Artists Entwined: Paintings by Will South & Jewelry by Sara Cogswell.

Will South makes art, writes about it, organizes exhibitions on it, and very frequently talks about it. Art has been the single constant thread in his life.

Like most of us, Will drew as a child. He simply never stopped. With a degree in studio art from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, his professional life began managing a gallery where he organized shows on painters and wrote their biographies. This led to a master’s degree in art history, which led to a PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Living in Manhattan, Will took courses at the Art Students League while steeped in art theory at the Graduate Center. Today, he remains an art historian and an artist in equal measure.

As a museum curator, Will is known for making art accessible, whether in writing, on the wall, or in public talks. He shares his passion for art freely, and sees museum work as an ongoing opportunity for public service. Back in the studio, however, he reverts to the artist who has made art his entire life, only now one who has learned a great deal from art history.

“I enjoy narrative, abstract and innovative art forms,” he says, “but as an artist myself I’m not interested in telling a story or inventing something new. Topical art comes and goes, and cleverness holds no appeal. What is enduring about an image is the sensuality of color, the refinement of shape, the human intelligence contained in line. The challenge for me is to edit out all but the essential. And the ongoing problem is to know what the essential is. If he or she keeps working, once in a great while an artist will touch on what it means to be human.”

Sara Cogswell is a resident of Columbia, SC having moved in October of 2011 from Dayton, OH. Her thirty-year career in arts administration has included time as Program Associate at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art in New York, Director of the Crafts Festivals at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Museum Administrator for the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Gallery Director of Gallery 115, also in Greensboro. For two years, Sara curated the material culture exhibitions for the nationally known Cityfolk Festival held annually in Dayton, Ohio over the July 4th weekend. She has been the owner and curator of Gallery West in West Columbia SC since the fall of 2013, a gallery of fine art, antiques, contemporary craft and art jewelry.

Sara’s love of fiber began as early as she can remember. Growing up in Japan as the daughter of missionaries, she was surrounded by the rich textiles unique to that culture. After taking a weaving class in college, she was enduringly hooked. She wove for many years, but following the birth of her first child found it difficult to keep an eight-harness floor loom out of the reach of a toddler. Inspired by the work of two artists from Berea Kentucky, Sara began to work with fiber on a much smaller scale.

Her current work is made up of hundreds of silk, nylon, cotton, or linen threads, knotted into wearable art. The jewelry, which sometimes incorporates beads or unusual and unique objects, or at times just combinations of color, begin with these hundreds of threads, not always with a specific end in mind, but evolving as the piece progresses. Though labor intensive, she finds the repetition and rhythm of tying the knots to be a very meditative process.

Small Island, Large Landscapes - Photography by Ella and Knapp Hudson.

"Near the top of the globe, Iceland is, literally, an island in the making and is a vast volcanic laboratory where mighty forces shape the earth. Knapp and Ella Hudson have traveled to the island 3 times; September 2013, May 2014 and August 2015 with other photographers, specifically to see and try to capture some of the island’s extreme beauty. They focused on the massive waterfalls, icebergs, rock formations and fjords that draw more and more photographers to Iceland each year. We want to share what keeps drawing us back…Iceland’s stunning variety of natural beauty and landscapes."

Ella Hudson

While in college (like many others in my generation) I discovered photography, went to Europe, shot pictures that my family and friends thought were wonderful and decided to become a National Geographic photographer and spend my life traveling the world and making pictures in exotic locales.

Instead, my exotic locale was Florence, South Carolina (my hometown) where I worked as a college photographer at Francis Marion College until marriage and a move. Leaving the quiet life of academia, I became a Medical Photographer in another extremely exotic locale, Mobile, Alabama, home of Mardi Gras (not New Orleans as you might think).

Still not realizing my dream of being a National Geographic photographer, I moved to Portland, Maine and continued as a medical photographer, collecting unusual stories along the way not suitable for polite dinner conversation.

After the usual twists and turns of working and raising a family, I am now retired, still living in Portland, Maine and enjoying photography for personal growth and pleasure, traveling with my husband, Knapp Hudson, and sometimes our black poodle, Izzy.

Knapp Hudson

My early exposure to photography was in high school, working in the darkroom for an “underground” satire newspaper. I would shoot the copy, develop the negatives, paste up the copy, then burn and develop the printing plates. I learned a lot about working in a darkroom but never touched any other camera.

Fast forward a few years to 1966, and I found myself in the Navy on Adak Island, Alaska. I picked up photography again and bought my first camera, a 35mm rangefinder, at the Base Exchange and reacquainted myself with the darkroom. This led to the purchase of a 35mm SLR, a twin lens reflex, etc. These cameras carried me through a very long year on Adak and the next few years in northern Europe.

Fast forward again to work years. I am now married to Ella Hudson, a real photographer, someone who gets paid to take pictures. Being married to a photographer, I started to learn about composition, and what it takes to make an interesting picture.

Fast forward to 2006, we are about to leave on a trip to China with some friends; what camera to take, how much film, how would we ever carry that much film, why don’t we try digital? We did; we had a lot to learn, but over the next few years, we became comfortable with digital and have grown to appreciate it. Our cameras have now been all through Southeast Asia, Iceland, Nova Scotia and Scotland and have not let us down.

