Mark Pointer - undefined magazine Book 6

Spoleto Festival : Preach Jacobs : Nikolai Oskolkov : Janet Kozachek : Robert Carter : Piano Festival : Barry Sparks

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undefined : Book Six : May - June 2010

features:

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Preach Jacobs Southeastern Piano Festival Spoleto: Old is new Robert Carter

Barry Sparks

Nikolai Oskolkov Janet Kozachek Living in art

dialogue: 6 : Editorial Comment : A pro and con look at the Columbia Museum of Art's new lighting fixture 16 : Ten Summer Wines 2 4 : Art alternatives in Charleston 3 0 : Forget that you have read this

on the cover The photographer JoAnn Verburg has been living part of the year in Spoleto, Italy, for two decades. She was introduced to the city by Nigel Redden, director of the Spoleto Festival USA which was an outgrowth of the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto. She was taking a honeymoon trip to Italy and Redden helped her find a place to stay in Spoleto. She has returned the favor by creating an exhibition of photos of the city. The show, “Interruptions,” opened at the Pace Magill Gallery in New York in March and will be at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston May 28 through Aug. 22. The narrow streets and alleys of Spoleto were captured by Verburg using a large format 4-by-5 camera. The show consists of 16 works each 4 by 6 feet. Verburg has shown extensively and was subject of a career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 2007. The Gibbes Museum is at 135 Meeting St. Go to gibbesmuseum.org or call (843) 722-2706 for information.

Subscribe now at: www.undefinedmagazine.com These pages are the labor of many talented hands, from writing, design and editing, to sales and marketing. We encourage you to contact us with any feedback or story ideas at our website. Please support the artists, your community leaders and advertisers. For advertising information please contact us at: 803.386.9031 or ads@undefinedmagazine.com undefined magazine is copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any manner, in whole or in part, without the publisher's written permission.

Write us at: undefined Magazine 709 Woodrow Street : 321 : Columbia, SC 29205 803.386.9031 ©2010 All Rights Reserved undefined : book six

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contributors 1. Cynthia Boiter : Associate Editor 2. Jeffrey Day : Associate Editor 3. Mark Pointer : Associate Editor 4. Kristine Hartvigsen : Writer Kristine is a writer and editor living in Columbia.

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5. Joshua Beard : Photographer Joshua is a freelance photographer in Columbia. You can view his work at www.jbeardfoto.com 6. Shani Gilchrist : Writer Shani is a freelance writer who blogs at camillemaurice.com.

7. Kaitlin Ohlinger : Writer Kaitlin blogs about wine at thewinesnob.wordpress.com

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8. McKenna Kemp : Design Intern McKenna Kemp is a graphic designer in Columbia, SC, and a recent graduate of the University of South Carolina.

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A message from the editors.

Hello again. We can’t tell you how happy we are to be here.

Since our last issue of undefined, we have been hard at work – really, for the first time as a team – creating this brand new issue that you hold in your hands. Don’t get us wrong – the last issue was fine, but we were just getting the team in place.

You’ll see that one of the changes we’re enjoying is that we are now covering all the arts: music, theatre, dance, visual arts, design, literary arts, and the occasional food or bottle of wine – what we like to call the art of indulgence. Another change is that we are exploring more of what’s happening in the arts throughout the Carolinas. We want you to know about it all.

During the creation of this issue we’ve sent hundreds of emails to one another, had a bunch of meetings (fortunately several were held at the outdoor tables at Hunter Gatherer), and we’ve done our share of bumping heads. We’ve all badgered people to buy ads and begged for money. We’ve given a lot of thought

to how we can pay for this and maybe even, at some point, pay ourselves.

We’ve gone to a hell of a lot of art shows, dance performances, concerts, plays, poetry readings; you can’t cover the arts sitting in front of a computer all the time. We’ve had some great experiences and a few disappointments.

We have greatly benefitted from the help of some excellent writers and photographers who have joined our labor of love for little more than a thank you. So, officially, thank you Kristine, Shani, Joshua, and Kaitlin.

The result for now is this issue. If you want to see more, buy it, read it, tell your friends, tell your granny, send money.

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Jeffrey Day

Museum chandelier misses museum mission

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hen I heard there was a move afoot to purchase a chandelier by Dale Chihuly for the Columbia Museum of Art I held my tongue - as if as I am capable of doing such a

thing.

What I say now is: wrong shape, wrong size, wrong color, wrong use of money.

Orange-red and yellow are some of my favorite colors, but something much more cool and refined – say blue and clear and gold – would be more appropriate. The symmetrical piece that’s big at the top and pointed at the bottom (it looks a bit like an inverted flame) rather than adding some dynamism to the space reinforces it. The piece really isn’t large enough to dominate the hole in the floor it occupies between the museum lobby and the second floor - it exacerbates a problematic space.

Shortly after it was announced that the Contemporaries, a group of youngish museum supporters, were going to raise $360,o00 to purchase the chandelier I was talking to someone involved in the process.

“One word,” I said, “diagonal.”

My one-word suggestion addressed two points: a diagonal shape would put some movement into that dead space between floors where the chandelier would hang and it would refer to the Baroque paintings that are the museum’s most significant holdings.

First I want to make it clear that I admire the Contemporaries for raising money for the museum. Not that long ago, the group’s major mission was pitching beer bashes in the street in front of the museum attended by people who had never been into the museum and didn’t intend to start once they got drunk. The group has changed for the better.

I also want to make it clear I do not hate Dale Chilhuly’s art.

Arts writers and critics like to pummel certain artists and Chihuly is one of them. Much of this animosity seems to derive from the fact that the artists in question are popular, rich and don’t do the hands-on work of making glass, but supervise a large studio/factory. That’s not art criticism.

This chandelier has nothing much to do with the Columbia Museum of Art or its collection, a problem exacerbated by the other generic aspects of the museum: the design of the building with that wing-like thing perched atop it; the looks-like-it-was-picked-from-a- catalog fountain (which cost $500,000 only $100,000 of which was originally donated for a fountain) on the corner of the barren plaza fronting the museum (which the museum doesn’t own); and the rented exhibitions that dominate the museum’s schedule.

The museum has struggled for years to create an image or “brand.” What’s ironic is the images it has used to do this – the shape of the building, the fountain, now the chandelier – focus on things that don’t have much to do with the museum.

The Columbia Museum of Art owns very good artworks by European masters Botticelli, Bernardo Stozzi, Francesco Guardi, Canaletto, Tintoretto, Peter Claez, Nicholas Maes and Claude Monet, as well as a significant collection of American artists from the Colonial era to today. And as much as it looks like a flame, that overgrown lighting fixture in the lobby is dim by comparison.

“...wrong shape, wrong size, wrong color, wrong use of money.”

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Cynthia Boiter

Museum chandelier is right on target

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ost anyone who has taken a freshman level art history class knows the story told by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects from Cimabue to Our Time, of the Florentine mayor who visited Michelangelo as he was nearing completion of the David.

After surveying the great artist’s progress the mayor commented that the David’s nose was too wide. Michelangelo, who was brilliant in more ways than one, simply climbed to the top of his ladder and out of sight of the mayor, clinked his hammer against his chisel a few times without touching the marble, descended, and said, in so many words, How’s that?

The mayor squinted his eyes into the air, nodded his approval, and declared the sculpture to be perfect.

The moral of the story? For some of us, even the greatest of human accomplishments aren’t complete until we’ve put in our two cents worth.

When the Contemporaries of the Columbia Museum of Art raised upwards of $360,000 to install an original chandelier designed by artist Dale Chihuly, there was no way everyone would be happy. Such is the nature of art and humanity. But the degree to which some people have derided the acquisition is perplexing.

For most of us, given our modest contributions to the endeavor, we got a bargain. As public art goes, it’s not every day that a community can point to something so unique, interesting, and in most people’s opinions, beautiful, and say, Look what the royal We did! Call me Pollyanna, but that makes me feel good about what the Columbia arts community is capable of, and it makes me excitedly wonder, what’s next?

My esteemed colleague across the page points out that a good thing about the acquisition of the Chihuly is that, rather than spending time and money throwing yet another party to celebrate how young and attractive the members of the Contemporaries are, they put their money where their art is. I couldn’t agree more. The acquisition of the Chihuly chandelier is another example of the renaissance in contemporary art the city is currently experiencing – the art scene, for lack of a better descriptor, is transitioning from being patron-oriented to being artist-oriented. People are becoming more interested in the art on the walls than what other people are wearing to view it. And more artists, rather than cloistering themselves away in their studios, are becoming patrons themselves. Visual artists are collaborating with performing artists; performing artists are show-

ing up at galleries. This is community. This is progress.

The significance of what the Chihuly adds to the museum’s collection must not be understated. Columbia Museum of Art joins the good company of such institutions as London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem, among others.

Dale Chihuly is also an artist of distinction and his story is inspirational. A Fulbright Fellow who studied glass in Venice, Chihuly was blinded in his left eye in a car crash when he was 35 years old; three years later he injured his shoulder in an accident and was never able to hold a glass blowing pipe again. Rather than succumb to his infirmities, Chihuly, like Matisse before him, became the choreographer of his art, rather than the

“The significance of what the Chihuly adds...must not be understated.” dancer. Chihuly designs and members of his studio implement and assemble – the result is that even though many of the man’s facilities were lost from him, the world doesn’t have to lose his talent.

That said, there is no accounting for taste, either good or bad and, for that matter, preferences and proclivities are as subjective as anything gets. The critic and social thinker John Ruskin once said of James McNeill Whistler’s “Nocturne in Black and Gold” that it was like “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.”

Maya Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, DC, which evokes a large gash in the earth symbolic of the damage of war, was panned when the design was first revealed, yet three million people per year visit it with respect and honor. And when the Centre Georges Pompidou first opened in Paris’s Beaubourg district in 1977, the Parisian reception of its industrial style and distinctive exo-skeletal architecture was decidedly cold and unwelcoming. Yet, the architect Richard Rogers, who along with Renzo Piano designed the Pompidou, was given architecture’s highest honor in 2007, the Pritzker Architecture Prize, for his work on the building and, even more importantly, more than 150 million art lovers have toured the modern art the Pompidou holds since it opened. This must mean something to the Parisians.

