#artfields

Mural by Donald Walker

ArtFields Community Mural by Jessica Diaz, Morgan Funkhouser, Olivia Cramer, Sam Ogden

Today’s flashback is to 2021 and a trip to Lake City, South Carolina to check out ArtFields.  Started in 2013, the event is a wonderful example of how the arts can revitalize local economies.

So what is ArtFields? Every year for one week local businesses and galleries host works created by artists from the Southeastern United States for a competition with prizes totaling over $145,000. There are also two People’s Choice Awards which are determined by the attendees of the festival. The other awards are chosen by a panel of art professionals. Special events take place throughout the week and ArtFields Jr. offers a chance to see work by South Carolina students.

This year the event runs from April 25th to May 3rd, 2025. Even if you can’t make it, it’s worth taking a look here at this year’s artwork as well as from past years.

Below are a few selections from 2021-

Mural by Lance Turner

“From This Moment Forward” by Herman A. Keith Jr. inspired by Gee’s Bend Quilters

Partially finished mural by Broderick Flanigan honoring Lake City educators Elouise Cooper and Derrick Faison.

About 7 Red Wolves (above) from artist Joann Galarza Vega–

“There may be as few as only 7 red wolves remaining in the wild. These animals, like so many others, are disappearing in the shadows of our periphery. Their very existence depends on us, as did their extinction. Let us see them, acknowledge them, acknowledge that biodiversity and the balance of life matters. They are painted bright red in order to stand out and bring attention, no longer hidden away.”

Pictured above is The House on Church Street which in 2021 was used for several art installations including the two below.

The first is New Histories: The Gadsden Farm Project by Michael Austin Diaz and Holly Hanessian.

About the installation-

New Histories: The Gadsden Farm Project is a socially engaged art project that explores the new history of the Gadsden County, FL. Once a thriving agriculturally center, the county is now the poorest in the state of Florida and the only county with a majority African American population. Working with a team from the State of Florida Archives, we were able to build relationships with over a dozen small farmers trying to address the area’s status as an economic and food desert. These farmers included first generation immigrants, fourth generation shade tobacco farmers, livestock farmers, and organic vegetable growers. The project is presented here through a dining table installation. Embedded speakers play a series of interviews with participating farmers, and each farmer is represented through an individually designed ceramic dinner. The table is set with live plants, seed bombs, and alfalfa hay.

The installation below, All Too Brief, was created by Gainesville, Florida artist Cindy Steiler.

From the ArtFields website about the installation-

All Too Brief was inspired by the movement of time and the unconscious process where our present moment is being continuously converted to memory. The elements comprising All Too Brief include a series of scrolls of cyanotype photographs and repurposed textiles wound on antique industrial weaving bobbins. Each scroll has a WW2-era laundry pin embossed with a number that corresponds to the written narrative of the images and textiles it holds. This piece is my attempt to document and archive people, places, and fleeting moments I hold dear. This piece became even more meaningful to me this year. My studio assistant at the time this piece was created has since passed.

Finally- while in town it’s also worth checking out the Ronald E. McNair Life History Center and Memorial Park. The Lake City-born astronaut and physicist died tragically in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.

This mural was created by Lara Nguyen in 2016 for The Refinery in Asheville, North Carolina. The local artist and teacher’s design was chosen for the building by the Asheville Area Arts Council.

From a Mountain Xpress article about the work-

Bowerbirds and butterflies decorate the building’s facade. Nguyen considers the former “the artists of the bird world.” Each year, for up to six months, the male bowerbird will spend its days building arches made of straw. He will then gather brightly colored objects and place them outside the construction in order to attract mates.

“They perform,” says Nguyen. “They use the hole [of the arch] as a stage. … They’re also great mimickers and singers. I thought that was interesting. They’re like actors, performance artists, builders, makers, collectors, [and] in some way they’re painters. They pick certain colors and situate them.”

Nguyen saw the creature as a perfect symbol for The Refinery Creator Space. She lists off the various types of artists (painters, photographers, sculptors, filmmakers, fiber artists…), in addition to the art-based organizations (Asheville Darkroom, Asheville Makers, The Bright Angle, Local Cloth and Mechanical Eye Microcinema) that now call the space their home. She views her mural, with its bright colors and visual appeal, as a way to help facilitate traffic; a way to intrigue the public to step inside and support the arts.

More recently, Nguyen contributed work to the 2023 annual ArtFields event in Lake City, South Carolina. The two pieces are from her series “Letters to My Children”.

Her statement about these works-