Educator to be guest speaker for Art at Lunch series

Jackson Cheatham is one of our area’s most popular artists. His multiple talents as printmaker, teacher and exhibit designer – complemented by his dry wit and easygoing manner – have earned him a permanent place near the center of Augusta’s art circles.

Over the past 25 years, Jack has planned and installed exhibits for institutions throughout the state, shows ranging from paintings and drawings to historical objects to coastal ecology. With a background in architectural drafting as well as fine art, exhibit design is something he has a knack for. He admits, not immodestly, that he’s good at it and doesn’t waste time getting it done. Can’t beat that.  

Jack’s teaching career includes adjunct positions at the Atlanta College of Art, Augusta State University and for the past seven years, the University of Georgia. Last fall, he took over managing the New Space Gallery at Augusta State University, planning to eliminate the commute to Athens, but it meant doubling up for a semester and commuting from his Thomson, Ga., home in two directions.

The New Space Gallery (created after the university’s art and music departments split, with the art department moving into Washington Hall across campus), offers him an interesting new challenge, working with a faculty committee to review proposals and select shows for the five slots open each year.

Augusta’s inaugural Westabou Festival in September is the driving influence in the upcoming season’s first two shows. “Inviting the Stars – an Exhibition of Local and National Ceramic Art” is being organized by the Clay Artists of the Southeast, with a Porter Fleming Foundation Grant. Following that exhibit, sculptor R. G. Brown will be featured in “A Notion of Journey,” opening in early October. The artist, who has said he is out to build a boat on every continent, will also be doing an installation piece on campus during Westabou. (Artist Robert Stackhouse may have set the precedent for that in 1999). Rounding out the fall will be an exhibit featuring the work of Malaika Favorite (indeed an Augusta favorite) and David E. Harmon, who teaches painting at Savannah College of Art and Design.  

The New Space Gallery is not as visible to the passing public as the gallery was in the previous location, but the art department is working on that, and the strong shows this fall should help bring it the community attention it deserves. www.aug.edu/art/newspace.

In addition to working with the gallery, Jack teaches a figure drawing class at ASU. Such “day jobs,” he says, “help support his habits,” which happen to be making art in his Thomson studio and sitting on his front porch. As for his own art (paintings, drawings, lithographs), he has a long list of exhibition credits and awards, including the Governor’s Georgia Artist of Excellence, and he is included in many public and private collections. Most recently, he had 100 works shown in a retrospective exhibit at the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art.

He’ll be the featured speaker at noon Friday, May 9 in the Morris Museum’s Art at Lunch series. It will not be a lecture on printmaking, but a conversation about his art. He’ll talk about his journey toward abstraction, relating his own work to some of the works in the museum’s current abstract art exhibit, and will talk about some of his influences, works he likes, and things that make him want to work… and to think. Call the museum at (706) 724-7501 for reservations. www.themorris.org

Also in the ASU Art Department:

Art professor Kristin Casaletto has work on display at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, in an exhibit called “Inscribing Meaning: The Context of Text in Visual Art.”  She was also featured in a concept show at the Holter Museum of Art in Helena, Mont., along with such artists as Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Enrique Chagoya, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. The show was titled “Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate,” and all the art in it is made from hate literature. She also has a solo show of woodcuts opening May 11 at The Fire House Gallery in Louisville, Ga. 

www.galleryafire.com

Bridge Builder:

ASU art professor Brian Rust, known for his large-scale sculpture and temporary installations, succeeded Kristin Casaletto this year as interim department chair for fine arts, continuing to bridge the gap created by the separation of the music and art departments, and he will remain in the position through the summer. He reports that the search committee has been interviewing finalists, and once that decision is made, he’ll be spending more time in the studio. www.aug.edu/%7Ebrust/

Brian’s project at the South Carolina Botanical Garden in Clemson is the subject of a half-hour documentary to be shown on South Carolina ETV as part of the “Touch the Earth” series spotlighting the sculptors who have works in the botanical garden. He describes his project, called “Earthen Bridge,” as both functional object and sculptural metaphor, serving as a focal point and a passageway. Latest word is that production is complete and the segment will probably be in the fall lineup. After that, it will be available on DVD.     