And so, with time, maybe the curmudgeons and the naysayers and the people who genuinely don’t like the design of our Chihuly chandelier, with its color scheme of gold, orange, and red, meant to emulate a Carolina sunset, will come to see our city’s newest acquisition as something that means something to them.

If not, maybe if we move it a little to the left?

There. How’s that?

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10 questions

Preach Jacobs Singer, songwriter, rap artist, writer, photographer, and general man on the scene, Preach Jacobs sat down with Undefined to talk about where the 26-year-old some-saygenius is standing on the earth these days. A quiet mixture of dignity and defiance, Preach Jacobs has his feet in Cosby-land and the palms of his up-stretched hands in the Wu-Tang Clan. He released his latest album, “Maple St. Sessions,” last fall. This is what’s going on with Preach today.

UM: Your name is Preach – what are you religious about?

PJ: The things that mean the most to me pretty much cross-promote each other. I can't be passionate about writing without being passionate about making music. My life evolved around it.

I interviewed KRS-One years ago and he said something profound to me about hip-hop being a religion. And without sounding corny or cliché, I understand it. My life is structured around hip-hop culture. The way that I dress, the way that I carry myself, the way I view the world will always have a hip-hop perspective. I want to be a voice for the voiceless, which I think defines the origins of hip-hop. Okay, you have black and brown people in the inner cities and they can't afford a guitar and drums to have

interview: Cynthia Boiter photography: Joshua Beard

a garage band, but they find a way to create their own music; a way to have their own voices. That's hip-hop. And that's what I try to do. I'm more hip-hop than I am African-American.

UM: How have you come to find yourself where you are at this moment in time?

PJ: You end up making tons of decisions during your life that, even though you don't think they are big deals, they groom you for what you are to become. I wish my bank statement had a few more commas in it, but the process I’m in now is one that I wouldn't trade for the world. There's a slow grind that's consistent and the sacrifices I've made to pursue my art are nothing

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less than acts of faith. Knowing that the work I’m doing will bear some fruit and allow me to use my voice to do some good. When I have my moments of doubt, I look at the work and realize I'm right where I need to be.

my music and writings and, to my surprise, she wrote me back.

We corresponded a few times. She's very humble, sharp, and full of energy. I actually framed the letters she sent me and they're hanging in my apartment.

UM: So, you feel good about your music?

PJ: Getting signed in 2009 and having some support from a label is the professional accomplishment I’m most proud of. It's gratifying to find someone willing to put their name on your project and support it. The label that picked up "Maple St. Sessions," my latest project, is called R2 Records out of England.

They are an indie label that fits my sound well.

My first album, “Garveyism," was released in 2007. I consider it my first official release because it was the first time I had an executive producer, a budget, and direction. I studied (panAfrican hero) Marcus Garvey extensively growing up and after I released the record I actually tracked down one of his sons and sent him the album along with my writings. He called me back and we spoke for hours. I still have a message on my answering machine that he left three years ago. I'm never deleting it.

UM: You’ve been writing for a while?

PJ: Yeah, my first published article was in a hip-hop publication called Elemental Soul, and I interviewed MF Doom. I was fifteen years old at the time. Now, I write for HYPE magazine, the largest hip-hop publication in South Africa; a fashion and music magazine called Vapors, based out of Los Angeles; and probably a dozen more. I just started my own online publication dedicated to hip-hop and soul music called Mo Betta Soul (www.mobettasoul.com).

UM: You're a good-looking guy. Is there a Mrs. Preach?

PJ: There's a Duke Ellington quote that goes "music is my first mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one." That's not entirely true for me but my work has gotten in the way of things getting serious for me. There is so much work that needs to be done first – while I can – and then hopefully a young lady will be waiting for me at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully at the Grammy's or something. But the idea of marriage and kids, even though as a hopeless romantic I find it so appealing, is also a blatant contradiction of what I'm trying to do now – travel the world doing my art. But balance is the key, and I'm working on it.

UM: Who were and are your influences -- both personally and professionally?

PJ: Gordon Parks is on the top of the list. When I got into photography, I was drawn to Parks' work. He documented black life in America so well and was the first person to do it for a major publication. His lens basically summed up the rural south with his photo essays. And his pics of Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali are some of the best that I've seen.

Of course there are tons of musical influences like Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, and Gangstarr. But personally, the people who have made the most impact on me are my parents – how they've always been dedicated to each other. They've been married 35 years and it's great to see them joke around and enjoy the company of one another. That kind of dedication and discipline was great to be around growing up and it has had a profound effect on me.

UM: How do you respond to the word “desperation?”

PJ: I avoid it at all costs. If I ever try to create music or art out of desperation then I need to stop. When ego or money becomes the motivation to make art I have defeated my original goal. I had this moment a few months back where I was thinking about working on a new album that would feature some of hip-hop's biggest producers and emcees: a project that would take money, time, and patience. I then thought to myself "when I put this record out, if nothing major happens then I'm going to retire." I had an interview with a magazine later that day and I was going to talk about "retiring" and I got angry with myself. Nobody will lose a job if I stop doing music. No one cares. So, why would I talk about quitting? I think it was my own self-righteousness wanting people to beg and plead that I don't stop doing music.

That's all bullshit and that's what doing art out of desperation means. Just do you work and let it speak for itself. Ego has no place here.

UM: Say something to impress me.

PJ: It's difficult to say something to purposely impress someone. Even though being an artist, it's sometimes necessary, especially when you don't have a manager or publicist to help with your craft. It's all me doing the work. Usually if I want to impress someone, I try to have my work speak for itself. My approach has always been to have a "fuck it" attitude. Check out the video.

Listen to the music. Hang with me and have a conversation. I'm a man of many shortcomings, but expressing myself isn't one of them.

UM: What's next?

PJ: Keep pushing the music and touring. Stagnation is my kryptonite. Keep busy and keep the faith.

UM: We understand that, but you have worked with a lot of interesting and sometimes famous people. Tell me a story.

PJ: I have a few people that I've come into contact with that I'm pretty proud of. Poet and Professor Nikki Giovanni and I were pen pals for a while. It was probably about six or seven years ago when I heard that she was a professor at Virginia Tech, so I decided to look online and I found her info. I sent her a copy of

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feature

Paris to Russia to China to Irmo Piano fest fills summer with music

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astounding ability to play hours of music from memory and with passion; and John Nakamatsu, who won the Gold Medal in the 1999 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

This year the performers and teachers come from varied backgrounds which form a framework for the festival.

Italian Roberto Plano was a finalist in the 2005 Van Cliburn Competition and has performed with the Berliner Philharmonic and at the Ravenna Festival and been featured on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today.”

Two are from China: Jacqueline Bei Hua Tang, who teaches at the Shanghai Conservatory and whose students are among the world’s top young musicians, and Tian Ying, another Van Cliburn gold medal winner.

A native of Moscow, Oxana Yablonskaya overcame hardships heaped upon her by the Soviet government. In the 1960s she won a string of top prizes throughout Europe, but her concert career was strictly limited to the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries due to the many artist defections during that period.

When she asked to emigrate, she was fired from the Moscow Conservatory and forbidden from performing. In 1977, she was allowed to leave the Soviet Union after a petition drive was organized by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Four months later she made a triumphant return in a New York concert at Carnegie Hall. She has continued a concert career and teaches at the Julliard School.

“Each year there’s something to the lineup that provides a

ot long after pianist Marina Lomazov was hired by the University of South Carolina School of Music, she and the then-dean were having lunch when he told her he’d like her to start a piano festival.

“I said, ‘Ok,’ not knowing anything about doing a piano festival,” Lomazov said. Now leading the Southeastern Piano Festival into its ninth year, Lomazov has by necessity and inclination become an expert on piano festivals. What started as a week-long summer piano camp for students from the eighth through twelfth grades has grown to include a concert series by outstanding pianists from around the world that turns Columbia into a piano town.

The June festival will import performers, most of whom will also teach, from Italy, Russia, and China. Audience members come from throughout the Southeast with a strong showing from Augusta, Hilton Head, Savannah and the Midlands of South Carolina.

“It draws an audience that really loves piano music and they’ll come a long way to hear it,” said Lomazov, a native of Ukraine who has an active touring career.

During the usually brutal June heat one can escape into the cool confines of the University Music School Recital Hall to be washed over by the music of great composers performed mostly flawlessly by great players. Among those who have played at the festival are the fleet-fingered and exuberant Yakov Kasman; the diva-esque Olga Kern; Christopher Taylor, known for his

story: Jeffrey Day

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pianists. Paris gave birth to such composers as Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel and Russia produced Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Modest Mussorgsky, Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff. China has been the source for some celebrated pianists during the past 20 years and Chinese composers have developed distinct voices in recent years.

“To hear the differences back to back will be a unique experience,” Lomazov said.

The festival’s birth in 2002 was rather low key; it was mainly a week-long workshop for students.

“That first year we didn’t have much of a budget at all,” Lomazov said. “We had one guest artist and my teacher, Natalya Antonova, came for free.”

Since then the festival has grown tremendously: there are more and bigger-name guest artists; concerts every night; larger crowds.

Part of the success has been due to Lomazov’s own appeal. Standing six-feet-tall with a shock of short dark hair, she’s a fiery and dramatic pianist who tours internationally. Lomazov is beloved and has a number of groupies in the region and her solo concerts, appearances with orchestras and duo concerts with her husband and Music School colleague Joseph Rackers regularly sell out. At the end of last year’s Piano Festival, she was given a Steinway grand piano by her supporters who had secretly raised $60,000 to buy it. Along with playing more traditional repertoire (Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Beethoven) she is also active in performing new works and this summer, for the third time, Lomazov is performing at “Keys To The Future,” a New York concert series focused on contemporary solo piano works.

Her high profile has been a boon for the festival, especially when Lomazov is trying to raise money for it.

But training young artists is still the heart the festival. Only 20 students are admitted; most are from the Southeast, but this year students are coming from 17 states. The festival accepts about a third of the students who apply and a quarter are repeat attendees, although they still have to go through the same rigorous audition process as first-time applicants.

