Jasper Announces Finalists for 2014 Artists of the Year – Time to VOTE!

Jasper and Muddy Ford Press and delighted to announce the finalists for

Jasper 2014 Artists of the Year

in Dance, Theatre, Music, Visual, and Literary Arts

Theatre

Catherine Hunsinger, actress

• Eponine, Les Miserables (Town Theater)
• Seven roles and cello, A Christmas Carol adapted by Patrick Barlow (Trustus Theater)
• Willowedane Poole, Constance [by the Restoration] (Trustus Theater)
• Fest 24 actor, Group 5 – Prom Night (Trustus Theater)
• Actress/Soloist in “The Orchestra Moves”, a South Carolina Philharmonic childrens’ concert series
• Actress/Soloist in the Americana concert of South Carolina Philharmonic’s pops series (St. Andrews Sisters)
• “Nasty” in Larry Hembree Bring Your Own Dinner Theater Fundraiser (Trustus Theater)
• Actress in First Citizens Commerical with Mad Monkey
• Actress in Pillar Awards short film with Larry Hembree
• Ensemble in Young Frankenstein (Workshop Theater)
• Veronica, Carnage (Living Room Theatre)
• Katherine, Blue Moon (Short film by Jeff Driggers)

Robert Richmond, director

• TEMPEST at the Warehouse in Greenville, SC
• FINDING RICHARD – USC  – Undergraduate female production of Richard III that exposed 26 students  and gender bended a Shakespearean history play, while exploring acting in a close up and personal arena.
• DREADFUL SORRY  – The winner of the South Carolina 2010 Film Commission grant was screened in the Orlando Film Festival. This movie gave on screen and behind the camera experience to over 45 students at USC.
• RICHARD III at the Folger Theatre, Washington, DC
• HAMLET USC – Set in an asylum the production focused on Hamlet’s madness and was inspired by America Horror Stories.
• Audio Book of RICHARD III – Folger Shakespeare Library – Continuing my passion to bring Shakespeare into the 21st Century this recording is the 6th fully dramatized production published by Simon & Schuster.
• WINTERS TALE at the Academy for Classical Acting, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, DC
• A TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT at Clark Studio, Lincoln Center, New York
• Audio Book JULUIS CAESAR Folger Shakespeare Library

Frank Thompson, actor and director

• September 2013: Thenardier in Les Miserables at Town.
• November/December 2013: Charlie Baker in The Foreigner at Town.
• November/December 2013: Directed Ho! Ho! Ho! at Columbia Children’s Theatre.
• March 2014: Directed Stand By Your Man at Town.
• May 2014: Igor in Young Frankenstein at Workshop.
• July 2014: Dialect Coach/Captain Hook in Peter Pan at Town.
• August 2014: Wrote/Directed A Night At The Previews fundraiser for Town.

Music

Can’t Kids

• This year we released Ennui Go which was a lot of hard work for us and many people who aren’t in Can’t Kids.
• We were the house band for the Indie Grits puppet slam where we collaborated with Bele et Bete.
• We put out ‘The Twist’ music video that was directed by Katherine McCullough.
• We released a song on the Tidings from the Light Purple Gam comp.
• We just finished our side of a split “7 record with Schooner out on Sit and Spin Records next year.
• We had a pet baby squirrel for about 3 weeks.
• We’ve obtained an early model Prius.

Greg Stuart

• 11/18/13 –organizes world premier of Los Angeles-based composer Michael Pisaro’s asleep, forest, melody, path (2013) for large, mixed ensemble and field recordings at the Columbia Museum of Art. Ensemble includes students from the USC Honors College, USC School of Music, and members of the greater Columbia music community. The field recordings used in the concert (i.e., environmental sound recordings) were made by Stuart and Pisaro in late 2012/early 2013 in Congaree National Park.
• 2/24/14 –Organizes a performance of the legendary Japanese percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani’s acclaimed Nakatani Gong Orchestra with 12 local musicians at the Columbia Museum of Art. The piece is an innovative, community-based ensemble consisting of large gongs suspended on custom hardware and played with handcrafted bows designed by Nakatani.
• 12/06/13 – Stuart plays a set at the Conundrum Music Hall concert of Mind Over Matter Music Over Mind’s (the brainchild of ethnomusicologist and eminent Sun Ra scholar Thomas Stanley). The piece is a collaboration with Columbia-based visual artist Nathan Halverson, Asleep in the watchtower (2013).
• 2/20/14 –Stuart’s USC-based experimental music performance group, the New Music Workshop, performs John Cage’s One7 (1992) at Conundrum Music Hall.
• 7/20/14 – Composes a new work for bowed bell and electronic sound, slab (2014) as a solo set opening for electronic powerhouse Jason Lescalleet’s July 2014 Columbia appearance at Conundrum Music Hall.
• Between 9/15/13 and 9/15/14 Stuart released the following recordings: Closed Categories in Cartesian Worlds Michael Pisaro/Matthew Sullivan, “Add Red” With Joe Panzner: Live at the Issue Project Room Joe Panzner/Greg Stuart + Jason Brogan/Sam Sfirri: Harness (Tape)

