May is for Materials

Our May Third Thursday open house (5/16, 5-9pm) offers a special focus on two of our favorite materials- paint and stone. Stormwater Studios resident artists Michel McNinch, painting, and Sharon Collings Licata, stone carving, will offer demonstrations of their respective media while discussing their materials, techniques and tools.
Both artists are offering summer camps for middle and high school students, adult classes and an adult “camp” in the fall!

Feeling inspired to carve your own stone? Jim Philips, a carving stone supplier from Toronto, Canada, will be in Columbia on Thursday delivering an order for our upcoming stone carving classes and will have a few additional stones available for purchase. Please come by during Third Thursday to personally select your own carving stone. Sharon will be glad to help with suggestions if needed.

NEWS FROM OUR RESIDENT ARTISTS

Emily Lyles, media artist and SVAD instructor, has returned for a second residency in the SVAD+Stormwater Studio! During her residency (5/7-5/31) she is building on the work she completed last year by making the experience more three-dimensional for the viewer.
More>>

Pat Gilmartin, along with two other area artists, Diane Gilbert and Betsy Kaemmerlen, will be featured in the June issue of Columbia Metropolitan magazine. The article focuses on the area’s ceramic sculptors and is based on interviews, studio visits, and photographs of the artists and their works.
More >>

Sharon Collings Licata has been invited to be the Featured Carver at this year’s Indiana Limestone Symposium. She’ll begin another of her large limestone sculptures on site in early June. Upon her return to Stormwater the public will be invited to observe the technique of unloading a large stone sculpture. Stay tuned for details!
More>>

See work by Sharon Collings Licata locally at the Camden Artists’ Guild Spring group show at the Kershaw County Fine Arts Center gallery. May 16 – June 15.
More>>

Kirkland Smith is one of six artists/activists who employ discarded plastic as both an artistic medium and as subject matter to be included in Can’t You Sea? | Ocean Plastic ARTifacts at the Franklin G. Burroughs- Simon B. Chapin Art Museum in Myrtle Beach. June 15 – September 8.
More>>

Save these Dates

May 16: Third Thursday open house, 5-9pm
May 22 – June 2 (reception May 23, 6-8pm): Layers of Us
June 20 – July 18: Artfields 2019 Columbia Artists Exhibition
June 29 & 30: Richland County Ag + Art Tour >>

Exhibition Spotlight: Layers of Us
May 22 – June 2
The works in Layers of Us were created by participants of community art projects in Columbia, SC, which were offered through “Program Development in Art,” a course taught in the spring of 2019 in the School of Visual Art and Design and the Women’s and Gender Studies program at the University of South Carolina. Eleven instructors including one faculty member and ten Master’s students from Art Education, Music History, and Creative Writing taught art at six different sites: the Lexington County Juvenile Arbitration Program, the Harriet Hancock LGBT Center, the ARC of South Carolina (an advocacy organization for people with intellectual and developmental disabilites), Hannah House and Killingsworth (two women’s shelters), and the Sexual Assault Survivors Group at UofSC.

The participants, who have felt silent and invisible due to their sexual orientations and traumas, perceived abilities, statuses of home ownership or as first-time offenders, share their lives and experiences with us through a variety of different mediums including painting, sculpture, collage, crafts, and printmaking. The uniqueness of these participants and their artworks reveal the countless layers of who they are, but such uniqueness also embodies a common strength behind this project — a sense of community. 

This exhibition is supported by Stormwater Studios, the School of Visual Art and Design, and the Women’s Well-Being Initiatives in the Women’s and Gender Studies program at the University of South Carolina, as well as by a grant from the Knight Foundation fund at the Central Carolina Community Foundation.