USCTIMES
OCTOBER 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.9
ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE
Eat, Play, Lunch
Art & the City
Truth behind Fiction
Meet & Three takes to the stage, page 6
USC alumni make Main Street happen, page 10
Faculty and alumni discuss their new books, page 14
USC TIMES / STAFF
FROM THE EDITOR
USC Times is published 10 times a year for the faculty and staff of the University of South Carolina by the Office of Communications & Marketing. Managing editor Craig Brandhorst Designers Philip Caoile Michelle Hindle Riley Contributors Glenn Hare Thom Harman Chris Horn Page Ivey Liz McCarthy Steven Powell Photographers Kim Truett Circulation Carolyn Parks Printer USC Printing Services Campus correspondents Patti McGrath, Aiken Candace Brasseur, Beaufort Cortney Easterling, Greenville Shana Dry, Lancaster Jane Brewer, Salkehatchie Misty Hatfield, Sumter Annie Smith, Union Tammy Whaley, Upstate Jay Darby, Palmetto College Submissions Did you know you can submit photos, stories or ideas for future issues of USC Times? Share your story by emailing or calling Craig Brandhorst at craigb1@mailbox.sc.edu, 803-777-3681.
WHEREFORE ART?
Bad puns notwithstanding, it’s still a dumb question: Wherefore art? As in, why art? As in, why do we need it? Why do we want it? Why do we love it as much as we do? We must be kidding. A better question: Where would we be without it? Welcome to the 2014 fall arts issue, our tribute to the creative life at USC. With all the talent among our faculty, staff, students and alumni, trying to pull together anything even remotely close to a comprehensive arts issue is obviously a fool’s errand, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. As costume designer and new chair of USC’s theater department Lisa Martin-Stuart said during the first course of our latest Meet & Three, “For an artist, there’s nothing worse than a blank sheet of paper.” Well, we had 20 of them. So we filled them up with as much good stuff as we could fit. To start, how about a quick look behind the studio doors of McMaster College? That’s right, we dropped in on a few of our outstanding visual arts faculty, who let us snap some pictures and ask a couple questions for our photo essay “Work In Progress” (page 2). We couldn’t hit every discipline — students and faculty were busy everywhere we looked — but we got a good snapshot. In fact, we got several. Next, cross campus to Longstreet Theatre for a light lunch and some inspiring conversation with Martin-Stuart, music professor Jesse Jones and actor, director and alumnus Darion McCloud. “Eat, Play, Lunch,” our Meet & Three conversation on the nature of creativity and the artistic process, turned out even better than dessert, we think, and that’s saying something because that fruit tart we shared was remarkable (page 6). Then it’s off-campus to Main Street, where we caught up with a few ambitious USC alumni making a big difference in Columbia’s emerging downtown arts scene. After that, three of the Carolina community’s most talented creative writers, including two professors and one alumnus, provide the skinny on their new books, all of which are out now or coming out soon. “Art and the City” begins on page 10 and “Truth behind Fiction” on page 14. Finally, big thanks to the folks in USC’s theater department who let us host Meet & Three on the newly-built set for “Ajax in Iraq” (pictured on cover), which opens Oct. 3. Special props to technical director Andy Mills for quite literally getting us a table, and to assistant technical director for lighting and sound Christine Jacky, who helped set the mood. Lunch wouldn’t have been the same without them. Enter page right,
The University of South Carolina does not discriminate in educational or employment opportunities or decisions for qualified persons on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation or veteran status.
CRAIG BRANDHORST MANAGING EDITOR
VOL. 25, NO.9 1
TIMES FIVE
CHANGING PLANS
GOT A
GREAT
IDEA?
PROVE IT
USC’s startup business plan competition, The Proving Ground, returns this year with more prizes and opportunities for faculty, staff and recent alumni. Finalists in the 2014 competition will vie for $83,000 in cash prizes and support. Judges will look for ideas – big or small – that are innovative, scalable and have commercial viability. Participants have until Oct. 17 to submit a business concept. After that, The Proving Ground becomes a three-round, points-based competition. Eight finalists will make their big pitch Nov. 18 before judges and a live audience. For more information, visit: uscprovingground.com.