“Some of them prepare for two or three years,” Lomazov said.

Along with getting lessons from master musicians, the students also take part in the Arthur Fraser International Concerto Competition with prizes of $2,000, $1,000 and $500. The winners of the contest, named for the founding music director of Columbia’s South Carolina Philharmonic, get to perform with the Philharmonic.

“It’s been really exciting to see the festival grow and grow so quickly,” said Leo Svirsky, who won the top award in 2006 and has since played at the Library of Congress and the Kremlin.

“The festival is something unique for young musicians. It’s rare for young pianists to get such a high level of instruction and work with musicians of such a high caliber.”

Catherine Con with Marina Lomazov

thread,” said Lomazov, who studied at the Kiev Conservatory, the Julliard School and the Eastman School of Music. “Sometimes that’s by design and sometimes it just happens.”

The thread that wraps this year’s concerts together is that the guest artists are from major “schools” of piano performance: French, Russian and Chinese.

The French, from which Plano emerged, developed at the Paris Conservatory. Those who come from this background are known for a refined and light touch. It’s “elegant and precise,” Lomazov said.

“The Russian is a lot more earthy,” she said.

The Chinese combines the Western Europe and Russia traditions, along with a stereotypically intense level of technical expertise.

The pianists from each school are inseparable from the composers of the regions – some of whom were also dazzling

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Marina Lomazov

The 2007 co-winner Ivan Moschuck, who will perform at this year’s festival, recently won the Gilmore Young Artist Award. As with the MacArther “Genius” Award it can’t be applied for; they find you. The Baltimore Sun called an April concert of “hefty and finger-busting” music by the 19-year-old Peabody Conservatory student “a very impressive demonstration of talent and potential.”

A fellow Peabody student, Sejoon Park, won the festival competition in 2006.

In late March the 19-year-old Park was one of the youngest musicians in the Hilton Head International Piano Competition which is the fifth-ranked piano festival in the county.

“When he came, you could tell this kid was clearly destined for greatness,” Lomazov said.

Many audience members fill the Music School recital hall to hear the lineup of medal-toting musicians, but others come to see the young players. (The classes are open for those who want to come and watch.)

“They’re in shape, young and energetic,” Lomazov said. “You can come and then say, ‘I heard them when.’”

Not all the young musicians who attend the Southeastern Piano Festival are going on to be concert pianists.

Joey Montoya of Summerville attended the festival when he was senior in high school –just received two bachelor’s degrees in chemical engineering and math at the University as well as a certificate in piano performance. Although Montoya decided against a music career, his primary piano professor Joseph Rackers said that’s not because he isn’t good enough: he is. Another festival alumnus, Elizabeth Nyikos, started USC as a piano major, but found that her passion is music history. Her original research in medieval music earned her scholarship which allowed her to pursue a master’s degree in musicology at Oxford University in Great Britain.

The festival helps along good, young pianists– whether they plan to go on to concert careers, become teachers or simply play for the sheer love of it. “The festival’s service isn’t really to the star students,” Lomazov said. “They would have gone on to great things anyway.”

The Southeastern Piano Festival takes place June 13 – 19 at the University of South Carolina School of Music, Assembly and College streets, Columbia. Tickets for the guest artist concerts at $20 for adults, $10 for senior citizens, $5 for college students and free for those younger than 18. For more information and a full schedule go to http://sepf.music.sc.edu/ or contact the School of Music at (803) 777-4280.

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Ten Spring Wines Spring tastes like green grass, blue skies, music in the street. It tastes like fresh fruit, crisp greens, smoked meat, rain. It tastes like breezy afternoons on the porch, and late nights under soft skies. Spring tastes like wine. Undefined offers you ten reasonably priced wines and one splurge for your springtime pleasure. Cheers from Undefined.

Opala Vinho Verde 2009, Portugal Vinho Verde literally means green wine. The grapes are picked young so they are low in alcohol (9%) and the wine itself is meant to be consumed young, too. Don’t stick it on a shelf and forget about it. Drink it up – it will quench your thirst. Light, spritely and effervescent, with hints of apples, pears and citrus. It quite literally beckons to be consumed outside on the porch on a warm spring day. ($10)

Domaine de Nizas Rosé 2009, France, Languedoc is a delicious rosé, made of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre grapes. Rose is made from red grapes, but the skins – which contain all the color – are only allowed contact with the juice for a short time leaving the resulting wine a lovely pink color and a flavor that more resembles something light and white. Remember, not all pink wine is a white zinfandel and this one is full of the flavors of dried berries, white chocolate, spice, and white flowers. Not your Grandmother’s rose. ($15)

Clara C. Prosecco NV, Italy. This is a fun, clean, crisp sparkler with an airy, floral feel to it, offering the essences of lemons and limes, notes of green apple and a touch of honeysuckle swimming in just the right amount of bubbles and a fresh, bright structure. ($14)

Lioco Chardonnay 2008, California, Sonoma is a lovely unoaked Chardonnay with a mouthful of tropical fruits like mangos and pineapples, apricots, tangerines, and peaches. A rich wine, despite the lack of oak, Lioco is perfect with grilled fish and stands up well with a light butter sauce or any kind of tropical fruit concoction. ($18)

Hugues de Beaulieu Picpoul de Pinet 2008, France, Languedoc. Ummm… excuse me, what was that? The name itself is a mouthful, so forget about all the Beaulieu business and just call it Picpoul. Pick. Pool. A convenient way of remembering that this is the perfect pool wine. Pretty, delicate, smooth and light with green apples, lemon, and a vaguely briny finish, like a crisp spray of ocean water on a warm spring day. ($11) undefined : book six

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wine

Martin Codax “Ergo” Tempranillo 2007, Spain, Rioja and the Monte Oton Garnacha, 2007, Spain, Campo de Borja. These two wines are perfect for grabbing on the way to a friend’s house or an impromptu gathering in your own backyard. Both are fruit-forward, juicy wines, the Codax bursting with plums, black cherry, and licorice with a perfect acidic backbone. The Monte Oton is a bit grapier and robust, with red raspberry flavors and hints of darker fruits and spice. Don’t deliberate too long on what to eat with these two juices – they go well with just about anything from the grill. ($10 each)

Coelho “Paciencia” Pinot Noir 2007, Oregon, Yamhill.

This may be the best Oregon Pinot you’ll taste this year. Sometimes underestimated at first pour – it is quite light in color and without a forthcoming bouquet – but, give it 15 minutes in the glass and it will wow you with wild strawberry, vanilla, brambly raspberry, black tea and earth. Refined, polished and substantial, this wine screams for grilled Salmon with fresh mixed greens. ($34)

Michael David “Petite Petit,” 2007, Petite Sirah/Petit Verdot, 2007, California, Lodi calls for a big juicy burger, barbecued ribs, or a bacon-wrapped filet. Atomic levels of fruit are found in this blend of Petite Sirah and Petit Verdot – blackberries, figs, cloves, vanilla, cedar and black cherries are followed by a huge and surprising whiff of bacon. ($16)

Fattoria del Felsina "Fontalloro," 2006, Italy, Tuscany. This Sangiovese earned the #13 spot on Wine Spectator’s 2009 Top 100 list, and a 95-point rating as well. This is a true showstopper – deeply concentrated with rich and powerful tannins, enticing, expressive notes of chocolate, grilled herbs, tar, smoke, and lovely dark fruits. It goes on for days. Majestic, polished, epic. The Fontalloro must be experienced to be believed. Treat yourself to a bottle with grilled red meat and an acidic sauce – and savor every drop. Sip, swirl, breathe, sigh, relax. ($50) story: Kaitlin Ohlinger photography: mark pointer

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feature

Old is new

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soprano Renee Fleming all performed at the Charleston festival early in their careers. The festival presented world premieres and co-commissioned “Peter and Wendy” by the Mabou Mines theater company and musical/theater works “Monkey: Journey to the West,” “Hydrogen Jukebox” by Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg, “Three Tales” by Steve Reich and “Empty Spaces” by Laurie Anderson. The festival has frequently hosted the U.S. debuts of groups including Kneehigh Theatre from Great Britain and the National Ballet of Georgia.

For far too many people the Spoleto Festival brings up images of blue hair and staid classical music concerts with pricey tickets. Yes, more traditional pieces get a staging, but they’re complimented by a feast of new works. For every “Giselle,” being performed by the National Ballet of Georgia, there’s a Gilliam Dance, cited for its “delicious strangeness.” Set against the chamber music series are groups including the Ebony Hillbillies, an African-American string band, and Bassekou Kouyate, a master of the African lute from Mali. Music director Emmanuel Villaume will conduct performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 while Die Roten Punkte takes audiences on a late-night journey with a German punk duo. The festival is mounting a one-year old German opera as well as “Flora,” the first opera ever done in the American colonies (in 1736 in Charleston).

Oh, and those expensive tickets? A ticket for “Flora” will set you back $100 to $150 (it is nearly sold out anyway). However you can get into “Giselle” or an orchestra concert for as little as $10 and a chamber music concert for $25.

uring the 1970s, opera composer Gian Carlo Menotti was searching for a place to hold an American companion to his Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, which he had started in 1958. When he arrived in Charleston he knew he’d found the spot. Something similar had happened nearly 70 years earlier, when the Michigan artist Alfred Hutty came to Charleston and wrote to his wife “Come quickly, have found heaven.”

Hutty was part of the Charleston Renaissance, an art movement that included a number of local artists and writers such as Elizabeth O’Neil Verner and Dubose Heyward as well as Northern natives Hutty and George Gershwin. This was a resurrection of Charleston following decades of neglect after the Civil War and a devastating earthquake in 1886.

By the 1970s, the city was again languishing, but the arrival of Menotti and the Spoleto Festival in 1977 heralded another rebirth.

With its age-weathered buildings, many churches and lineup of remarkable restaurants the city is a perfect setting for such a festival. Nearly all the venues are within walking distance of one another and the scenery between them is lovely. The wealthyresident vibe is balanced by sweetgrass basket makers working on the streets and the tourist traffic tempered by College of Charleston students on skateboards.