Photographic Artistry:

The work of renowned photojournalist A. Aubrey Bodine will be shown in the Coggins Gallery at the Morris Museum of Art beginning Saturday and continuing through July 13.  Opening festivities will be Tuesday, May 6, beginning at 6 p.m. with Jennifer Bodine discussing her late father’s long and productive photographic career. A reception will follow, and the program is open to the public.

The exhibit includes a representative sample of the masterworks of Bodine, a photographer in the pictorialist style, who was associated with the Baltimore Sun for 50 years. Working in the romantic pictorial tradition of Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, Bodine is best remembered for his photographs of the Chesapeake Bay and its watermen. He created memorable images by manipulating photographs through a variety of techniques, much as a painter selects features that suit his sense of mood, proportion and design, according to Bodine’s daughter, who comments that “He did not take a picture; he made a picture.”  www.aaubreybodine.com

Continuing on display at the Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black History is photography by William Anderson, who has compiled a retrospective of black and white photographs from a period covering 1958 through 2008. He will present a lecture on his work June 21. www.lucycraftlaneymuseum.com

Both the Morris and Laney exhibits are part of the Augusta Photography Festival June 19-22. Exhibits and special events are also planned at the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art, Augusta Canal National Heritage Area, Columbia County Public Library and Artists' Row in downtown Augusta.  www.augustaphotofestival.org

Teeing Off for the Arts:

Playing golf on behalf of the arts is popular this spring. First up is the Jessye Norman School for the Arts, which the Augusta-born, world-renowned opera singer founded to provide after-school arts programs for at-risk middle-school students. As a way of raising awareness and funds, the school will hold a golf tournament at the Belle Meade Country Club in Thomson, on Tuesday, May 13. Lunch will be provided at 11:45 and a shotgun start will begin at 1 p.m. Word is that Ms. Norman plans to attend the luncheon before the tournament starts.

Belle Meade will also host the Augusta Symphony Golf Classic on Monday, May 19. Registration opens at 11:30 a.m. with a box lunch and shotgun start following at 1 p.m. www.augustasymphony.org

 

 

Three dogs, two cats and flocks of birds inhabit woodcuts

Kent Ambler calls himself a born artist. He counts making drawings among his earliest memories. Art, he has said, has always been a necessity. And for the Indiana native who now lives near Seneca, S.C., art also embodies an intuitive relationship with nature.

An exhibit of Mr. Ambler’s woodcut prints will open Friday at the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art, with a gallery talk and reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Included in the show will be works focusing primarily on elements of the natural world, many of them painstakingly produced using multiple colors. See his working process at www.kentambler.com/html/process.html.

His surroundings provide much of the subject matter for his works, with his wife, three dogs, two cats, and the lake, woods, birds and trees on his five-acre property frequently depicted. Mr. Ambler is a prolific artist, producing paintings and drawings in addition to his prints. He has exhibited in more than 50 shows in during the past five years alone, and in 2003, he received a grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission for a project titled “70 Woodcuts in 70 Days.”

He is also represented by half a dozen galleries, most in the Southeast. Among them is American Folk Art in Asheville, N.C., where he is currently in a show entitled “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” inspired by the Wallace Stevens poem. In general, folk art is considered to be produced by artists or craftsmen who have had no formal training, using techniques and subjects handed down through generations and most often identified with certain locales. Southern face jugs, Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign motifs and New England weathervanes would be examples.

There’s no question Kent Ambler is formally trained, since he has a B.F.A. from Ball State University and did graduate study at Clemson. But there’s also no question that his woodcuts reflect his knowledge of folk art traditions. His work draws from both his academic background and his sensitivity to the history and culture of the rural South Carolina environment he chooses to call home.

The exhibit at the Gertrude Herbert will continue though May 23. He’ll also be appearing at the Congaree Art Festival April 26 at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, and in Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston, May 23-June 7.

Thursday, artist Nene Humphrey returns to Augusta for the Terra Cognita contemporary art lecture series at the Morris Museum of Art. She will be talking about her work, including a series called “Smallworlds” in which she incorporates such fabrics as silk and felt in her sculpture to explore forms evolved from structures as diverse as human cells, 18^th century optical diagrams and celestial maps.

Ms. Humphrey’s distinguished career has included visiting artist or visiting professor positions at more than a dozen universities, and numerous awards including a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, Asian Cultural Council Grant, Smithsonian Research Fellowship and the Thomas R. Proctor Prize for Sculpture from the National Academy of Design. Her work is in the collections of the High Museum, Carlos Museum at Emory University and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Atlanta, the Smithsonian Institution, and others.