October marks the return of open enrollment for all university employees. Some key changes this year include increased copayments, annual deductibles and coinsurance maximums for the standard State Health Plan. Changes can be made to health plans, vision and life insurance plans, and health savings accounts. Changes in dental coverage cannot be made until October 2015. For details visit hr.sc.edu/ memos.html.
Bucking the trend Research funding and sponsored awards at USC continued its decade-long growth trend in fiscal year 2014, reaching $230.2 million. During his recent state of the university address, President Harris Pastides noted that the increase came despite federal sequestration, which reduced research dollars available nationwide. “Our faculty’s efforts have increased total research funding by 4.5 percent in the midst of an extremely competitive funding environment, which is a testament to their hard work, dedication and ongoing innovation,” Pastides said.
Times 10! Want to have USC Times delivered directly to your campus mailbox each month? In addition to our regular rack distribution, we’re now offering a free subscription service, and signing up couldn’t be easier. E-mail your name, department and building name to PARKSCD@mailbox.sc.edu, subject line SUBSCRIBE USC TIMES, and receive 10 issues a year for the low, low price of absolutely nothing. A new school year has begun — it’s time to get with the Times!
APPLICATION 101 Want to become a University 101 instructor? Applications are now being accepted from faculty and staff interested in fostering student success, development and the transition to college. Courses are team-taught by instructors from departments across the Columbia and system campuses. Graduate students and undergraduate peer leaders assist with instruction. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis; however, priority will be given to applications received before Oct. 31. Visit sc.edu/univ101/instructors for more information.
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POINT&CLICK
VOL. 25, NO.9 3
WORK IN PROGRESS Art happens every day. To prove it, USC Times wandered the halls of McMaster College on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday, peeked into a few studios and asked several art department faculty why they do what they do. We couldn’t capture everything, but what we did is worth the print.
PRINTMAKING STUDIO, ROOM 117 “ At USC, we teach all the major forms of printmaking, from the older traditions of relief, intaglio and lithography to the more contemporary processes of screen printing, photomechanical and digital printmaking,” says associate professor of art Mary Robinson. “It’s rewarding when I see a student put hours of care into carving a linoleum block or drawing on a lithographic stone and then successfully pull multiple prints and variations from those matrices.”
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FILM PROCESSING LAB, ROOM 207 “ When I look to my students to forecast the future of photography, I’m encouraged,” says associate professor of photography Kathleen Robbins. “As artists, they are creating work that is ambitious, inventive and thoughtful. Our students are collaborative and generous. They encourage one another both in and out of the classroom, often seeking collective exhibition and publication opportunities. These are exciting prospects for the future of the medium.”
3-D WORKSHOP, ROOM 101A Professor of sculpture Robert Lyon calls working with students the most rewarding aspect of his job. “Through my example I’m able to demonstrate, for the students who have the determination, that a career in art is a rich and possible one,” he says. “For all the others, I hope to show them art’s aesthetic relationships, pleasures and its unique link to our quality of life.”
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PAINTING STUDIO, ROOM 245 For instructor Pam Bowers, art is elemental. “Paint is one of the oldest mediums in the history of art, which is what I love about it,” she says. “I think its fascinating that one can work with the same iron oxide based pigments Paleolithic man used, while at the same time integrating contemporary digital means into one’s process. This breadth of experience gives young students of art such a wonderful sense of connection.”