Menotti, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner best known for his popular operas, liked to introduce rising stars at the festivals in Italy and Charleston. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Joshua Bell and

story: Jeffrey Day

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Wolfgang Rihm’s ”Proserpina” is based on the Roman myth of the goddess who is abducted by Pluto, god of the underworld, and had its world premiere in Germany last year.

“Flora” unveils the three-year-long renovation of the Dock Street Theatre, a 1936 replica of the original theater (although it has walls dating back to 1800.)

“It will be better than it was in 1936,” Redden said.

Before Evans and Schmidt Architects started the renovation, Joe Schmidt wanted to talk to chamber music series founder Charles Wadsworth about the plans.

“I had to catch him right before a concert and I went with my notebook primed to take a bunch of notes,” Schmidt said.

“All he said was ‘Just don’t screw it up.’”

That comment, which Schmidt posted on his office wall, became the guiding principle for the overhaul.

The building on Church Street had problems quite obvious to anyone who had seen a performance or performed there: not enough bathrooms, noise from the air conditioning system, and four space-stealing columns in the orchestra pit.

Handicapped access was terrible. There were no elevators and now there are three.

“It looks like a three story building, but it has nine different levels,” Schmidt said.

Many changes won’t be obvious such as the installation of tempered glass and nearly invisible storm windows (per historical authenticity regulations). But theses improvements will greatly reduce how often ambulances siren screams, garbage truck rumbles, and airplane drones intrude on the Mozart and Mendelssohn.

Those enjoying concerts will also be safer. One of the exterior walls has a significant bulge and even a small earthquake (and Charleston is earthquake prone) would have brought the building down. The bulge is still there, but has been reinforced.

The Dock Street got a test drive during a festival fund raising gala in April.

Wadsworth told Schmit, “It’s 30 percent better and it was nearly perfect before.”

They didn’t screw it up.

Geoff Nuttall, Director of the Chamber Music Series

Operas look back and forward The 2010 Spoleto Festival looks back to the early years of Charleston when it was one of the major cities in the American colonies, home to some of the richest people in the world (as well as tens of thousands of enslaved people.) And what important and wealthy city doesn’t have art?

The first opera staged on these shores was “Flora” in 1735 and that was in Charleston. The next year it was re-mounted at the newly opened Dock Street Theatre. The opera is being revived for the just-completed $16 million renovation of the Dock Street.

“I’ve been thinking about us doing ‘Flora’ for years and years,” said Nigel Redden, festival director.

The other opera is the opposite of the light-hearted and nearly 300-year-old “Flora.”

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An old opera renewed and a new host for chamber music The opera that will reopen the theater wasn’t the easiest thing to track down. “Flora” is a “ballad opera” with popular songs from the era (kind of like “Mama Mia” today) and about half a dozen versions were found in archives in the U.S. and Great Britain.

Composer Neely Bruce, an expert on 18th century music, has

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been working for most of a year to reconstruct “Flora” which is about a young woman finding her true love. The opera is being designed and directed by John Pascoe, who has directed often for the Washing ton National Opera and the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy.

“We’ve aimed for authenticity – within reason,” Bruce said.

Portions of the opera were performed at the April gala.

“We had some trepidation that the opera might be a little too thin – it has a gossamer story,” said Redden. “It was charming and I think the full production will be enchanting. After all, it was staged regularly for 80 years and at that time things didn’t stay around that long.”

The Dock Street will also welcome back the chamber music series, one of the most popular festival offerings, and introduce a new series director. Geoff Nutall, first violinist for the St. Lawrence Quartet, replaces Wadsworth, who retired after the 2009 festival. Nutall is known for his fiery and physical playing, his sharp suits and everchanging hair color.

“I’m psyched about it,” Nutall said of his new role.

While Nutall said “we’re not trying to force new music down people’s throats” more contemporary music and some new musicians will be part of the series.

The St. Lawrence Quartet will of course be on stage and the group’s former second violinist and cofounder Barry Shiffman will be back as well. Other regulars returning are Todd Palmer, clarinet, Stephen Prutsman, piano, and Alisa Weilerstein, cello.

A new face, but one that is familiar to lovers of the voice, will be Dawn Upshaw. Upshaw, who is friends with Nuttall, has performed at the Metropolitan Opera 300 times and is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship. This is her first time at the festival where she will premiere a piece written for her by festival composer-in-residence Jonathan Berger, who has written six pieces for the St. Lawrence Quartet.

The music is an outgrowth of an opera Berger has been working on for several years and will be working on for several more. It consists of all the arias for female voice in the opera, said Berger. Having a talent as huge as Upshaw will show the songs in the best possible light; it also motivated Berger to finish the music.

The chamber series will stick with its policy of not announcing in advance what’s going to be played at each concert. The aim of that has been to make sure people don’t just come to the “star” works or performers and to ensure the chamber music audience, which tends to be older and more conservative, doesn’t skip all the concerts with contemporary music.

“This kind of eclecticism is a positive thing,” Nutall said. “Give yourself and the music a chance and you’ll dig it.”

A new opera with Charleston influences If “Flora” is a quite old opera, they don’t get much newer than “Prosperpina” by Wolfgang Rihm, whose music is highly regarded around the world but not frequently performed in the U.S. The first production was almost exactly a year ago in Germany.

The opera for a soprano soloist, female chorus and string orchestra is based on texts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe drawn from stories about the Roman goddess Proserpina (better know as the Greek goddess Persephone.) She’s the gal who caught Pluto’s eye and was forced to set up housekeeping with him in the Underworld.

Although “Prosperpina” is brand new, the set borrowed its look from an old Charleston house. Set and costume designer Marsha Ginsberg visited the circa 1800 Aiken-Rhett House in

Noel Coward’s “Private LIves” by The Gate Theatre of Dublin

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do with “Prosperpina” Redden suggested he skip the doctor’s office setting.

The lead role will be filled by Heather Buck, who was in the Spoleto production of Pascal Dusapin’s “Faustus” in 2007.

“I thought ‘My first opera and only one singer. Great,’” Schmoll said. “Then I was like ‘Oh hell what am I going to do with her for an hour?’” What he did was add Pluto as a character, lurking around in the corners of the Aiken-Rhett House version of Hell.

“The audience needs something to hang its hat on,” he said.

Before he heard Rihm’s music he figured 21st century music, German composer – tough stuff.

“This music is beautiful,” Schmoll said.

“It’s super challenging to sing, but it is quite accessible and very romantic at times.”

As much new music as old Spoleto is one of the few multi-disciplinary festivals in the nation, but it is first and foremost a classical music festival. Even so the classical music offerings are quite varied.

For those who love more conventional strains of sound, music director Emmanuel Villaume leads the Spoleto Orchestra, made up of young musicians from around the country, in two concerts: “La Valse” by Maurice Ravel and “Also Sprach Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss and Symphony No. 6 by Beethoven with Mozart’s Symphony No. 35.

The Westminster Choir will sing “Coronation Mass” by Mozart and Verdi “Te Deum.”

“Music in Time” brings things up to date with a concert of music by those involved with the operas – Rihm and Bruce. The hot young chamber group Brooklyn Rider will do two concerts featuring music by Claude Debussy, Phillip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, John Cage, and younger composer who may be strangers to many audience members.

Although the jazz series this year really is mostly jazz (not always the case), Polish pianist Leszek Mozdzer will shake that up a bit with his takes on Frederic Chopin, Duke Ellington and Nirvana.

Music also plays an important part in one of the theater works: “Block Ice and Propane.” Cellist Erik Friedlander provides music, a slide show and running dialogue about the long trips through tourist traps, truck stops and the homes of odd relatives he and his family took when he was a child. These are not typical vacation snapshots – his father was acclaimed photographer Lee Friedlander.

“Dance” by Lucinda Childs

Charleston decades ago, when it was a private home. The set is very much inspired by how the house, now a museum, currently looks – original but without elaborate restoration and nearly bereft of furniture.

“It’s a domestic space that’s also a wasteland,” said director Ken Rus Schmoll who is making his opera directing debut at Spoleto. “She’s not from there.”

Schmoll came to the attention of Spoleto production manager Nunnally Kersh when she saw his New York production of “The Telephone,” for which he won and an Obie Award.

The original staging of “Proserpina” last year “was a very German thing” set in a gynecologist’s office, said Schmoll, who is best known for his edgy downtown New York productions. While the festival gave him free rein in deciding what to

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Chocolate Drops. The group did three sold out shows at the 2008 festival; demand was so great a performance was added and the concerts moved outdoors.

“We wanted to re-examine the formula,” Redden said.

Risks and rewards Not everything at the festival turns out to be great. There are some highly-hyped productions that fall short, but for every one of those something flies in out of the blue and carries the crowd away. The way the festival is set up encourages visitors to take in a variety – classical music masterworks, alternative dance, South American jazz, solo theater pieces.

Regardless of what you’ve seen - good, bad, indifferent - when it’s over it’s not really over. You’re at the Spoleto Festival, another performance is only a couple hours away and you’ll be spending those hours in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

For a complete schedule, prices and ticket ordering go to spoleto www.spoletousa.org

Carolina Chocolate Drops

Dancing through the centuries The Gate Theatre from Dublin will also be back with another one of its well-turned-out comedy of manners, in this case Noel Coward’s “Present Laughter.” Those who love the Gate’s take on these plays will no doubt love this one; for everyone else it might be better to check out “Die Roten Punkte,” a play with loud music about a rock band that looks remarkably similar to the White Stripes. And although “Oyster” by Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company from Israel is billed as dance, it is just as much theater – as well as carnival sideshow.

More dance brings the National Ballet of Georgia (the country, not the state) performing “Giselle.” This is said to be the last time company director Nina Ananiashvilli – who is in her middle 40s - will perform the role (unless she decides to pull a Cher.) Another dance legend, Lucinda Childs, recently took a look back at her 1979 collaboration with composer Philip Glass and artist Sol LeWitt called simply enough “Dance.” Last year in New York her company re-invented this signature work with new dancers along with video footage of the original staging in which Childs danced. Redden had seen the original and last year’s restaging and felt it would be a good fit for the festival.

