Beach with her husband to celebrate her 40th birthday. Bored with the beach, the woman told her husband she would go and look at the Art Museum for 10 minutes or so. “Two hours later, she was still here,” Smith says. “Her husband was probably wondering what happened to her!”

Smith says she enjoys meeting people, learning where they are from and trading tips about the area. But she also enjoys seeing the reactions of first-time visitors to the Museum. “They’re surprised at the quality of the exhibitions: the quality of the work, the history that’s incorporated into the exhibits, and that they’re so professionally put together. Like now, we have three different exhibits in the Museum, but they all go together. It just pulls you in.”

She has nothing but praise for Museum staffers: their knowledge, friendliness and helpfulness to visitors. “They really work hard to promote art,” she says. That includes the many programs and exhibits geared toward children. One of her first assignments was working on the Tea Porch during the LEGOs-based Art of the Brick exhibition. The area had been set up to allow children to create their own works of art with Lego bricks.

“The kids would come in and they’d get so focused on building their masterpieces that some wouldn’t want to leave!” she recalls.

Although impressed by all the exhibits she’s seen at the Museum, Smith says her favorite is the annual high school students’ juried exhibition, which she says “blows me away – the creativity, the vision they show. And they’re all so humble, saying things like ‘I never thought I’d even make it into the show.’ ”

To would-be Museum volunteers, Smith emphasizes that no one should hesitate to sign on, regardless of their level of experience. “You don’t have to have any art knowledge, but you’ll certainly learn. I’ve already learned a lot about the history and culture of South Carolina. All you have to do is smile and be welcoming.”

“The great thing about the Art Museum,” she adds, “is everybody leaves happy.”

Education Corner
with Arielle Fatuova and Tracey Roode

Summer has really flown by in t he Art Museum’s Early Art Education Program! Three and four year olds at participating daycares and preschools discovered the elements of art – color, shape, pattern and line – in sessions with Program Coordinator, Tracey Roode, that combined reading and art projects. The children made paper rainbow flowers after reading Planting a Rainbow; they printed with fruits and veggies after reading One Lonely Seahorse, which featured pictures made the same way; and they created line paintings with toy cars dipped in paint, a project inspired by the book Lines That Wiggle. This autumn, our young artists will learn about texture, color mixing and how color can be used to express emotions.

The program will also be extending its reach as we welcome two child development centers in Conway and Georgetown as new program participants!

Ms. Arielle had a busy summer between KidsArt camps, Community Group field trips, and off-site programs – all promoting the Art Museum’s delicious exhibition, Feast Your Eyes: Celebrating the Food of the South. Our younger KidsArt participants had fun with gardening, learning the elements of plant life and also how to compost to provide nutrients for their gardens at home. Older participants worked in teams to create a short film personifying the foods in Feast Your Eyes, then developing a storyline featuring these characters. With each team member assigned a different task, they worked together using a stop-motion film application on their iPads to bring their story to life. On the final day of camp, our proud filmmakers unveiled their creation for their parents!

This fall, the Art Museum presents Grand Strand Collects, a large exhibition of artworks from the collections of over 50 Grand Stand residents. Like the exhibit itself, we’ll be celebrating our community with a series of workshops exposing our youth to the expansive, cross-cultural and diverse artwork on display in its homes and offices: diverse in period, style, technique, media and subject. Students of all ages will have the opportunity to learn a variety of techniques, work with visiting artists and participate in projects that give back to the community. Check our website to learn more about these creative opportunities for your kids!

Last but certainly not least, the construction of our long-awaited pottery studio is beginning! Our studio should be completed by November, with a grand opening planned for January 2018. Expanding the Museum to include a fully-equipped pottery studio will give us the opportunity to engage our community with something new and exciting. Providing access to ceramic art-making for all levels of talent and interest will help us grow our museum community and to give students – both older children and adults – a relaxed environment to nurture talent and strengthen problem-solving skills. The Museum has been a space dedicated to fostering creativity, encouraging self-expression and providing hands-on art making experiences for the past 20 years and we plan on doing so for the next 20 years!

Save the Dates for Two Upcoming Art Museum Events

Mark your calendar for these two popular annual events, coming soon at the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum. Saturday, October 28, is the Museum’s Free Family Day in celebration of Día de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday held to remember friends and family members who have passed away and help support their spiritual journey. Special foods, music, art projects and other activities will be on offer from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

And on Friday, November 3, it’s the 13th Annual Bag Ladies Luncheon, at which attendees get to bid on a bevy of unique and stylish handbags in a silent auction. One lucky lady will win a pricey designer bag. Luncheon is held at the Dunes Golf and Beach Club, 9000 N. Ocean Blvd. Proceeds help support Art Museum exhibits and outreach programs. Tickets, $50 each, are available by calling the Museum. Call 843-238-2510.