The Mobros

• handpicked to open for B.B. King on a few of his summer dates. July 23rd & 24th 2013
• on the road since January 17th traveling the east coast up to New York, through the Midwest to Chicago, and down through Texas going as far south as New Orleans. Having played 50 cities, The Mobros will finish their tour December 22nd in Charleston, SC.    January 17th- December 22nd 2014
• released their first full record February 25th  2014

Visual Arts

Eileen Blyth

• Juried in Vista Studios – Sept 2013
• Vista Lights – Group Show – Vista Studios – November 2013
• Big Paint Project – Jan-Feb 2014
• Volumes II – Women Bound by Art – group exhibition at The Curtis R. Harley Art Gallery- Spartanburg, SC, Jan – Feb 2014
• Artista Vista – Group Show – Vista Studios – April 2014
• Art Fields – Lake city – April 2014
• Big Paint Exhibition – Columbia College- August/October 2014
• One Columbia Public Art Installation – Sept 2014

James Busby

• James Busby, Figure 8, 701 Center for Contemporary Art, Columbia SC
• James Busby, New Paintings, Randall Scott Projects, Washington DC
• Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast, Kravets|Wehby Gallery, New York, NY
• Smoke & Mirrors, Randall Scott Projects, Washington D.C.

Kathleen Robbins, photographer

• Into the Flatland / Gandy Cultural Arts Center / University of Southern Mississippi / Long Beach MS (November 2013 – February 2014), University of Nebraska / Lincoln NE  (March – April 2014), Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art / Charleston SC (August – October 2014), University of Central Arkansas / Conway AR (September – October 2014),  Rebekah Jacob Gallery / Charleston SC (September – October 2014)
• The Kids are Alright: an exhibition about family and photography / Addison Gallery of American Art / Andover MA / (traveling exhibition) (September 2013 – January 2014)
• Photographers from the Permanent Collection, Ogden Museum of Southern Art / New Orleans LA /
• Somewhere in the South, Rebekah Jacob Gallery / Charleston SC  /
• CRITICAL MASS TOP 50: Color and Light, Southeast Museum of Photography / Daytona Beach FL /
• Sense of Place: Picturing West Greenville / Clemson University Center for Visual Arts – Greenville
• oxfordamerican.org, Borne, Eliza. “Interview: Kathleen Robbins on the landscape of the Delta,” oxfordamerican.org, September 19, 2014; Oxford American Magazine, Mar, Alex. “Issue 86: Sky Burial” Oxford American, Fall 2014; Oxford American Magazine, Brenner, Wendy. “Issue 82: Telegram” Oxford American, Fall 2013; Oxford American Magazine, Giraldi, William. Issue 84 / Oxford American, Spring 2014
• Lenscratch.com, Smithson, Aline. “Your Favorite Photographs of 2013 Exhibition”; Lenscratch.com, January 1, 2014 The Southern Photographer: Blog about Fine Art Photography in the American South
• Wall, John. “Kathleen Robbins at Rebekah Jacob Gallery” southernphotography.blogspot.com, August 12, 2014
• Artist Salon Series: Kathleen Robbins (October 2013) / Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC
• Visiting Artist Lecture / Workshops (April 2014) , University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
• Artist Lecture (August 2014) / Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC
• Gallery Talk (August 2014) / Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC
• Patron Party Artist’s Talk (May 2014) / Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC
• Panel Discussion: “Southern Photography” (March 2014) / Rebekah Jacob Gallery, Charleston, SC