In a big change up this year, the orchestra will not close out the festival at Middleton Plantation as it always has. Instead finale features the African-American string band the Carolina

“Block Ice and Propane” by Erik Friedlander

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more to do

Art alternatives in Charleston add some fresh visions to spring and summer The Spoleto Festival USA is partnering this year with the Gibbes Museum of Art to present photographs of Sploleto, Italy, by JoAnn Verburg. (See cover image.) For the first time, the festival is also promoting an exhibition at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art. But there are several places that will offer some alternatives – which are also alternatives to just about all the art in the city.

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston moved into a new home in the recently completed School of the Arts building last fall. It is a huge space which allows the almost-always terrific shows to really stretch out.

“Call and Response: Africa to America: The Art of Nick Cave and Phyllis Galembo” is the Spoleto and summertime show. Cave creates colorful “soundsuits” made of fabric, beadwork, embroidery, and natural materials that look a bit like the costumes African dancers wear. Galembo takes photographs of dancers and masquerades from Benin, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso.

The show remains on display through June 26. An opening reception will be held May 27 from 5 to 7 p.m. and a gallery tour with the artists takes place May 29 from 2 to 4 p.m.

Gallery hours are Mon through Sat from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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City Gallery at Waterfront Park is mounting an exhibition titled “Contemporary Charleston” for the third time.

The 2010 version matches ten visual artists with ten poets to create a batch of new works. Among the artists and writers taking part are Lynne Riding, Ellie Davis, Julio Cotto, Jonathan Sanchez, Max Miller, Hirona Matsuda and Marcus Amaker Kat Hastie, Jocelyn Chateauvert and Dennis Ward Stiles.

Through July 3. 34 Prioleau St. (843) 958-6484

Redux Contemporary Art Center is just a couple blocks north of the Halsey Institute. The small space is home to a number of resident artists as well as a gallery. Redux is showing works by Cory Oberndorfer, a pop art muralist and large-scale painter. Oberndorfer will create paintings in the gallery space as well as on the façade of Redux inspired by roller derby skaters. The work taps into his three favorite things: “sweets, pop culture and bad-ass women.” The artist will be working at Redux through May 26 when the show opens with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. The show up through July 10.

136 St.Philip St. (843) 722-0697. story: Jeffrey Day

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artist

Robert Carter

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clomp about the dance studio in his classmates’ dead (worn out) shoes. Finally, Ivey told the young man that if he was going to wear the shoes he might as well learn how to wear them correctly, and he encouraged the boy to sign up for pointe classes along with the girls. For four years, Carter did just that – learning to rise and eventually to dance en pointe alongside his female classmates until he was old enough to leave the program and move on to a position with a professional company. Carter trained during a summer with the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago before joining the Florence Civic Company, in Florence, South Carolina, and eventually, the Dance Theatre of Harlem in New York City. He enjoyed his time with both traditional companies even though neither had an interest in having men dance en pointe.

Finally, in 1995, the call came from Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo or the “Trocks” as they are casually called and Carter took his place among the corps of lanky, hairy, and somewhat oddly shaped ballerinas. He had found his home.

“It would be nice to say that I had always dreamed of being in the Trocks, but no, I had admired the company, but I never really aspired to be a part of the company,” Carter explains.

“Yet, here I happily am fifteen years later, and I am spoiled!”

Having always been highly attracted to the old, traditional Russian repertoire with its emphasis on lower back strength, clean lines, and courtliness, Carter found the Trocks’ repertoire, focusing primarily on the choreography of Marius Petipa and George Balanchine, albeit en travesti, both challenging and gratifying. “On stage, I’m a bit of a diva,” he admits.

ince Marie Taglioni first danced en pointe in La Sylphide in 1832, little girls have revered ballerinas, both idolizing and idealizing the dancing divas that seem to defy gravity by floating across the world’s stages on the tips of their toes.

But the assumption that only girls aspire to the heights of artistic elegance is as dated as the myth of bra-burning and erroneously ERA-enforced unisex bathrooms. For every female ballerina there may be her male cavalier; for every Giselle, an Albrecht; for every Sugarplum Fairy, a Nutcracker Prince. But rules are made to be broken, which is exactly what Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo did in September, 1974, when a small cadre of male dancers formed the first all-male, drag professional ballet company of its kind. Finally, little boys could fantasize about growing up to be ballerinas and have their dreams come true, too.

In classical ballet, nuance is everything. From a perfectly positioned epaulement croisé to a precisely controlled battement fondu développé, any balletomane knows the sure sign of a virtuosic performance is the subtlety by which the dancer brings personal interpretation into age-old and tightly scripted choreography. Certainly, Robert Carter, the most senior and, arguably, the most beautiful of the members of the world famous Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, performing at Spoleto Festival USA, long ago internalized this ability.

Dealing with the hair on his chest is another story altogether.

Born and bred in Charleston, South Carolina, Carter began his ballet training at the age of seven with the Robert Ivey Ballet in downtown Charleston. Always fascinated with pointe shoes, Carter would beg the girls for their cast-offs and

story: Cynthia Boiter

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Les Ballet Trocaderos de Monte Carlo

Like all company members, Carter adopted two fictitious personas under which to dance: the female ballerina Olga Supphozova, who ostensibly has a history with the KGB, and her male counterpart, the dashing Yuri Smirnov. Under the guise of the two apocryphal stars, Carter has performed in both whimsical parodies and danced serious roles, staunchly honoring the manners and conceits of the requisite styles, in some of the most prestigious halls in the world. Think the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet. In the month before the Charleston performance the Trocks danced throughout Italy and Spain with a final three-night stop in Budapest. No matter where the troupe performs though, Carter prefers dancing en pointe and in Olga’s shoes.

“Let’s face it,” he snorts before breaking into decidedly unfeminine laughter. “Nobody joins the Trocks to do the male parts.”

In fact, from the beginning, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo was formed as an outgrowth of America’s Gay Rights Movement, specifically the faction centered in New York City’s post-Stonewall Greenwich Village. The company’s first shows were staged very late at night and very far off Broadway. Today’s 16 members hail from Italy, Israel, Mexico, Portugal, Germany, and throughout North America – and all are uniformly gay. But that hasn’t always been the case, nor is it a requirement.

“We’ve had straight guys join the company; some came out of the closet once they found themselves among friends – others really were straight and we all got along great,” Carter says.

“But we’re not just about being gay. I mean, we support gay pride, and we’re proud if somewhere, there is someone who sees us as role models, or whatever. But that’s not our main

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goal. We are about the dance. We are about the quality.”

While comedy plays a role in many of the Trocks’ performances, particularly the exaggeration of characteristics stereotypical of dancing divas – narcissism, vainglory, and largerthan-life swishes and swaggers – the modus operandi of the company is the never-ending quest for perfection in the performance of great classical and, these days, even modern choreography. To that end, Carter still considers himself a student of technique and performance; and the people he studies are ballerinas.

“When I see a woman dancing a part that I also perform, I don’t always compare myself to her, but I do pick apart the details of her dance; her costume, the way she holds her head, the angle of her lines,” he says. “I try to look for little details that I might either incorporate into my style, or ditch altogether.” A fast turner, Carter most admires the work of Sylvie Guillem of Paris Opera Ballet and London’s Royal Ballet fame – also an exquisite turner and an independent spirit as well.

In many ways, Carter leads the life of a typical ballerina. He cuts the shanks of his size 6 ½ E pointe shoes to exaggerate the arch of his feet, and he uses Jet Glue on the interior of the toes to extend the life of the expensive slippers, just like most every other female ballet dancer in the world. His number one fan is his mother, and his father finally came around to supporting him though he doesn’t care much for the art form itself. He shares a room with a company mate during the 40 weeks a year the Trocks travel, tires of living out of a suitcase, and misses the comforts of his New York City home when he’s gone. A seasoned dancer, he knows his strengths and his weaknesses and is candid about them with himself and others.

“I am pretty, and I do dance prettily,” he admits. “Because of

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my longevity and my abilities, I’ve had the pleasure of dancing a lot of lead roles, and I find this humbling. It makes me continue to work harder to have people praise my work.” Typical sentiments from an atypical artist.

But according to Carter, it is this atypical aesthetic that communicates the message of the Trocks so well to the audience; the idea that men can dance en pointe and do so both beautifully, and with a sense of humor.

“The beauty of the company is that we all have such diverse styles and personalities and gifts,” he says. “We enjoy a level of artistic freedom that makes dancing, and watching the dance, twice as enjoyable, no matter what brings you to the theatre.”

Carter’s years with the company have allowed him to witness a great deal of change, both within the troupe and without. Today, society is more accepting of men and women who make their own paths by walking them, rather than following the standard road laid out before them. A gentleman in a tutu many never be a common sight, but it is met with less acrimony now than it was in times past. Offstage among the Trocks, Carter has taken on the role of Auntie Olga to newer and younger members of the company, offering words of wisdom, pats on the shoulders, and hugs when needed.

“I want to see all of us do well,” he says. “When I joined the company it was a different group of guys; not nearly as close knit as we are these days. No one took the time to help me, so I like to be able to do what I can to make new guys feel welcome.”

With the progress he has seen, would Carter encourage a young man of today with a fascination for pointe shoes and a strident work ethic to set his sights on dancing with the most famous drag ballet company in the world? Without a doubt.

“Do it,” he says. “And don’t let anyone ever tell you that you can’t.”

Robert Carter as Olga Supphozova

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dance

Forget you have read this.

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he first thing to remember upon reading this article on Spoleto Festival USA’s dance offerings for 2010 is to forget everything you read as soon as you read it. That is what Avshalom Pollak would have you do, particularly before attending the Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company’s presentation of “Oyster.”

“I don’t want the audience to know what to expect when they come to a performance,” Pollak says. “That would influence their perception and detract from the purpose of the piece. Everyone seeing the performance should have the freedom to construct their own pure reaction to it.”

Based very loosely on the short story, “The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy” by Tim Burton, the best thing about “Oyster,” according to Pollak, is that it is ripe for so many divergent interpretations. “One viewer may think of Oyster as a person – a shell outside, but soft and fragile inside. And somewhere in there, is a pearl,” he says. Yet he readily admits – in fact, hopes – that another person will see something altogether different. “Even after 10 years and more than 300 hundred performances,” he says, “the show is different to me every time I see it. It is as if the piece is alive.”

