Spend a morning with a band of young artists on the lily farm. We’ve asked these local, Augusta high school artists to share their works and vision. They’ll be all over the farm, showing, selling, talking, and learning. We’re also pairing them with renowned ‘mentors’ from Columbia — so they can build networks and have informal time to ask questions about art and the art world.
Plenty of plant and lily farm stuff will be going on too. Tours of the flower fields, and tours of Miss Gloria’s southern cottage garden which was featured in the NY Times. Jenks and Tom will share their design process too. Garden design and vision is art too.
May 27, Saturday.
9:30 until 3 pm.
Rain or shine.
The event is free. Artists will sell their own work. But RSVP is required.
Click here to make your reservation.
Meet The Artists and Mentors
Iris Moore works on the Lily Farm and spearheads this event! Iris is an eleventh grader at Davidson Fine Arts and majoring in visual art and costume design. Iris has worked on the farm with us for two years. She’s coordinated this event. Iris says, “I hope to incorporate as many mediums as I can, including watercolor, sculpture, acrylic and oil paint, and metal work, jewelry, and sculpture.
My aim is to create an atmosphere for young people like me to learn beyond the classroom.”
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By natural means and man, literal ground is transformed into another likeness altogether – according to the maker’s heart and hands. That an entire person’s passion, values, and personality can be displayed in one physical form amazes me; that each vessel is, more or less, the potter’s heart laid bare before the viewer. This perfect vulnerability defines itself in my work; my thoughts, emotions, and deepest knowledge can be impressed into the texture of each vessel. Each joy, love, heartbreak, or trouble can be recorded in the silhouette of an object, the intangible, inexpressible components of life made physical. Communication in this form can be accomplished with ease, a plight that can be recognized without speech. By a conversation of the eyes and clay surfaces, an entire cause can be given a voice; an entire being understood.
Joining us as a mentor, Columbia, S.C., ceramic artist Virginia Scotchie has exhibited widely in the United States and abroad. Among her solo- and two-person exhibitions are those at C.R.E.T.A. Ceramic Center in Rome, Italy; the Vallauris Institute of Art in France; the Tulsa (Okla.) Center for the Arts; the Clay Art Center in Port Chester, N.Y.; the Trinity Building in Charlotte, N.C.; and the Gertrude Herbert Art Institute in Augusta, Ga. She has had residencies in Italy, France, Wales, England, China, Taiwan, The Netherlands and Australia, where she received the Sidney Myer Fund International Ceramics Award from the Shepparton Museum in Victoria. Scotchie received a BA in sociology and religion from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and an MFA from Alfred University in the state of New York.
Virginia’s Artist Statement,
“Recent work has dealt with the relationships of whole forms to that of their components. The act of taking apart and putting back together has contributed to the accumulation of a personal library of fragmented images. My current interest is in the exploration of new forms derived from rearranging fragments of disparate dissected objects.”
CLAY BURNETTEis a self-taught pine needle basketmaker who has been coiling longleaf pine needles for over 45 years . He has exhibited his work in over 260 venues throughout the US and abroad. In 2017, his work was included in Rooted, Revived, Reinvented: Basketry in America, which traveled for three years to eight venues in the US. In 2019, his work received the Award of Excellence by the National Basketry Organization (NBO), an award he also received in 2013. In 2000, his work was selected for inclusion in two significant exhibitions: Contemporary International Basketry, which toured the United Kingdom for two years; and 100 Years/100 Artists: Views of the 20th Century in SC Art, at the SC State Museum. His work is included in numerous public and private collections.
He has exhibited his baskets at the Smithsonian Craft Show, Philadelphia Craft Show, ACC Atlanta Craft Show, ACC Charlotte Craft Show, SOFA New York, SOFA Chicago and has been included in numerous print publications. In 2013, his work was included in Tradition/Innovation: American Masterpieces of Southern Craft & Traditional Art, an exhibition that toured the southeastern US for six years. He is the recipient of the SC Arts Commission’s Craft Fellowship for 2022, an award he also received in 1988. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina with AS, BAIS, and MLIS degrees. A native of Dalton, GA, he resides in Columbia, SC.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I use the basic basket-making technique of coiling to create contemporary shapes that incorporate lots of patience, persistence, and imagination.
I begin the process by gathering fresh pine needles from longleaf pine trees that grow in the sandhills of South Carolina. The needles are often colored with fabric dyes, acrylic paints, and iridescent inks, then sewn into coils using various colors of waxed linen thread and/or plated copper wire. My tools are simple: a large steel upholstery needle and a pair of sharp-pointed scissors. When completed, each piece is preserved with a light coating of beeswax and signed with my initials.
I follow no patterns and make no preliminary sketches before I begin a basket.
Time is irrelevant whenever I am stitching. The exploration of color, pattern, texture and form keeps me focused on the moment, but always thinking of what is yet to come.
This magical place moves too! Christy takes the garden on the road in her handpainted car — which has won awards in Houston’s Art Car Show. She’ll bring her rolling ‘Chapel of Love as well as paintings, jewelry, and her devotion to sharing how she finds and shares inspiration with her students.
Sean Clute
As we engage the world around us, there are moments that will test our character. I look to capture that honest response where our true personality comes to surface. To be able to get this response, I surround these figures in a scene that makes them respond in a specific way. The scene pressures the personality and encapsulates the figures in this moment in time. This subsequently reveals what is at the core of each person. I break down their psychology to project an honest response to the scene. Just as an actor would dissolve the nuances of a character, I will give cause to this response. This gives each character I make an individual piece of my soul.
Within my projects, I push myself to expand my reaches of the human form. When I make my figures, I look at the diverse range the world offers and reflect that in my work. Within that comprehension, I am able to project the layers of their innermost self. I use subtle indifferences to the pose, the face, and the clothes to reinforce a response or to push the demeanor in a unique direction. By understanding the character’s position, physically and mentally, the pose can drape a mood onto the piece and provokes a conversation with the figure. This is when the personality can come to the surface and react to the scene. I will look at the scene as a whole, and play the character’s natural reaction. I will stop the action at the climax of the moment or one that reflects his or her personality correctly. After the reaction is set, I can go back and add elements that make the viewer ask why this person is doing what they are doing. This can give further reason to the action or just add to the informal nature of the scene. My figures are a reflection of everyday people that are burdened by the weight the world gives them.
Betsy Kaemmerlen
Betsy Kaemmerlen has been working in clay since 1994. Originally taught on the wheel by John Macomber of Greenleaf Pottery, Betsy turned to hand built forms soon afterwards. She originated an active potters group called Clay Arts East in Connecticut and organized the Open Studio Tour of Northeast CT with up to 75 artists, for many years before moving to Columbia in 2006. Concentrating on functional ware, surface texture and decoration are key to her clay forms, with transparent glazes pooling in the depths. Her inspiration for exploring textured surfaces comes from the origins of pottery when clay was used to protect cooking baskets from the fire. As food was cooked, the clay was fired and so the basket weave impression remained.
In 2013 Betsy won an Artist Residency in Little Switzerland, NC at Wildacres Retreat to work on both functional pots and sculptural pieces. She enjoys both taking and giving workshops, and has learned many hand building and carving techniques. As a Landscape Architect, leaves and natural designs play heavily in her work. And having studied the gardens in Kyoto Japan for five months in 1979, her fascination with Asian motifs is ongoing. She carves roller stamps with cloud, water, Chinese, and Celtic motifs to add richness to her pottery. Lately her focus has been on tiny teapots and vases, along with Ikebana vessels for Japanese flower arranging.
Looks so good!!!! 🌸🍀🌺🌼💕🦋☮️