Art & Lit: About 10 years ago, the Authors Club of Augusta began what has become an annual program in which writers are invited to choose a painting in the Morris Museum of Art’s collection to use as inspiration for their writing. The resulting works – poetry and prose – are read in a public presentation. This year’s event will be Saturday, April 26, at 2 p.m. in the museum auditorium, with refreshments to follow the readings. Admission to the program is free. The Authors Club is also exploring the possibility of publishing an anthology drawn from readings presented over the years.

Other literary notes: The 15^th annual Porter Fleming Literary Competition has increased the prize money this year. Cash awards totaling $11,200 will be offered, and the competition is open to writers living in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina and North Carolina. Winners will be invited to participate in special literary program Sept. 21, during the 2008 Arts in the Heart of Augusta Festival. Categories are short stories (2500 words or less), Poetry (limit 3 poems), Nonfiction (article or personal essay, 2000 words or less); and short play (professional format, 15 pages or less). Full details and entry forms are available at ArtsintheHeart.com. Deadline for entries is June 13^th.

More deadlines: May 1 is the deadline for entering the Augusta Photography Festival’s juried fine art competition, Environments: Past, Present and Personal. Both amateur and professional photographers are invited to submit images in one or more of the competition’s categories: Past: Images that invoke our past including historic landscapes, architecture or photos taken prior to 1977; Present: Recent subjects including the natural world, current events and activities; and Personal: Portraits, candids, pets, photos evoking emotional or personal experiences.

The Augusta Canal National Heritage Area is the 2008 featured subject and additional awards will be given to photographs that capture the essence of the historic canal. Information and application forms are available at augustaphotofestival.org. Winners will be announced during the Augusta Photography Festival, June 19- 22.

The Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art is accepting entries for its 28th annual juried fine art competition, A Sense of Place. Amanda Cooper, Curator of Exhibitions at The Arts Center, St. Petersburg , Fla., is the juror. The competition is open to U.S. artists age 18 and older working in the following media: drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, ceramics, sculpture, and mixed media. Cash awards totaling $1,750 are available. For more information, call (706) 722-5495. June 6 is the deadline for entries.

The Art of the Garden: Coming up April 25-27 is Sacred Heart Cultural Center’s Garden Festival, with the patrons’ preview party on the 24^th. This popular event turns the historic building’s great hall into a series of beautifully sculpted gardens, offering visitors inspiration and ideas for enhancing their landscapes. There are also educational talks, tours of private gardens, a vendor marketplace and children’s activities. Liz Hopkins is working with cultural center director Sandra Fenstermacher in coordinating this year’s events. For details and ticket information, go to www.sacredheartgardenfestival.com.

Art and history a beautiful blend in downtown Aiken

Aiken, S.C. was recently named one of a dozen distinctive destinations by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, so it should be no surprise that art and history make for a happy mix in the center of the city.

Take for instance the eclectic group at Studio 143, whose working spaces occupy the light-filled second floor of a restored historic building at 143 Laurens Street. All the studios have high ceilings and good light from large windows. Once buzzed-in past the locked entrance, visitors find an impressively wide staircase to the second floor.

The first studio on the left, overlooking the street, belongs to Barney Lamar, an established conservator who works to bring life back to dirty or damaged works of art. With lengthy apprenticeships in Europe and several years restoring art treasures at the Biltmore House in Asheville, N.C., (and a brief stint as director of the Gertrude Herbert Art Institute in Augusta in the mid-1980s,) he has clients that include museums and private collectors around the country.

Other studios belong to a variety of artists, and there is a heavy concentration of dogs and horses in their subject matter. Studio 143 includes Julie Adams’ figural drawings, Sarah Taylor’s photographs of horses and dogs, and Ginny Southworth’s fine art photography and photomontages of birds and horses.

Leslie J. Alexander does atmospheric semi-abstracted figures in acrylics, and Christi Koelker’s photographs are often done as giclees on canvas or printed on watercolor paper, including an interesting Buddha series.  Louise Mellon, formerly a commercial horseracing photographer, produces brightly colored oil pastels on canvas or paper, concentrating on horses, polo and yes, dogs. www.Littlehouseart.com

Shelly Marshall Schmidt does sleek and stylish advertising photography, and lately has turned her talents to elegant large-scale photographs of sand hill cranes, blue herons and other animals. Pam Verenes’ work includes prints, pencil drawings and acrylics in a variety of subjects. Rounding out the current group is Barbara Strack whose door signage touts her technical writing, editing and indexing services, but she also has a sign saying: “The artist formerly known as….”

