News > ArtFields Visual Arts Festival a Success!

Painting the ArtFields Community Mural

This past weekend, I attended the inaugural ArtFields Festival in the small town of Lake City, SC. I must say “kudos” to the creators, organizers, and staff members for pulling off such a large festival for their first year!

ArtFields Community Mural Project

And an extra thumbs up to Erin Nathanson and Karen Fowler for doing such a stellar job of executing Darla Moore’s vision of completely transforming Lake City from a sleepy Southern town to a visual art fest for 10-days.

It was a quick 2-hour drive from Charleston and there were many Charleston folks there to see what all the excitement was about. The artwork was really top-notch, especially the three-dimensional pieces that were part of the juried show. I’m a big fan of sculpture and installation art so I tend to gravitate towards those, but the two-dimensional things were great as well. It got there just in time to hear paper installation artist Jocelyn Chateauvert give a lecture on the amazing and surprisingly versatile medium of paper.

Jocelyn Chateauvert's Tiny Town paper installation

She said you could most likely build a house with it! I want her to fill my office ceiling panels with paper lily pads, like those she did at MUSC. 🙂

My favorite pieces were in the Jones & Carter Building near the Bean Market and the Green (where they had live music). As soon as you walked in to the building where Jarod Charzewski’s installation of children’s toys, you were overwhelmed by the smell of plastic. This seemed to make a strong statement to me about the fact that these things would not easily decompose and would end up sitting in our landfills for years. Jonathan Brilliant’s coffee stir sticks creation was at The Hub and it was great to see children walking through it in amazement. The Mini Cine – a repurposed shipping container turned movie theatre – was an interesting addition by film-maker Justin Nathanson of The Cut Company.

Jonathan Brilliant's stir sticks art installation

Lots of great artsy folks were spotted: Mark Sloan of the Halsey Institute, local artist Colin Quashie, Mira Scott from Picture This! Gallery in Hilton Head, Charleston artist Karen Silvestro, Scott Watson from the City of Charleston’s Office of Cultural Affairs, famous artist Leo Twiggs, Anne-Trabue Watson from the City of North Charleston, art patrons Andrea Schenck and John Zinser, and so many others! The Royal Tinfoil and Rachel Kate were just a few of the bands that played music on the Green and got everyone dancing.

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Art Mag's Art Lovers are the Best Lovers t-shirts

Andy Natusch from Artisan Tees handled all the t-shirt and tote bag printing at the Screen Printing Cafe. Apparently, someone got offended by our “Art Lovers are the Best Lovers” logo. That made me giggle. Maybe she was bitter that she wasn’t married to an artist? 😉 I love the idea of using cotton t-shirt printing to create my own designs and logos, especially if I can make one as funny as that tee-shirt!

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Overall, I thought the 10-day festival was very well-executed for their first year! I do, however, think a few things could be improved upon as I think it’s difficult in this day and age to keep folks entertained with just visual arts alone. These days people want all kinds of stimulation and they want it immediate. I’d suggest condensing the venues to be a bit closer together so it feels more active; having a kids’ area for the children to play; more entertainment on the Green throughout the entire day; an area for artisan vendors; and since there are lots of farmers in the area, I think the addition of a Farmers’ Market would be wonderful.
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Check out the ArtFields site to see the 3 winners of the $100,000 of prize money and for more pictures!