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MEET&THREE
WHERE DOES CREATIVITY COME FROM? HOW DO WE HELP IT GROW? FOR INSPIRATION AND ADVICE WE INVITED A THEATRICAL COSTUME DESIGNER, AN ACTOR-DIRECTOR AND A COMPOSER-MUSICIAN TO…
EAT PLAY LUNCH BY GLENN HARE & CRAIG BRANDHORST
VOL. 25, NO.9 7
Table for four, Longstreet Theatre: stage created for “Ajax in Iraq” (opens Oct. 3); chairs to be featured in “Our Town” (opens Nov. 14)
In sports, home field advantage is real. When you’ve got 80,000 people who all want the same thing? That’s real. It makes things happen. Same thing onstage. When you get people together and it’s electric, that’s real.
This month’s three
JESSE JONES, assistant professor of
There’s a longstanding debate about the origins of creativity, whether it results somehow from divine inspiration or just from practice and hard work. What are your thoughts? LMS: There’s something inside all of us,
whether you’re an artist or not. If you haven’t been taught to paint or to act, that doesn’t mean you’re not an artist. It’s something about human nature, what separates us from other creatures. DM: I think, as artists, we claim creativity,
whereas the business sector or scientists kind of play with it. And sometimes it almost works against us — “Oh, she’s just a creative type.” People sometimes think of creativity as this lightning bolt that just strikes, but it’s something you work at. LMS: The other side is that sometimes people
think of the arts as elitist, and that, too, dismisses the idea that it belongs to everybody. JJ: I often say this to my students: Life comes
into being, you’re alive for a while, then you fade out and people are left only with a memory of you. Art is the same, except it can have new life. You finish a book and you can reread it. You can reenter that world. You can listen to a piece of music again and again, and it always comes back to life. I think the
impetus is to create something that crosses that boundary between your quotidian affairs and that sort of spiritual realm that defines you as a person. In his book “Outliers,” which is about creativity, Malcolm Gladwell refers to something he calls “the 10,000-hour rule,” that after a certain amount of practice, you reach some sort of mastery. Quantifying creativity may be difficult, but based on your experience, how much of your own creativity is impulse and how much is just pure hard work? JJ: First, you need to have the impulse,
but then you really need to practice at it. So often you’ll meet a person with this immense ability but no desire to work at it. That can be frustrating. On the other side, you can have someone who doesn’t have that much God-given talent, but they put hours and hours into something and become a much better artist. DM: I get seduced by a project, some spark
draws me in. After that is the practical — working on technique, rehearsing over and over and over. This is where the 10,000 hours come in. It’s hard to say exactly when it happens, but you get to a point where you’re freed up from technique and the real
composition in the USC School of Music, has had work commissioned and performed by leading ensembles from around the world. This fall, he received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and is now at work on a two-act opera based on the Jack London novel, “Martin Eden.”
DARION MCCLOUD, ’89 STUDIO ART, is an actor, director, storyteller, arts activist and educator based in Columbia. He is founder and creative director of the NiA Theatre Company and Story Squad, and is a company member of Trustus Theatre and the S.C. Shakespeare Company.
LISA MARTIN-STUART, assistant professor and chair of USC’s Department of Theatre and Dance, is a veteran costume designer with experience designing for both film and stage. She also serves as head of USC’s costume design program and mostly recently designed the costumes for “Ajax in Iraq,” which opens at Longstreet Oct. 3.
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DM: I have a 6-year-old, so there ain’t no
shrine! Just when you get to that place, here comes a Monster High doll bouncing off your head — followed by a 6-year-old screaming, “Daddy!” So it’s improv. DM: It doesn’t provide focus, but she’s
creativity starts. When you’re doing the work, you can fall out of love — “This is killing me!” “Why am I doing this?” — but then you hit the sweet spot, the light goes on, whatever. I always tell actors, “We’re going to get to a place where we hate each other, but if we get through that and stay focused, there’s good stuff on the other side.” That’s the process, and some people can’t deal with the process. JJ: Or they just get bored. LMS: Or they fall in love with the process,
which can also be a trap. Let’s talk about process. Do you have a ritual to get yourself into the creative zone? LMS: Designing for theater, the spark is
always the script, reading it and paying attention to what’s going on in my mind’s eye. And I love the research. But then comes the hard work: I have to draw an image out, budget it out, find all these things I’ll need. Sometimes, to get myself going, I surround myself in a little cocoon, a safe place with good lighting, nice music, a glass of wine. JJ: Wherever you work, make it a shrine.