This being Aiken, the humans are often accompanied by their dogs. Beauregard and Tuxie are studio regulars.

Most of the artists show their work elsewhere, so Studio 143 is more working space than display space. About six months ago they opened a small storefront gallery at street level in the Croft Building, where they have occasional gallery receptions and participate in the downtown art walks.

Across the street at the Aiken Center for the Arts, several new exhibits are going up this week. In the Founders’ Gallery, a traveling exhibit sponsored by the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor highlights the cultural and historical connections between South Carolina and Barbados, West Indies. The exhibit includes some 70 objects created by South Carolinians and Barbadians. The show remains up through May 16. 

In the Wyatt Gallery will be garden sculpture by clay artist Ann Baker.
www.annbclay.com.  Jane Popiel is featured in the Aiken Artist Guild Gallery through April 29.  A reception for these exhibits is scheduled April 17 from 6 to 8 p.m. The center also has locally-made jewelry and a gift shop and hosts a variety of classes and community events. www.aikencenterforthearts.org

At the Jackson Gallery & Sculpture Garden, 300 Park Avenue SE, there are paintings by Paul Reed and Hollis Brown Thornton, paintings and sculpture by Bill Jackson and photography by Becky Jackson. www.jacksongallery.com

There are other visual arts venues in the Aiken area, and sometimes art can pop up in unexpected places. Check out paintings by well-known Aiken artist Anne Lattimore and family members in the window of Sundance Dry Cleaners on Laurens Street.

BACK ON THE GEORGIA SIDE OF THE RIVER:

The Morris Museum of Art has scheduled two April programs with noted artists. Yvonne Pickering Carter will talk about her career and her life as an artist April 4 at noon in the museum’s Art at Lunch series. One of the 22 artists spotlighted in the current exhibition of abstract art, she holds B.A. and M.F.A. degrees from Howard University and headed the Department of Mass Media, Visual and Performing Arts at the University of the District of Columbia for many years. She now makes her home in the Charleston, S.C. area, where she is the owner of Gallery Cornelia, specializing in nationally recognized African American artists and contemporary women artists.

The Art at Lunch series gives audiences a chance to meet working artists in an informal setting, to hear about their work and ask questions. New Moon Café will provide the lunch, and the program costs $10 for museum members and $13 for non-members.  Reservations are required. www.themorris.org

Next up in the museum’s Terra Cognita Contemporary Artists Lecture Series is sculptor Nene Humphrey, who will speak at 6 p.m. April 17. She will discuss her three-dimensional pieces that incorporate a variety of fabrics including silk and felt. Following the lecture, there will be a reception and an opportunity to visit with the artist.

For the April exhibit at the Lucy Craft Laney Museum, in conjunction with the first Augusta Photography Festival to be held in June, William Anderson has compiled a retrospective of black and white photographs from a period covering 1958 through 2008. This exhibition will be flanked by sculpture and a selection of paintings. Mr. Anderson is also the speaker for the museum’s monthly Senior Luncheon April 9, and will return for a special lecture on June 21. www.lucycraftlaneymuseum.com

Following up on last year’s nicely successful inaugural event, Walton Rehabilitation Hospital’s second Undercover Artists fundraiser will be held April 18 beginning at 7 p.m. More than 120 works of art will be up for silent auction. Their creators will be “undercover” because until later in the evening, signatures are covered, and no one knows which work is whose. The paintings, all done on 12 x 12-inch canvases, have been contributed by some of Augusta’s well-known artists as well as community leaders and local “celebrities.” Bidders will begin vying for paintings based solely on their response to the work. You could be the proud owner of an original Lucy Weigle or Jim Gensheer, or perhaps one by Mayor Deke Copenhaver or former mayor Larry Sconyers.

Enhancing the art-themed evening will be catering by Kevin Goldsmith’s TakoSushi, music by Daddy Grace, and “Artinis” served by “Artenders.”  Tickets cost $75, with proceeds benefiting the hospital, and you can give your tux a rest; casual attire is fine for this one. Call Vicki Greene at (706) 823-8584 for an invitation.