Reactions to Actions - Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture by Renee Rouillier.

The works may appear whimsical or surreal, but they are packed with meaning. 

"My most recent work is a reflection on the aging process and related issues of loss, diminished opportunities, societal viewpoints and life encounters/history. This alleged decrease in value I equate with the lack of value in old dilapidated buildings regardless of their personal history. There is such inherent beauty and wonder in buildings in a state of ruin or decay; and as with older people, both house a lifetime of hidden secrets.

"Working in fine arts for over twenty-five years and trained in a variety of mediums, clay provides the manipulability and avenue for contemporary storytelling.  Influences from the unrestrained content and drama of the Surrealists and German Expressionist is reflected in the content of my art, art with an edge, dark side, or unforseen side of reality."


Renee Rouillier holds a Master's of Fine Arts Degree in Ceramic Sculpture and 3D Study from the University of South Carolina, a Bachelor of Fine Arts & Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Arts for Children from SUNY College at Brockport NY, and Diploma in Fine Arts from Rochester Institute of Technology. She has taught at the University of South Carolina at Columbia and Aiken SC, Columbia College, and South Carolina State University and participated in many workshops and community fundraising and charity events.

"Color Talks" - Senior Shows by Graduating FMU Visual Arts Majors Laken B. Long and Halli B. Williams

Senior shows are required of all students majoring in Visual Arts. These shows give students hands-on experience in selection and installation of artworks, publicity of exhibition, and external review by the University community and the general public.

Works by Ceramics and 3-D Design Classes.

Students in ceramics classes learn processes and techniques in both wheel-throwing and hand building in the art and craft of pottery. Throwing leads progressively toward stoneware clay tooling, decorating, glazing and firing. As they advance through the curriculum, students add ceramic fabrications methods of slabwork, modeling from solid masses, and press molding.  Multi-part forms and porcelain formula clay bodies are created as artistic discipline develops along with the individual's philosopy, critical awareness and asthetics.

Students taking Three-Dimensional Design classes investigate organization techniques, with special emphasis on the plastic controls of form and space.  They learn to use a variety of tools and various sculptural media, including wood, plaster and clay.

Remix by Mary Robinson.

"I am deeply inspired by natural forms, especially tree roots, tangled vines and human arteries, and explore the experience of being human as part of-- rather than separate from-- nature. I observe complex patterns of flowing, twisting fibers, and nature’s mode of creating variety within repetition. I use similar forms in my mixed media drawings and prints to express the mix of awe, reverence and anxiety I feel living on Earth in the Twenty-First Century. Sometimes the elements in my work twist, writhe and ultimately suffocate in their claustrophobic confinement, as in Ingrown.  In more open imagery, I allow the marks to pulse, flow and breathe harmoniously. In the most recent work, such as in Warning, I explore and express a growing sense of urgency to acknowledge and address environmental crises. This agitation manifests in intense hues as well as in forms that are branching, breaking, seeping and radiating.

"The process by which I work is very fluid. To create Warning and similar pieces, I painted paper, cut, collaged, painted some more, cut some more and so on. The prints that I am now producing are based on these pieces in terms of shape and color. They are not simply replicas of the paintings. I have made matrices using wood, Sintra board, and stencils, based on the general compositions of the paintings, but the shapes, lines and colors are combined in completely new ways. Many of the prints are 'finished' works unto themselves but because of the opportunity for multiple printing, some of the printed elements will also become physical material for new collage paintings. The paintings are 'sketches' for the prints, and the new prints become springboards and actual physical material to be cut and collaged for new mixed media work."

Mary is currently Associate Professor and Head of the Printmaking Program at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.

Metamorphoses - Carvings by Ernest Donald Murray (1930-2006).

Don Murray was born and mostly raised in Asheville, NC. His life was extremely varied, including experiences as a stone carver, University of Tennessee football player, gunner’s mate, prisoner of war in Korea, student of painting in New York, drill sergeant at Camp Jackson in Columbia, SC, company clerk in Germany, race car driver, graduate student in art as well as education, one-man art department at Chipola Community College in Florida, professor of humanities and professor of art at the University of Florida. While he was an extraordinarily generous and dedicated teacher, he continued to make art throughout his life, and left behind hundreds of paintings, cast sculptures, and these five carved wood figure sculptures.

These carvings are inspired by themes or stories from Greek mythology that come to us in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, stories of change. The Greek myths have stayed interesting to us because they express in metaphor ideas about human experiences that we also have.

Life Is a Long Story: Pots from the Later Chapters (2005-2015) - Ceramics by Kate Shakeshaft Murray.