I’ve got to be surrounded with things that are inspiring in different ways: religious icons, pictures of people. Yeats is one of my favorite poets, so I’ll read some of his poetry. I just surround myself with things I find inspiring. LMS: I have some sewing instruments that
belonged to my mom, so that’s in my space, the memory of her. I feel like she was my first teacher, so that helps.
definitely an inspiration. I do think space would be helpful, though. I don’t have a place to retreat and lock down, where it’s just me and the work. Before I had a child I used to just disappear sometimes, and I think that’s another part of the process. No matter how much you collaborate, no matter how important outside inspiration is, there comes a point where you need to be with yourself and sift through everything. JJ: That’s really important, especially in
an academic setting, which can be extremely rigorous. You have to produce a lot, and burnout is a serious issue. You need time to sharpen the ax, so to speak. We talk about retreating from the world, but at different points all three of you work closely with other artists. How do you negotiate your own creative impulses within the context of the collaborative process? LMS: It’s why I work in the performing arts.
My art only exists in relationship to a director, a lighting designer, a technician, an actor. Sometimes people ask, “Why didn’t you go into fashion design?” Well, one, because fashion design is a more solitary pursuit, and I love the collaborative process. I love that
One of the beauties of a liberal education is that it requires you to be curious about things that don’t immediately seem related to what you do. And to stay curious, by default, means you always need to work at it.
my idea inspires a director to tell an actor to do something that the lighting designer reacts to. It’s all of that and vice versa. I come to rehearsal, see something then run back to the shop — “Stop everything! We’ve got to do it differently!” Collaboration is the most exciting part of what I do. When you’re asked to interpret someone else’s vision, is that ever in any way limiting? LMS: Well, it is and isn’t. In theater, it all
goes back to the playwright’s vision. We’re all interpreting that. But really, there can almost be too many possibilities. It’s always, “OK, how can we reinterpret this?” Also — and Darion would know this, too — every group is going to make a project completely different. And every time a new audience comes in it’s a different performance. Everybody’s doing the exact same thing the same way, saying the same lines, but the vibe in the room is different and it becomes a different piece. JJ: I love finding these parallels between
disciplines. It’s the same in music. Although composition is a solitary endeavor, you’re collaborating with the people who interpret your work. Lisa mentioned seeing what the actors are doing and how that changes the way she thinks about what she’s doing. I wrote for the Julliard String Quartet last year. I poured myself into this piece, and I thought I knew what it was about. However, the musicians turned it into something way beyond what I ever could have imagined. It really changed the way I thought about
VOL. 25, NO.9 9
There’s nothing worse than a blank sheet of paper or seeing the script for the first time. And every project is a little bit different. “Ajax in Iraq” is a very dark, sad, wonderful piece that takes me to a certain place. That’s going to require a different process than, say, a commedia piece, where it’s going to be lively and fun.
the piece’s impact on the listener. That sort of thing needs to happen. If it’s just my idea then it’s limited by my limitations.
physically affect us, and to affect us as a group. It has this power to align people to a single purpose.
DM: There’s a reason there’s 7 billion of
Do you guys ever get stage fright?
us on the planet. We’re not meant to be alone. As a storyteller, I tell the audience, “We’re telling the story together, it’s part of a continuum.” The best moments happen when there’s an exchange. When I’m breathing in, you’re breathing out, when I breathe out, you breathe in. It’s like magic.