Literary Arts

A

Alexis Stratton, writer

• Published prize-winning fiction chapbook “Fratricide” (Dec. 2013) (published by BLOOM)
• Awarded 2nd Prize in Blue Mesa Review Fiction Contest (and publication) for short story, “The Ambassador’s Wife” (Dec. 2013)
• Wrote and directed short film, “Crosswalk,” which received the Audience Award at the Second Act Film Festival (Oct. 2013)
• Short fiction published in A Sense of the Midlands, ellipsis… literature & art, Fall Lines: A Literary Convergence
• Proposed and led the Imagine If project at Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands, which was a collaborative, community-driven arts and anti-violence initiative asking community members to imagine a world without violence and show us what that world might look like through various arts media and genres. The project (which consisted of free monthly arts workshops at Tapp’s Arts Center and in community groups, an art exhibition in Tapp’s Arts Center in April 2014, and a kickoff event in April 2014 featuring musicians, spoken-word artists, dancers, and others) brought together local artists, musicians, activists, and others, connecting arts and community groups in the idea of envisioning a better world.

Julia Elliott, writer

• Book: The Wilds (short story collection) out with Tin House Book, Fall, 2014
• Book: The New and Improved Romie Futch (novel), Tin House Books, forthcoming
• The Wilds     receiving positive advance buzz,     including a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, “The     International News Magazine of Book Publishing and Bookselling”
• Published short story “The Love Machine” on Granta.com,     September, 2014
• Featured in “18 Short Story Writers on Why They Decided     to Write a Novel,” BuzzFeed Books, August 15, 2014
• Interviewed by New York Times Bestseller Jeff     Vandermeer in “Julia Elliott and Jeff Vandermeer in Conversation,” Tin House     Blog, September, 2014
• Published short story “Caveman Diet” in Tin House     61: Tribes, Fall 2014
• Published short story “Bride” in Conjunctions: 62:     Speaking Volumes, Fall 2014

Darien Cavanaugh, writer and editor

• Founding director of The Columbia Broadside Project which pairs artists and poets from Columbia and throughout SC to work together to create an original “broadside” painting/image comprised of an original work of art and an original poem. The 2014 Columbia Broadside Project exhibit featured work from 28 poets and artists and was held at the Tapp’s Arts Center in downtown Columbia from February 6th to February 28th.
• Named as the recipient of the 2014 Arts and Humanities Award for Inspiration from the Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington Counties for work on work on The Columbia Broadside Project.
• Founding co-editor of The Frank Martin Review, a print and online literary journal.
• Poems published or accepted for publication in A Sense of the Midlands (Muddy Ford Press), Blue Earth Review, Burningword, Drunk Monkeys, Found Anew (USC Press), Coe Review, The Gap-Toothed Madness, Grievances, I-70 Review, Juked, Kakalak, Main Street Rag, San Pedro River Review, See Spot Run, and Sou’wester in the past year.

Dance

Caroline Lewis-Jones

• Oct. 2013 Vista Unbound Zombie Bar Crawl
• Nov and Dec 2013 Unbound performed at 3 different Christmas Events downtown
• Unbound performed at the Charleston Dance Festival
• Traveled every weekend to a different part of the country to teach on the dance Convention, Adrenaline and to choreograph at various dance studios. Cities visited were Dallas, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Detroit, Oklahoma City, Atlanta, Charlotte, Columbia, St. Louis, New York City, Kansas City, Houston, Phoenix, San Francisco, and more
• Caroline was off from May till the end of August having her first baby

Katie Smoak

• Over the 2013-2014 season Katie retired from the Columbia City Ballet after 16 Professional seasons, and 26 consecutive years of performing with the company-from childhood through professional career.
• Katie started off as a Junior apprentice as an 11 year old, climbed the ranks through the Corps de ballet, then Soloist, and spent the last 4 years of her career as a Principal Dancer.  Never missed a Nutcracker in 26 years — Alice in Wonderland was her final performance.
• the longest standing company member (never out with an injury, never missed part of a season) of any dancer

Thaddeus Davis – Wideman/Davis Dance Co.

Information to come

After you view our finalists profiles, head over to the Jasper 2014 Artists of the Year Ballot and cast your vote.

The winners of Jasper 2014 Artists of the Year in Dance, Literary Arts, Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts will be announced on November 21, 2014 at the release of the November/December issue of Jasper at the Jasper Artists of the Year Celebration and Fundraiser at The Big Apple in Columbia, SC with a limited supply of tickets. Ticket info coming soon.