In addition to raising funds for Walton, the Undercover Artists event is designed to bring attention to the traveling Georgia Artists with Disabilities juried exhibition on display there through April 29. 

April 18^th will also be the opening day for an exhibit of woodcuts by South Carolina artist Kent Ambler at the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art.  A 6 p.m. gallery talk and reception will be open to the public, with a $5 charge for non-members. Ambler’s work is included in more than a dozen public and corporate collections and hundreds of private collections around the world. He has also received several grant awards and exhibited in more than 30 shows during the past two years alone. Check out the work in advance at www.kentambler.com

First and third-floor galleries at GHIA will showcase works in a variety of media by graduating seniors at Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School April 17-May 2.  The institute is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.  www.ghia.org

Art going out of the galleries and on the road

This weekend, Molly McDowell is taking her art on the road, or at least up the hill. Although she recently closed her gallery on Broad Street, she is already thinking out of the box by presenting Edward Rice, one of her top artists, in a very short-term exhibit at a private home on Milledge Road.

The exhibit will be open Friday evening, March 21, from 6 to 10 p.m. and Saturday afternoon from noon to 5 p.m.  That’s it. Call (706) 724-9542 for details.

Edward Rice, whose works have been shown in museums and galleries nationally and internationally, has always kept Augusta/North Augusta as his home base and has a contingent of devoted patrons in the area.  In addition to the detailed architectural paintings for which he may be best known, the exhibit will include works on paper and monoprints from the series he created with printmaker Phil Garrett’s King Snake Press in Greenville, S.C.  Subjects range from Southern and Italian architectural elements to botanicals to barns of the South Carolina lowcountry.

“Ed is one of the best painters anywhere for capturing light and mood and feeling from a single detail of a building,” Molly said. It would be hard to disagree with that assessment. Anyone who’s had the good fortune to spend time in front of an Ed Rice painting knows how easy it is to become engrossed in the way he can play light and shadow from window blinds across a tin roof.  He’s a meticulous researcher with a lifelong interest in Augusta’s history and natural history. He can tell you exactly what time of year and even what time of day is represented by the light in a particular painting, and probably how many trips he made until he found the light just the way he wanted it.  

If you’ve never had the opportunity to see his work, you’ll almost always find one or two of his paintings on display in the permanent collection at the Morris Museum of Art, and you can visit them for free on Sunday afternoons.

Count me among those who lament the closing of Molly’s Mary Pauline Gallery. She took a big risk 10 years ago when she left Atlanta, where she had gained significant gallery experience, to open her own contemporary gallery on Broad Street. In doing so, she set a new standard, built a strong, diverse stable of artists and developed a solid client base. Blessed with high energy, enthusiasm and a good deal of charm, she also became a champion of downtown Augusta’s young artists and restaurateurs and a hands-on supporter of Augusta’s arts community. During the past decade she married Jarod McDowell, and they now have two children, so she has added wife and mom to her collection of titles that include marathoner, world traveler, art patron, art peddler and chairman of various fundraisers and community events.

Her Broad Street building is currently temporary exhibition space for a group of Augusta State University students. Beyond that, she says, she has had discussions with various people and is open to ideas. In the meantime, she will take occasional shows out of the box and on the road.

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Speaking of road shows, the Morris Museum of Art has sent its John Baeder exhibition out on tour to Charleston, Asheville and Nashville, and the staff is in the process of installing an important exhibition with an unusually long title: Something to Look Forward To: Abstract Art by 22 Distinguished Americans of African Descent.

Opening festivities will be Tuesday, March 25. The show was organized by Bill Hutson, distinguished artist-in-residence at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, and he will join internationally-known artist Sam Gilliam to talk about the how and why of it at 6 p.m. in the museum auditorium.

Following their talk, the museum’s Friends of African American Art affiliate group will host the opening reception, which runs until 8 p.m. You don’t have to be a museum member to attend. Pat Elam has succeeded Ann Johnson as president of the Friends, and members of the group will be on hand to share their knowledge about the artists in the exhibit.

According to museum director Kevin Grogan, this particular exhibit offers the opportunity to explore both the impact of abstract art in the overall consideration of art in the South, and the contribution of African Americans to one of the important art movements of the 20^th century. Several of the artists have strong Southern connections, including Sam Middleton, whose work represents jazz in visual terms, and Sam Gilliam, whose abstracted imagery has taken on abstract form. There are lots of programs planned during the exhibit, and you can visit www.themorris.org for more information.   