A fusion of dancers and actors, the Inbal Pinto and Avashalom Pollak Dance Company bring equal parts comedy and drama, circus and the absurd to the stage. Fantastical costuming and make up suggest bizarre creatures with human characteristics and the power to evoke unusually human audience responses.

A contemporary classic, Lucinda Childs’ conceptual masterpiece, “Dance,” set to an original score by Phillip Glass, premiered more than 30 years ago but was recently revived at the Bard College Summer Festival in July 2009. The minimalist, postmodern choreography sets dancers on the stage separated from the audience by a scrim on which dancing figures are projected in a black and white film. Live artists dance with, and in response to, the ghostly projections to create an otherworldly sensation for the audience.

In the film by artist Sol LeWitt, Childs is featured in a lengthy solo during the second movement. When the piece was originally produced, Childs, like all the dancers, performed along with her virtual self on the screen. However, at almost 70 years-old, neither Childs nor the original cast performs, providing poignant commentary on the passage of time and the transience of pattern and motion.

For a more traditional approach to dance with all the trappings of Russian choreography, broken women, and heartbreaking men, the National Ballet of Georgia, directed by and featuring the former Bolshoi prima ballerina and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer, Nina Ananiashvili, will present “Giselle.”

story: Cynthia Boiter

With a history that goes back to 1850, the National (or State) Ballet of Georgia disbanded in the early ‘90s as the former Soviet Union fell. In 2004, Ananiashvili accepted the call from the president of Georgia to re-from the company as its star and director. The epitome of a poor and struggling dance company, many dancers, including Georgian ex-patriots, returned from as far away as the United States to dance for no compensation alongside their country’s native daughter. Married to the Georgian politician, Grigol Vashadza, Ananiashvili is as much a diplomat as she is an artist, even serving, along with former Ukraine President, Viktor Yushchenko, as godparent to Georgian President Mikheil Saak’ashvili’s son, Nikoloz.

The ballet “Giselle” takes its inspiration from a poem by Heinrich Heine and tells the story of a weak-hearted young woman who falls in love with the wrong man, then dies when she learns he is betrothed to another. Upon her death she joins a group of jilted young female spirits, called wilis, who take their revenge upon the men who hurt them by attempting to dance the cads to death in a beautiful forest glen. The ballet is romantic, visually beautiful, and danced to the music of Adolphe Adam. It is everything the classicist could desire from a ballet and its evening performances will be danced by a living legend, both in ballet and Georgian history.

As innovative and unpredictable as “Giselle” is classical and steadfast, Gallim Dance, directed by the 28-year-old Andrea Miller, presents a ferociously physical suite of dances called, “I Can See Myself in Your Pupil.” With no specific technical curriculum and neither ballet nor contemporary dance terminology in use, Miller says she uses “imagery” to choreograph her company’s pieces, which she describes as “90% choreography and 10% improvisation.”

According to Miller, “I Can See Myself in Your Pupil” was created out of a unique opportunity to have an evening-length piece at a theatre. “I had been creating short, five-to-eight minute pieces and I collected them together as vignettes. The dance grows from beginning to end, with all the pieces being connected to what it means to be awkward – as dancers and as people in relationships,” Miller says.

Miller will be arriving in Charleston fresh off of a residency at the contemporary dance Mecca, Jacob’s Pillow in Massachusetts’ Berkshire Mountains, and a stint setting new choreography on Cathy Marston’s Ballet Bern in Switzerland.

Her emphasis on imagination, inspiration, and the mind/body connection, both in choreography and in the pedagogy she uses to direct Gallim Dance, will present a fresh perspective on contemporary dance and should provide for a stimulating Spoleto USA debut.

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PROFILE

Barry Sparks

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he stake was poised over the man’s heart. One man held the wooden spike, the other brought down the hammer.

Blood spurted violently from the man’s chest. As the blood pooled on the stage, witnesses to the killing, dressed in their opening night finery, walked out of the theater with shocked looks on their faces wondering how the Columbia City Ballet had pulled off such a grisly scene in “Dracula: Ballet With a Bite.”

Barry Sparks, the ballet’s technical director, readily confesses to the bloodbath.

In the 21 years Sparks has been with the Columbia City Ballet, “Dracula: Ballet With a Bite” remains his favorite production and the stake to the heart of the blood-sucking count is one of the proudest moments of his career.

“My crowning achievement was that stake,” he said.

“Oftentimes, these things are done with blood bags. But Dracula is bare-skinned, bare-chested when he is killed. So I came up with a stake that actually looks like it shoots blood out of his chest.”

Given that Sparks is charged with lighting and visual effects for all Columbia City Ballet productions on the characteristically modest budget of an arts organization, the results are impressive.

“That stake, for example, cost about $15,” Sparks explained. “It really was a giant veterinary syringe loaded with brown pancake syrup, blue Dawn detergent, and red food color. When the stake was thrust down, the syringe pressed out the ‘blood’ quite dramatically.”

The genius effect is actually not inconsistent with Sparks’ early ambition to be a physician.

“I planned to go to medical school, and when I was getting ready to apply, I needed a part-time job. So I started working backstage at the old Carolina Coliseum,” the 58-year-old Gaffney native said. “I loved it. I never thought about going to medical school after that.”

The product of a blue-collar upbringing, Sparks worked his way through college, acquiring a variety of electrical and construction skills from odd jobs while earning his biology degree.

Those skills gave him an advantage when he went to work at Carolina Coliseum.

“The bug was sudden and intense,” he said. “And my biology

story: Kristine Hartvigsen photography: Joshua Beard

degree prepared me for the sort of analytical things you have to do in theater as far as lighting and scenery.”

Setting the stage in a way that best accentuates the performers and their grace in movement takes much more than simple lighting.

“To see movement, you need to make it three-dimensional,” Sparks said. If there’s a signature sort of style that I have, it’s that I try to cross lighting colors, with blue on one side and amber on the other.”

Columbia City Ballet is not the only organization benefitting from Sparks’ talent. The lighting guru plies his creative trade all over South Carolina and beyond, including neighboring Workshop Theatre, Claflin College, and the University of South Carolina Opera, as well as Hilton Head Ballet, Michigan Ballet Theater, and the Mohawk Valley Ballet in Utica, New York.

“I work with at least 30 groups in a given year,” he said.

Being a workaholic comes with the territory. During one recent week, Sparks worked at Workshop Theatre until 1 a.m., went home for a few hours of sleep, and left for Hilton Head Ballet at 5 a.m. Seventeen-hour work days are routine for Sparks who says he recharges during the long drives in his truck.

“I guess it’s the redneck in me; I love driving big trucks,” he said.

Sparks has been lighting designer for Columbia’s Workshop Theatre for 16 years now and worked with the Hilton Head Ballet, a civic company on the coast of South Carolina, for about 10 years. He enjoys a particularly close relationship with directors John Carlyle and Karina Brock-Carlyle, who have danced with the likes of Rudolph Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

“They are quite a team. John is the front person, loud and funny. Karina is more introspective,” Sparks said. “I love working with them.”

In the early days, while he was still working at the Carolina Coliseum and before he would meet his future Columbia City Ballet boss, Sparks attended a birthday party for the director of the Koger Center for Arts in Columbia at which everybody spoofed a member of the local ballet community. Sparks donned a pair of tights and gave a swishy impersonation of Columbia City Ballet artistic director, William Starrett.

“I guess it was foreshadowing of our long-term relationship,” Sparks noted. Not long after, Sparks went to work full time at

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to think I am resting or that all my creative juices have dried up,” Starrett explained. “I want to keep surprising him.”

John Whitehead, executive director of Columbia, South Carolina’s Columbia Music Festival Association, agrees with Starrett’s assessment of Sparks’ worth. “Barry is one of the most knowledgeable stage technicians in this community,” he said.

“He is always willing to share the resources that he has access to, and, because of that spirit of cooperation, it is very easy for people like me and others to share what resources we have with him. … The dollar is tight and always has been in the performing arts.”

When he’s not on the job, Sparks loves to be at home with his family cooking up big southern meals. Ever the workaholic, he shows no signs of slowing down despite chronic back pain.

“I have a hard time telling people ‘No,’” Sparks said. “It is really a good thing that I love what I do. I can’t imagine stopping this of my own free will. I still can outwork people half my age. My work in theater is the best endorphin that there is.”

the ballet company over more than 20 years, he and Starrett have developed a close, respectful, and sometimes tumultuous collaborative relationship.

“William is brilliant, but he is oftentimes hard to work for. I tell him this to his face, often with expletives!” Sparks asserted.

“We can tell each other exactly what we think of each other, whether it’s high praise or not. We still butt heads a lot, because we both have our own strong opinions. Over the years, William has gained a lot of trust in me. We don’t agree all of the time, but that is what a collaborative effort is about. If everyone agrees with you all the time, you are not really breaking any new ground.”

For his part, Starrett calls Sparks a truly exceptional creative partner. “Barry always surpasses my expectations,” Starrett said.

“You could say we have a combative relationship sometimes.

What that extends from is the passion. It is very rare in this industry that the technical person is so passionate about the product. You can’t imagine how dedicated he is.”

“I care a great deal about surprising Barry. I don’t want him

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artist

Nikolai Oskolkov

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a communal apartment in southwest Moscow, but played in the countryside on state-issued Soviet land. He attended a music school and studied violin, but hated both. Not long after Boris Yeltsin took power, ending socialistic rule in Russia, Oskolkov moved across the Atlantic to live briefly in Canada with his mathematician father. A year later, father and son relocated to the South Carolina midlands where Oskolkov enrolled in public school, learned about liberalism and private property, and before he knew it, adopted a new homeland. A cross between a comrade and a good ol’ boy, Nikolai Oskolkov may have made himself at home in South Carolina, but he never forgets from whence he came. Dixie Commissar – the name says it all.

“I have a lot of respect for symbols, and the name “Dixie Commissar” – the name of my band – is symbolic of the parts of my life that are most important to me,” Oskolkov explains.

