Face to Face at the South Carolina State Museum

Face to Face is the current art exhibit at the South Carolina State Museum. All artists are associated with SC. These unique pieces express many different human connections.

Below is MLK/RFK/JFK By Dan Robert Miller in 1975. Carved from a single black gum tree are 3 iconic figures of the Civil Rights movement who were assassinated. 

Odhin (a magician amongst gods as well as the god of poets) is a wood carving, painting by L.C. Carson in 1975.

Panethnikon is by Jack Levine 1978. It is political satire of world leaders in a smoky, poker playing environment.

Certain portraits catch my eye like this below by an unknown artist circa 1849. These are the daughters of prominent silver smith of South Carolina. The oldest daughter died at age 3 shown with her younger sister at an older age. Beautiful and filled with symbolism like the missing shoe.

This piece is particularly interesting to me. I always found it ironic that the bible belt states seem to love their violent guns more than other states. Maybe I'm wrong.

Virgin Mary Gun Altar is by Peter Lenzo in 1993. Here the artist contrasts "feminine" Mary with the "masculine" association American's have with guns. Close up, this is filled with images of the Virgin Mary and guns.

Assembly Church is by Prentiss Taylor, 1936. This artist spent a lot of time in Charleston, SC where he created works of daily life.

These sculptures are by Roy Paschal in 2012. Why these are interesting is the skulls of these 2 soldiers were discovered by a private developer in 1987. They were part of the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. The artist created casts of these 2 skulls to come up with these busts. A beautiful tribute!    

I am in love with the painting style of August Charles Cook II. This is a portrait of

his wife circa 1950.

 

The exit of the Face to Face exhibit features a fun self portrait wall filled with mirrors.

It is quite a unique exhibit that would catch anyone's interest with all the styles involved.

 

If you go, the museum is located at: 

301 Gervais Street

Columbia, SC

Sunday noon - 5pm

Monday - closed

Tuesday thru Saturday 10am - 5pm

website

Have a marvelous day/evening (wherever you are on the clock)! ~Val

Quirky Garden Art

Some quirky garden art seen recently.

An old lunch pail forms a brilliant planter!

The mushrooms fit right in with the tree art.

Not sure what this antique is below but it creates a fantastic pedestal.

My favorite yard art are always the pieces crafted from hardware.

Old tree pieces are unique accents.

This place is a couple of minutes from our house and only open a handful of days each year. It is Carolina Daylilies which sells lilies, irises and hostas. We went too late in the season for the flowers so we will be back next year. 

We chatted for a while with the owner who said the fun garden area is being torn up this year. It will be completely re-done for next season so we will make it a point to be back when the flowers are blooming and to see the makeover. 

This gentleman creates award winning cross breeds so we can find unique flowers that aren't available in stores!

Have a marvelous day/evening (wherever you are on the clock)! ~Val

Yard Update

 Flowers are coming and going around the yard.

We believe this one is called the "carousel" rose of sharon.

She commands attention with her amazing leaves, cool buds and stunning, huge flowers.

 These orange Asiatic lilies bloomed like crazy but have since passed.

The butterfly milkweed is looking pretty.

Another beloved of the butterfly is the lantana. We have both yellow and white ones.

The butterfly bushes are blooming.

We have 4 different colors around. The buds are so interesting to look at as they come and go.

The canna lilies will bloom later in the season by the leaves put on an amazing show.

The leaves are so fabulous with the red edges.

The Japanese painted ferns keep getting bigger and bigger. This one had a pretty bug on her.

Our ornamental peach tree has been loving being planted in the ground!

We've noticed a lack of butterflies this year and learned there is about a 50% decline here due to the late frosts and other climate issues.

The elephant ears are growing bigger each week.

Overall the pollinating garden is growing.

Our grass looks like crap but we don't believe in watering it since that is such a waste of a precious resource.

This is a very picture heavy post but it is for our personal, future reference!

The new pineapple guavas have new growth!

Here is where we often sip cocktails and our morning coffee. We have 2 cool plants in the planters that will be growing over and down very soon!

We noticed a nest in the crepe myrtle out front. There has been a lot of purple martin activity around the tree so we think it had belonged to them. It is quite low for those birds to nest so we can't be sure. It is amazing to look at a strong crafted nest. Talented little guys!

We got a dog! Ok, Gizmo is made of concrete. This is because a cat has been pooping in our yard. This dog works as a repellent! 

It is funny since I always grew up with indoor/outdoor cats and never thought of them annoying neighbors because they were my cuties. It is unpleasant cleaning up another person's pet's poop.

Have a marvelous day/evening (wherever you are on the clock)! ~Val