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At the Lucy Craft Laney Museum, a special exhibit by the multi-talented artist/writer Malaika Favorite will remain on display through the end of March. The Louisiana-born artist has had a remarkably wide-ranging career as poet, teacher and mixed media artist. Back in Augusta after several years in Atlanta, she recently completed a series of collage paintings incorporating landscapes and historic or notable structures.

With a Porter Fleming Foundation grant, she was able to complete 20 paintings of the Augusta area and eight based on Louisiana scenes. For the Augusta paintings, she photographed scenes throughout the city, and then worked some of the actual photographic images into the paintings to create multiple juxtaposed views. One Broad Street scene includes statues of James Brown, Oglethorpe and Confederate soldier Berry Benson. There is a triptych with views of the Savannah River, and several works focusing on historic sites in the Laney-Walker neighborhood. In creating this series, she said she set out to show some of the wonders that surround us every day, things we may not appreciate until we see them from another point of view, through the eyes of an artist. www.lucycraftlaneymuseum.com

You’ll also find work by Malaika Favorite illustrated on Pomegranate’s  sets of boxed notecards stocked by countless museum shops and bookstores around the country.

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And then there’s the art of dance.  The Augusta Ballet is giving us big names and live music for its fifth annual gala, Ballet Stars of New York.  The performance is scheduled for 7 p.m. March 28 at the Imperial Theatre with a black-tie reception to follow at the Augusta Museum of History.  Sponsors and donors will be treated to a pre-performance gathering in the Lamar Building Penthouse.

The performance will showcase some of the top names from the New York City Ballet.  Principal dancers Albert Evans and Wendy Whelan, the featured performers, will be joined by principals Charles Askegard, Megan Fairchild, Benjamin Millepied and Abi Stafford. Guest violinist Kurt Nikkanen will perform, with additional live music by the Augusta Symphony under the direction of Donald Portnoy.

For the gala reception, Caroline Morris and Greg Boulus are teaming up to transform the history museum rotunda into a sleek, elegant New York lounge with low benches and a central custom-built banquette carrying out a silver and white theme. Ann-Toni Estroff is creating a Lincoln Center inspired hors d’oeuvres menu, and Air Apparent will provide music for dancing. The NYC Ballet stars will attend the party, and they have been known to be among the first on the dance floor. Dickey Boardman and Marilyn Wangsnes are the overall chairmen for the event.

Performance tickets are $15-35, and reception tickets are $100. www.augustaballet.org

 

Artists, performers and patrons make for a crowded calendar

It occurs to me that it has been a whole quarter-century since I last wrote about the arts in The Augusta Chronicle.  I’m trying not to dwell on that. As I launch this blog/column (note 21^st century terminology, which reminds me that my first column was written on an upright Royal typewriter), it is with appreciation for those in the visual arts/ fine arts/ cultural community who sometimes without many resources and often without much acclaim, bring great creative energy to enhance our lives. What you’ll find here is a  personal collection of cultural arts highlights – notes about arts people doing interesting things, important exhibits, patrons, performances, and maybe a bit of the behind-the-scenes work it takes to make magic when the doors open, the paint dries, the curtain rises, or the pages roll off the press. So here we go.

Artist Philip Morsberger is back at work in his Augusta studio after opening his 50-year retrospective at the Miami University Art Museum in Oxford, Ohio, where he taught from 1959 to 1968. Last fall, a solo exhibit of his early work at the Telfair Museum’s Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah prompted the Miami University museum to take that entire show. They added 20 or 30 later works to illustrate the scope of the artist’s career to date. Half a dozen Augusta collectors agreed to lend paintings for the show, which runs through mid-June.

Philip and his wife, Mary Ann, were in Ohio for the opening, where she reports they were treated like royalty and were surprised to see Morsberger banners on light posts surrounding the museum. Mary Ann brought back one of the banners, and says she will unfurl it upon request. Their daughter Wendy and son Robert, from Massachusetts and New York respectively, joined them for the opening. A group of his students from the ‘60s also showed up, and his lecture drew an overflow crowd.

