Husked
By Terresa Haskew At just thirteen, Tommy Lett, in his pegged-leg jeans, called her beautiful, pulled her behind the kitchen door, face so close his freckles blurred. Breath nearly left when she smelled him, unfamilial and urgent, her heart flooding with blood – a diastolic drowning – as his tongue went into her mouth. Something fancy fluttered alive in the bottom of her belly and she wondered wildly if a kiss like this could make a baby. Though... Read More
Let’s Read and Talk!
By Belinda Gergel, City Council District 3 As Jasper readers well know, Columbia residents love to read! Indeed, this past year we joined cities like Seattle, Cambridge, Portland, and Berkeley on Amazon’s “20 Most Well Read Cities in America” coming in at #16 on the list! In an effort to capitalize on all that this love of reading might hold for our community, Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin and City Council, Richland County Council,... Read More
Grande Dames of the Ballet Boards – 10 Questions with the Ladies Lumpkin and Harris
By Cynthia Boiter The adage that behind every great man is a great woman has never been truer than when peering over the shoulders of the artistic directors of Columbia’s two top ballet companies, William Starrett of Columbia City Ballet and Radenko Pavlovich of Columbia Classical Ballet. Respectively, Coralee Harris and Lee Lumpkin have served for years as the backbones of the ballet companies they love, support, sponsor, and fight for. Sometimes... Read More
Wearable Art
By Kristine Hartvigsen With this article, Jasper introduces an occasional series on wearable art by Columbia-area artisans. This first in the series focuses on two local women who create hand-crafted art jewelry. The stunning, straight-talking redhead who manages the Museum Shop at the Columbia Museum of Art, Bohumila Augustinova is perhaps best known around local art circles as the talented designer who won the Columbia Design League’s annual... Read More
Candace Wiley
By Ed Madden Candace Wiley is just back from Pencil Shout, a small workshop in Kentucky with National Book Award poet Nikky Finney, and later this summer she leaves for Colombia, South America, as the recipient of a Fulbright creative writing fellowship. Jasper first noticed Wiley at last fall’s Bookin’ It on Main, a celebration of black writers at the Columbia Museum of Art. Wiley read poems included in Home Is Where, an anthology of African-American... Read More
Avery Delores Bateman
By Bonnie Boiter-Jolley From the moment Avery Delores Bateman stepped on stage during a high school production of Bye Bye Birdie, she was hooked. “I had to perform,” she quips. No stranger to performance, Bateman was often given small roles as a child in church plays authored by her mother, Rosalind Russell. “I was the child who had the epiphany,” she reminisces. Bateman, New York City bound this summer for the American Musical and Dramatic... Read More
Lindsay Wiggins
The artist Lindsay Wiggins could just as easily be found on Jasper’s Day Jobs page since, in addition to being an artist, she also works full time as a histologist – someone who studies the microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues in plants and animals. And that intimate knowledge of the infinitesimal is clearly evident when Wiggins, who is also a photographer, takes paintbrush in hand. “Some of the patterns and symbols in my work come from... Read More
Lucas Sams
There’s really nothing like young art. Be it raw and edgy, or crisp and clean, fresh art offered by fledgling artists, especially when the work is good, holds the promise of potential; the possibility of even better things to come. Jasper takes notice of new artists on the Columbia arts scene and strives to be sure everyone is aware of the energy their new art brings. This issue’s Newly Noticed Artist is Lucas Sams. A young artist exploring both... Read More
Rachel Borgman
There’s really nothing like young art. Be it raw and edgy, or crisp and clean, fresh art offered by fledgling artists, especially when the work is good, holds the promise of potential; the possibility of even better things to come. Jasper takes notice of new artists on the Columbia arts scene and strives to be sure everyone is aware of the energy their new art brings. Jasper’s first ever Newly Noticed Artist is Rachel Borgman, a 23-year-old senior... Read More
Service is the New Muse
By Michaela Pilar Brown There is a singular kind of magic that occurs when you witness someone being transformed by an experience with your art. It is a singular moment when you understand that you as an artist have the power to invoke meaningful change in the life of another. For most artists, choosing art as a career is a different kind of singularity. It is often a choice to live inside one’s own head, to spend endless hours alone with your materials... Read More
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