Kate Shakeshaft grew up in Iowa, and took her first ceramics class purely for fun while an English major at Grinnell College. She has never stopped making pots. She went on to study art at the University of Iowa, then worked for five separate production potters in Vermont. A fellowship drew her to the University of Florida for her M.F.A., and then great luck led her to Florence, SC, where she taught ceramics for three years from 1994-1997. During those years she corresponded with her friend and former sculpture professor Don Murray. Kate resigned her teaching job and returned to Gainesville, FL, where she married Don and set up a pottery studio.  In 2006 Don died of cancer.  Since that time Kate has been teaching at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, making pots, reading, cooking, and growing camellias. More images of her work and contact information can be found at www.kateshakeshaftmurray.com . 

"Pottery historically answered our needs for practical containers. Now it can fill our need for formal beauty, and for carriers of personal meaning. My pots rarely defy function: mugs hold coffee, jars can contain beans or human cremains. At the same time pots are small sculptures whose beauties pertain to line, form, proportion, repetition, color and texture. I strive to make elegant forms with sumptuous surfaces.

"The materials and processes of making pots have captivated me so firmly that I have shaped my life so as to be able to keep doing this work. And my life has shaped the work: reflections on experience and circumstances manifest themselves in the best pots. As a young woman I made pots celebrating femaleness. When I had to take care of a husband dying of cancer, I made a series of 'Fortitude Jars' about girding up to face adversity. 'Window Jars' were about his loss. Meditations on my place in an infinite universe became visible as spiral forms made out of clay. Combining the 'Fortitude' strap handle with the 'Window' hole-in-aknob worked to create an arch or bridge. The more extravagantly expansive 'ginko leaf' or 'feather headdress' knobs have coincided with moments of personal flourish, but also remind me of fungi that grow out of dead trees in the woods; life cycles around and around.

"The pottery begins as an idea about form to be worked out in clay--- when there are successful examples to look at and reflect upon, only then do the autobiographical themes reveal themselves to me."

Roadside - by Lauren Greenwald.

Roadside includes work Greenwald developed from her month-long solo road trip of more than 7,000 miles exploring the blue highways of the United States. Using a range of tools from pinhole cameras to digital video, she photographed scenic vistas, tourist spots, and miles of empty landscape from the roadside. By employing the still and the moving image, Greenwald records, documents, and re-explores the ephemeral quality of moving through a landscape, and examines issues of space, time, perception, and memory.

Lauren Greenwald is a visual artist and educator working primarily in photography and video. Her work focuses on landscape, perception, and the experiential, incorporating a range of digital and analog processes. Ms. Greenwald received her B.A. in Art History and French from the College of Charleston and her M.F.A. in Studio Art, with a minor in Museum Studies, from the University of New Mexico in 2011. During her time in New Mexico, she worked closely with several New Mexico arts institutions, including Land Arts of the American West, SITE Santa Fe, and Radius Books, and has exhibited regionally and nationally. She was a Visiting Assistant Professor at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM, before relocating to Columbia, SC in 2014, where she is Assistant Professor of Photography in the School of Visual Art and Design at the University of South Carolina.

PIVOT - Senior Exhibition by Graduating Visual Arts Majors
    Shaira K. Lowery
    Elizabeth Carter
    Zachary Nivens
    Tomasha Mcintyre
    Cole Fenters
    Jonathan Lacross
    Tony Lockhart

Senior shows are required of all students majoring in Visual Arts. These shows give students hands-on experience in selection and installation of artworks, publicity of exhibition, and external review by the University community and the general public.

There will be an opening reception at 6:30 pm on April 6.

Works by 3-D Design Classes.

Students taking Three-Dimensional Design classes investigate organization techniques, with special emphasis on the plastic controls of form and space.  They learn to use a variety of tools and various sculptural media, including wood, plaster and clay.

Works by Ceramics Classes.

Students in ceramics classes learn processes and techniques in both wheel-throwing and hand building in the art and craft of pottery. Throwing leads progressively toward stoneware clay tooling, decorating, glazing and firing. As they advance through the curriculum, students add ceramic fabrications methods of slabwork, modeling from solid masses, and press molding.  Multi-part forms and porcelain formula clay bodies are created as artistic discipline develops along with the individual's philosopy, critical awareness and asthetics.

Connection - Recent Work by Stephanie Imbeau

Florence Native Stephanie Imbeau's "Connection" will include fiber art, ceramics, and a unique onsite installation of a structure made of umbrellas. Her practice investigates the way individuals seek community, personal security and a place to belong. She uses representations of protective structures as anthropomorphisms to explore this universal human impulse. These basic forms of shelter also provide the framework for a conceptual mapping of the barriers drawn to create safety and claim meaning using physical spaces. The simple outline of a house, for example, is both a boundary and a claim, “I am here” – with walls and a roof.   She uses a variety of mediums with a specific interest in materials that posses the opposing qualities of utility and fragility, such as clay, cardboard and umbrellas.

Stephanie Imbeau received a BFA from The Ohio State University in 2004 and MFA from Newcastle University in 2007. Her competition-winning work Shelter made her the first female artist to adapt Channel 4’s Big 4 in London in 2009. She was the youngest artist in the show Homeland [In]Security: Vanishing Dreams at Dorsky Gallery, Long Island City, NY in November 2014. She has exhibited in Germany, France, England, Greece, and various locations in the US and has been featured in print in the UK and Korea. She currently lives and works in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.