Augusta/North Augusta artist Ed Rice, widely known for his precise paintings of architectural subjects, is working on a commission from the Greenville County (S.C.) Museum to create four paintings based on architectural details of landmark buildings in the Greenville area. Currently on his easel is a full-sized detail of a gable on an Episcopal church that dates from the 1840s, showing brickwork and carpenter gothic elements.

He’s also gearing up for a solo show later this month, and he’s among the eclectic group of “great Augustans” spotlighted by Rick Brown in the latest issue of Charleston-based magazine Garden & Gun, along with David Foster, Frenchie Bush, Coco Rubio, Bryan Haltermann and Matthew Buzzell.

ARTS BENEFITS

March starts out with a pair of back-to-back arts fundraisers. First up is the Art Factory’s “Celebrating the Artist,” Thursday (March 6) from 6 to 9 p.m. at the currently-under-renovation 19^th century Sutherland Mill on the canal. Party-goers can bid on original artwork inspired by recycled materials and contributed by more than 50 local artists. Dress is “construction site casual,” so leave the high heels at home. There will be live music, libations and heavy hors d’oeuvres. The Art Factory’s mission is to provide programs for children and adults who have little or no access to the arts. www.artfactoryinc.org

Friday night is the 15^th annual Morris Museum of Art Gala, this year honoring realist painter John Baeder. He’s famous for his depiction of roadside architecture, better known as the classic American diner. The evening begins with cocktails in the galleries at 6:30 and continues under the gala tent at 8 p.m. Co-chairs Molly McDowell and Braye Boardman have given the black-tie party a different format and a new way to participate. Instead of the seated dinner of the past few years, there will be multiple stations with “upscale diner-style fare,” dancing, and a silent auction. Also new this year is an online auction, with items up for early bidding at www.morrismuseumauction.cmarket.com.    

John Baeder will be in town for the gala. His exhibit, organized by the Morris and entitled “Pleasant Journeys and Good Eats along the Way,” ends its Augusta run after Sunday, March 9, and then goes to museums in Charleston, Asheville and Nashville.

Disclaimer: Yes, I was once the director of the Morris Museum of Art, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give it a lot of undue attention or avoid mentioning it for fear of giving it undue attention. When it comes to the MMA, I hope I don’t have tunnel-vision. I do have some bifocals, but that’s another matter entirely.

Crowded calendar: The Art Factory’s fundraiser was moved this year from its previous early-May date, and inadvertently bumped with the Morris gala, always the first Friday in March. Both organizations report brisk ticket sales, however.   

In truth, Augusta’s arts community is so extensive and prolific that it is no longer possible for any organization to have a time slot all to itself. At the most recent Harry Jacobs Chamber Music Society performance, Alan Drake noted in his pre-concert remarks that they were competing with 16 other entertainment opportunities that night. Still, there was a respectable crowd of several hundred in attendance.

Friday, the HJCMS presents the Moscow-based Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, performing music by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Dvorak, Bach and Rossini. The main event begins at 8 p.m. in the Maxwell Performing Arts Theater at ASU, and there’s a bonus performance by the Greater Augusta Youth Orchestra at 7:15 as a warm-up.  

This time, they’re competing with the MMA Gala and First Friday, among other things.

The Augusta Ballet’s fifth annual black-tie Gala is scheduled for March 28, with a performance featuring Ballet Stars of New York at the Imperial Theatre with live orchestra accompaniment, followed by a patron-level cocktail reception at the Augusta Museum of History.  Dickey Boardman and Marilyn Wangsnes are co-chairs. More on that later.

Sacred Heart Cultural Center’s Garden Festival will be April 25-27, with the patrons’ preview party on the 24^th. More on that later, too. But first, Sacred Heart opens a new “Coffee Series” this week. Drop by Wednesday (March 5) at 10:30 a.m. to hear the Augusta Symphony Woodwind Trio (Kelly Odell, Taylor Massey and Jian Huang) and enjoy a mid-morning coffee break.  It’s free.
 
GOLDEN OLDIE

The Augusta Symphony Guild is celebrating its 50^th anniversary with a party featuring political comedian Dave Werner, March 15^th at Richmond on Greene. The guild, composed of 100 women as active members and several dozen associate, senior, honorary and non-resident members, is one of four support groups for the symphony. Over the past 50 years, the guild has contributed substantial funding to the orchestra, primarily through the annual Symphony Cotillion debutante ball.