“My favorite hat is an old Russian Civil War cap; my car looks like something from the KGB. I’m from a nation that no

ikolai Oskolkov enters a South Carolina watering hole, unusually dark during the weekday lunch hour, and orders a sweet tea from the barman just like any other local guy off the street. The only difference is that the accent he orders with is more monotone than drawl; more Soviet than Southern. Despite the fact that he has spent the better part of his 25 years in South Carolina, Oskolkov was born and lived his early life in Russia – and that is where a sizeable segment of his heart remains. Tall and blond with an angular face and eyes that are both penetrant and diagnostic, the visual artist and musician comports himself like a gentleman on a diplomatic mission. He is here to talk about his work which he believes in – there is no need to be unduly modest. His late mother, an artist, taught him to be both critical and discerning regarding art when he was a child in Moscow. Oskolkov knows enough to know that he is good.

A child of glasnost and perestroika, Oskolkov grew up during the waning years of the former Soviet Union. He lived in

story: Cynthia Boiter photography: mark pointer

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Nikolai Oskolkov at work in his studio

Gallery and he credits co-owner Randy Hanna with providing him an extended education and moral support to pursue art as a career. “I learned a lot about the business of art from Randy,” Oskolkov says. “A lot of young artists don’t have that advantage.”

Oskolkov’s first major showing at Columbia’s Gallery 80808/Vista Studios in 2008 was titled, “Heart and Veins of the South,” and the reality of monetary reward for his passion confirmed his decision to pursue art. A five month stint living with fellow artists on the coast of South Carolina exposed him to new topography to add to his collection of scenarios from a widely traveled life. He returned to Columbia, which he affectionately calls a “rubber band town” in the spring of 2009 and presented a joint exhibition with friend and fellow artist, Olessia Maximenko, entitled, “Peace and Celebration.”

Oskolkov credits Maximenko with guiding him to, “primarily paint Southern subject matter,” as she recognized it as his strength and passion.

Revenue from his second major showing allowed the young

longer exists, but I don’t want to forget those symbols; they represent where I am from. But this is where I live now,” he says. “This is my home.”

Though he had no formal training as a youngster, Oskolkov recollects art as always being part of his life. “I always played at art when I was a kid, and I always got in trouble for it,” he says, recalling teachers who berated him for drawing in class at Harbison West Elementary School. The move from the faltering Soviet Union to socialist Canada and then to conservative Irmo, South Carolina was difficult for the young Oskolkov, but he says he has no bad memories of the time.

“You can’t ask for a better place to live than Columbia. It’s equidistance between the ocean and the mountains.

It’s not paradise,” he says. “But it’s a pretty good place to be.”

The richness of the Southern culture and landscape influenced Oskolkov to attend college at the University of South Carolina, where he was a Magellan Scholar and studied with Professors David Voros and Deanna Leamon. As a student he worked for four years at City Art

His ability to focus on the good rather than the ghastly may be the most transcendent of his considerable talents.

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artist to purchase a vehicle and the musical instruments that would enable him to return to the auto-didactic approach to music education he had enjoyed prior to college. “I took piano from a Latvian woman who rapped my knuckles when I erred as a boy,” Oskolkov says, “but mostly I am self-taught.”

True to his Soviet roots, he chose a small, portable, threestringed Russian folk guitar called the balalaika. “It’s a bit obscure here in the United States, but still popular when you find it,” Oskolkov says. “I kind of like that about it. It reminds me of my other home.”

During the past year of expanding the scope and technique of his art, Oskolkov’s pursuit of music has informed his painting. “I wanted to learn about folk music so someone told me that I should visit Bill’s Pickin’ Parlor in West Columbia. It was visually shocking,” he says. “There were these old dudes with banjos literally on their knees, and they were excellent musicians.” Oskolkov partook not only of the traditional Southern music, but sketched and photographed the musicians as well. Relationships with other artists and musicians grew out of his blue grass connections, further deepening his understanding of regional Southern culture and art.

“That is what life is really made for,” says the unusually wizened young man, “connecting with people through your art and your passion.”

His most recent showing in spring 2010 at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios allowed Oskolkov to exhibit with his friends and fellow graphics artists, Dre and Sammy Lopez, as well as to showcase his band, Dixie Commissar.

“I want music to be an integral part of my art shows,” he says, “preferably my own music because I know how the music fits with my art. Besides, I like drawing various com-

Nikolai’s mother. She was a “Soviet hippie”.

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munities together – musicians, visual artists, art lovers, whatever. It fits in with my appreciation for a hybrid of cultures.”

From his paintings to his lyrics to the musical instruments he plays, Oskolkov constantly channels the two cultures he honors. Often depicting imagery of both the Old and New South, his work in representational art has a strong sence of place, be it his paintings of blue grass musicians which approach caricature, without stepping over the line to the ridiculous, or his landscapes featuring organic icons of a Southern connection to the land including live oaks, Spanish moss, vast fields, and rutted roads.

“I am influenced by the Russian school of symbolism, but I throw a lot of who I am and where I came from into my art.

Around here, a lot of people like for art to make statements, so I try to respect that cultural need,” he says.

Born to a homeland that crumbled, and emigrated to a land with a history of hate and a climate some folks, the artist included, call Heaven, Nikolai Oskolkov is a little cheery to have seen what his 25 years have shown him. His ability to focus on the good rather than the ghastly may be the most transcendent of his considerable talents. But his appreciation for a sense of place is authentic. “I love it here,” Oskolkov says frankly. “It is my home.”

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design

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Woman Doing Embroidery with Foot Art The child’s painted foot presses the carpet Mother sets to work with needle and fine silk thread Embroidering over her young one’s first misstep Poking, stroking, weaving, and conniving The mind of the hand that guides the needle is trying, teasing, seizing, and crying The deed done, an imprint still remains In innocence it has no shame and even the pontiff’s vestment can have a stain Sliding, gliding, treading, and threading The eye of the needle fast upon the print Is whipping, stitching, pleading, and bleeding.

artist

Janet Kozachek

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anet Kozachek once painstakingly made a cast of her body and covered it in a mosaic of glass and other objects. After various sectioned body parts were sold to art collectors (including a hand piece to a hand doctor), all that is left is a blue foot, which stands on the floor of her Orangeburg home and serves now as a modestly intriguing flower pot.

The human figure is a recurring presence in Kozachek’s artwork. Regardless of race or geographic origin, humans worldwide share common physical blueprints, neuroses, and even distant ancestral memories. In a mosaic, the individual pieces are assembled into a dynamic whole. Likewise, the collective human experience unites us, and this is poignantly expressed in Kozachek’s creations.

Having received her formal education on three continents, being conversational in Mandarin and passable with Dutch, and German, the New Jersey-born artist and art educator brings a global perspective to her work. Her knowledge and skills merge continents and disciplines − visual art, literature, and music − in a sort of reverse Pangaea.

Even within the broad sphere of visual art, Kozachek moves easily from painting to mixed-media mosaics. One of the defining projects of her career to date has been a series of 118 paintings, each with a corresponding poem.

Kozachek recently transformed the series, originally titled The Monologues, into a book titled Moments in Light and Shadows.

“At 118 images I stopped,” Kozachek wrote in the book’s introduction, “if for no other reason than I was reminded that the 19th century Japanese printmaker Hiroshige completed his own poetic descriptions and prints, One Hundred Views of Edo, at the number 118, a good enough reason to say ‘enough.’”

Kozachek took the writing/painting approach because she’d had some success as an essayist for Evening Reader magazine and wanted to blend the two.

“I originally thought of doing a book based on the paintings, with a full essay for each. But it soon became very tedious, so I put the project aside,” Kozachek said. “Then I found some very short poems I had written a very long time ago, and it occurred story: kristine hartvigsen

to me that, for the book, I could have a poem for every painting.

It seemed to have a better relationship.”

Most of the Monologue paintings feature an anonymous solitary figure in an interior setting that contains one or more thought-provoking accoutrements that lead the viewer to ponder the person’s circumstances.

While living and studying Chinese art in Beijing during the mid-‘80s, Kozachek learned how that culture tightly integrates poetry and painting.

“Chinese art is closely tied to literature,” she said. “I studied poetry for a long time but not in my native language; I studied in Chinese. And when I first started writing poetry in English, I was writing Chinese structures. … I am very interested in any kind of language, like Chinese, that is both visual art and language concomitantly.”

Culling from that experience, Kozachek embarked on the poems for Moments in Light and Shadows with abandon as she continued to produce the paintings.

“I really like lyric poetry,” she said. “Most people write prose and free verse. I do that, too, but I also like experimenting with interesting meters.”

Kozachek found particular inspiration for the poems from those who sat for the portraits.

“In talking to live models, sometimes they would use a particular gesture again and again, like a fingerprint,” she said. “A lot of the poetry came from listening to and observing the models.”

Kozachek also wrote poems that did not yet have paintings to accompany them. Trying to do the opposite, to produce a painting in response to a preexisting poem, she said, proved more difficult.

“It could be argued that modern poetry was invented by the painters,” wrote poet and critic J.D. McClatchy in his 1989 text, Poets on Painters. It’s a book Kozachek references.

In the book of essays by notable scribes, William Butler Yeats is quoted observing painters’ changing sensibilities: “We were interested in fall of drapery and the play of light without concerning ourselves with the meaning, the emotion of the figure

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clay pot with fragrant tea steeping. They are outwardly informal while still valuing the decorum of academia and the fine arts.

The residence hums with creative energy, and now even Wallace is exploring the visual arts through photography. (The couple is showing together at Gallery 80808 through June 1 in an exhibition titled “Locations/Dislocations: Abandoned Homes and Unsheltered Souls.”)

“Over the years, we have eased into each other’s territory,” Kozachek said. “I have become more of a writer, and he has become more of an artist.”

In a downstairs converted garage, Kozachek keeps an un-air-conditioned studio that stays fairly cool during all but the very hottest days of summer. The cluttered space resembles a laboratory for all its rows of shelves that hold glass jars filled with “specimens” – materials sorted by color and texture – for use in her mosaics.

Kozachek fuses her own glass and hand-cuts the stones used in her assemblages. And she steadfastly shares her passion for good materials with her students.

“I always have my students learn by developing a joy and love of the materials they use. And we try to use recyclable materials in clever ways,” Kozachek explained. “The first thing that would turn someone off art is using ugly or poor materials. I probably don’t make the most profit I could by teaching, but I wouldn’t want to use bad materials and I don’t think my students should either. It’s just like with cooking. If you don’t cook with good materials or ingredients, it just doesn’t taste right.”

The respect Kozachek holds for students of all ages is evident.

And she is the first to admit she learns much from them.

“The thing about art is that learning always involves an incremental gaining towards proficiency. You make quantitative leaps in artistic development, and, because of that, it is possible that your students can leap ahead of you just by experimenting,” she said. “I give my students a very long leash because they come up with ideas that I haven’t thought of.”

itself. How many successful portrait painters gave their sitters the same attention, the same interest they might have given to a ginger beer bottle and an apple?”

Indeed, Kozachek keenly directs attention to the figures in The Monologues as well as the sitters’ relationships with objects in their surroundings.

“As I composed the first poem for the first painting, the words uttered by the people who sat for me came back, as did their stance, and their gestures,” she wrote in the introduction to her book. “I recalled that they seemed at first like quiet receptacles. … Many of the quiet ones became like actors in stills from silent movies – my text superimposed upon their visages.

Hapless thespians they were, recruited for artistic expressions that had no bearing on their reality.”

Many of the models did talk during their sittings, however, sharing deep, sometimes intimate accounts of their formative experiences. And in the midst of creating a digital archive of her works and viewing the small square paintings side by side on an indexing sheet, Kozachek saw categories begin to emerge. She organized them into five sections for the book: Plagues, Games, Journeys, Celestial Beings and Lesser Gods, and, finally, Mysteries. Part of the “The Monologues” collection was shown in early 2009 at Gallery 80808 in Columbia.

Page-Turner When she began publishing essays and, subsequently, the poems, Kozachek enjoyed daily access to expert resources.

“Being married to an English professor helped,” she said.

Kozachek’s husband, Nathaniel Wallace, has a doctorate in comparative literature and is on the faculty at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg. “It was hard at first when he would edit my essays. There were so many things wrong with them. He is very much the linguist in the family.”

The multi-talented couple was introduced, in fact, through their roots in yet another arts discipline – music.

“I studied piano for a number of years and practiced in a piano studio where one of the musicians told me he had a job for me,” Kozachek said. “My job was to turn pages (of sheet music) for a concert at Mercer County (New Jersey) Community College, where Nat was playing the flute. I liked the music and wanted to get a copy of it from him because I wanted to play the piano part. … Eventually, we practiced some duets.”

Kozachek and Wallace have filled their bohemian Orangeburg home with paintings, mosaics, masks, pottery, photographs, myriad books in several languages, musical instruments, antiques, and the organic sensibility that accompanies a simple

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Swept Away In 2005, Kozachek lost several original oil paintings that were being stored in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. It brings to mind Tibetan Buddhist monks who create elaborate color sand mandalas only to ceremonially destroy them when finished and casting the materials into a river or moving water in the belief that all material things remain transitory in nature.

Nonetheless, the idea of Kozachek’s paintings somehow dragging along the ocean bottom in the Gulf of Mexico is profoundly saddening.

“I lost a lot of artwork to Hurricane Katrina. It was stored in a

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low-lying house,” she said, adding that, while she felt the loss personally, she felt it even more for a patron who had purchased one of the paintings and lost even more than that. “I repainted one of the lost pieces and gave it back to the original owner as a gift because she was so devastated about losing everything. I felt that if I had the power to give even one small thing back, I should do so.”

Yet even in the destruction of beautiful things, new and unexpected materials can emerge. Ask any beachcomber about the unusual objects they’ve found washed ashore. Kozachek is cognizant of the potential found even in the minute detritus of life. She has an eye for fine detail that surfaces again and again.

Even years after drawing them, Kozachek glanced through old sketches and marveled anew at some of the intricate patterns and meticulous and time-consuming details she chose to incorporate. It’s as if she were rediscovering and appreciating her own art in its most basic form.

“Every now and then I will allow myself the privilege of getting lost in details, which we don’t often do because, in a market economy, obviously, time is money,” she lamented, “which means that artists actually are at a disadvantage if they do really detailed work.”

The same could be said of creative writing and the struggle not to take details too far for fear of losing impatient readers. But patience is a virtue. Just as photographers will wait for the perfect moment to press down on the shutter, Kozachek exercises a similar restraint to achieve a stronger vision. For example, her pencil initially might remain idle during a formal sitting with a figure model while those around her sketch madly away to capture the likeness.

“As an art student, I always liked drawing the figures after they finished modeling, when they began putting on their robes and stretching,” Kozachek said. “When the models would take a break, that is when I would start drawing. They were so much more interesting then.”

Kozachek has an unwavering confidence that her art will emerge at the right time in the right order. She trusts her instincts and moves where the energy takes her.

“When it is suitable to paint, I paint,” she wrote on her Web site. “When it is better to assemble, I assemble.”

And she never worries over that elusive perfect piece that will triumphantly complete an unfinished mosaic.

“The piece that I need comes into my life just at the right time,” she said. “I might go walking and find it on the side of the road.

I tell students not to worry about not having enough materials. The special piece that you need will appear out of nowhere.

It will just appear.”

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design

Living in Art

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aesthetic purchases. They felt comfortable turning the entire project over to him, as they had spent the past several years in casual conversation about art, architecture and design history.

There were many other reasons for the couple to feel comfortable with Ellefson. Ellefson has quite the design resume and is a constant student of art and aesthetics. The long-time Columbia resident is the owner and principal designer at Lewis + Clark in the Vista, which sells distinctive postmodern lighting. The works are carefully crafted out of fine art papers, hand-worked steel, glass accents and hand-finished wood.

The lamps are often shown at craft fairs and have become famous for the sleek and colorful look that mixes the playful with the pragmatic.

In addition, Ellefson is well known for furniture, architecture and interior design. In these aspects his style harkens back to the Memphis Group, a 1980s Italian design movement that emerged as a reaction against the stark sameness of 1970s industrial design. His work can be found in the strikingly post-modern home of Marvin Chernoff, as well as at such venues as the Art Bar on Park Street and in the South Carolina State Art Collection. Visitors to the Columbia Museum of Art are welcomed by a receptionist sitting behind a counter Ellefson designed and built.

Everything that Ellefson creates is done with an attitude leaning toward shocks of color and unexpected lines. His combination of the suggestive and the pragmatic is demon-

n the evening that Fred and Elaine Delk chatted with their friend Clark Ellefson about refacing the cabinets in the kitchen of their 1929 Melrose Heights home, they had no idea they were embarking on a road that would end with a very different sort of kitchen, one that made artworks an integral part of the family meal. The remodeling project resulted in a living art space reflective of the family’s artistic tastes.

Ellefson, who has been friends with the Delks since the couple moved to Columbia 15 years ago when Fred became executive director of the Columbia Development Corporation, often dines with the Delk family. One evening he made an offhand comment that the fairly traditional kitchen, with elements reflecting the Craftsman style of the bungalow, would be better without the glass cabinet that hangs suspended over the kitchen island. Months later, after following his advice and realizing how the removal had opened the kitchen, the couple asked Ellefson if he would help with the cabinets.

A total kitchen renovation “just sort of happened over a period of time,” says Fred Delk. “We finally just threw caution to the wind and said, ‘let’s do the whole thing.’”

The project became one of those happy partnerships in which everyone knew each other well enough to trust and communicate easily with one another. Since moving to Columbia, the Delks have often turned to Ellefson, who has deep roots in design and architecture, to give guidance in their

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under a shiny silver moon of a clock over its shoulder. To the left of the kimono is a gold, sun-like mirror that sets on the cycle of the moon.

Other works of beautiful practicality are found throughout the area, such as the shelf space holding the family’s collection of ceramic heads. The side of the shelf opens out to reveal a cubby space for storage. The watery blue drawers are actually lacking pulls; instead each has a row of three holes that blend in, eliminating extra hardware that can snag belt loops and fast moving fingers during meal preparation.

The friendship between Clark Ellefson and the Delk family is one that has always been heavy on creative conversation. As the group started down the unplanned road to an artistic living space, past conversation about art and design took on tangible shapes. The team took their aesthetic sensibilities that had developed over the past several years and combined them with the practical needs of a busy family. The result: a truly livable art space that is now the epicenter of their busy daily lives.

strated by the water motif that he ultimately brought to the Delk family’s kitchen. It is not immediately obvious until one stands back to look at the tile backsplash that sparkles down into a smooth granite counter, which then falls into the blue pool of cabinets below. The exposed grain of the oak and mahogany plywood was turned on its side, evoking a lazily swirling pool.

During the construction process the Delks watched in amazement as their friend appeared at their house with paint colors custom mixed. He would measure spaces to ensure everything was within easy reach, with each pragmatic space containing artistic elements bringing the kitchen together into a living art space.

With the exception of a bowl for the kitchen, custom-created

by South Carolina artist Jeri Burdick, all of the art has been collected over the years. Two central pieces that mix the practical and the poetic are actually Clark Ellefson projects the Delks already owned: a large cabinet built in the shape of a kimono and the dining table that the family uses for its daily meals.

“We found this at a yard sale, actually,” Elaine beamed as she gestured toward the glass table. The table base has distinct echoes of the Frank Lloyd Wright prairie school era in its proportions and lacquer. There is also a curve to the base that is subtly repeated in the curve of the kitchen island and the stainless cabinet pulls.

Ellefson’s kimono cabinet is the first piece one notices upon entry to the kitchen. Placed against the far wall, the piece’s open “T” shape looks like arms welcoming guests to the room from story: shani gilchrist photography: mark pointer

The cabinetry work for the Delk’s kitchen was created by artist Billy Mustard. Billy specializes in contemporary design and fabrication, architectural and sculptural metalwork and woodwork. (803.920.8009 - mustardmetal@hotmail.com) Shani Gilchrist is a Columbia-based freelance writer who is also the owner and editor of the design and lifestyle blog CamilleMaurice.com.

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"Then what are we fighting for?"

-Winston Churchhill (When told the British arts budget might be eliminated during World War II.)

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