LMS: Opening night, yeah. Is everybody
LMS: It’s true. I’m always on the other side
of the lights, but it’s one of my favorite things to sit back and watch the audience react to something I’ve helped create or that my students have helped create. And I think this goes back to the very first question about where creativity comes from. That’s where we really see that it’s part of human nature. We crave the artistic world, the storytelling, the music, the visual. You even feel it in a museum when it’s just you and a few others — a kind of community. It’s a wonderful feeling. JJ: It’s interesting. There have been studies
done with string quartets and choirs where everyone has to breathe at the same time and be in tune with each other. What they’ve found is that the heartbeats start to synchronize. If you think of football, when someone fumbles, all 80,000 people gasp at once. I actually think art has a way to
ready? Is the audience going to like this? Will we have an audience tomorrow? There’s always that butterfly at the beginning. And I also get a different kind of anxiety: the deadline, the budget. But as I tell my students, that’s part of the process. The thing about the collaborative arts, though, is that you’ve got other people to help you. DM: The first thing I tell actors is, “Forgive
yourself. You’re not the first to make a mistake, you certainly won’t be the last, but if you trip and fall, there are people here to catch you.” Somebody told me once, and I’m paraphrasing, but he said, “A lot of times that trip and fall can be the best moment — because it forces you to be real.” When you’re unprepared, when you think you’ve cheated the process, when you think you’ve cheated yourself or the rest of the cast, that’s different. But you know if you’ve been running your lines, you’ve been studying your notes, you’ve been listening. You know. The times when I’ve been afraid are the times when I know I haven’t put in the work. So I tell people, “It’s okay to be nervous, but don’t be scared.” Nervous just means you care.
In terms of tapping into the creative impulse, what advice would you give others, including people outside the arts, or students, or your colleagues? LMS: My advice for students in any major
is to not be afraid to take those arts courses. That’s where you learn about your own creative process, about problem solving, about collaboration and teambuilding and working well with others. And that’s what employers are looking for. There are all kinds of articles suggesting that the MFA is the new MBA, that employers are looking for the artist’s mind. I’m not knocking business degrees at all — my husband has one — but there’s this push to get a degree just to get a job. Except the job is life. The best thing I ever did was find my way to a theater when I was in high school. That’s how I discovered who I am. DM: I go back to fear. As much as we think
we appreciate and laud creativity, a lot of times we don’t. Ten people see one thing and you see something different. To see that thing and express it takes a little courage. But again, it’s okay to be nervous, just don’t be scared. Got a taste for intelligent conversation? Want a free lunch for yourself and two colleagues? RSVP with your Meet & Three idea to craigb1@mailbox.sc.edu.
ART
& THE CITY
10 USCTIMES / OCTOBER 2014
YOU’VE PROBABLY NOTICED: COLUMBIA’S MAIN STREET IS UNDERGOING A RENAISSANCE. FROM THE ARRIVAL OF PRIVATE STUDENT HOUSING AT THE HUB TO NEW RESTAURANTS OPENING ONE AFTER ANOTHER, THERE’S A PALPABLE BUZZ DOWNTOWN. THIS REVITALIZATION MIGHT NOT HAVE HAPPENED, THOUGH, WERE IT NOT FOR THE PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN THE VARIOUS ARTS ORGANIZATIONS THAT CALL MAIN STREET HOME — AND THOSE ARTS ORGANIZATIONS MIGHT NOT BE THE ENGINES THEY ARE WERE IT NOT FOR THE USC ALUMNI HELPING TO LEAD THE WAY.
JOELLE RYAN-COOK, ‘91 ART HISTORY AND ENGLISH As deputy director of the Columbia Museum of Art, Joelle Ryan-Cook has a front-row seat for Main Street’s revival. She’s also been there from the beginning, having begun her career as a museum tour guide in 1993 while she was in graduate school and when the museum was on Senate Street. Five years later, when the museum relocated to the corner of Main and Hampton, downtown was still something of a 9 to 5 world: abuzz by day, ghost town after dark. “When we first moved to Main Street, we watched lawyers and bankers walk around during the day, during the week, and no one at night or on the weekends,” says Ryan-Cook. “In the last five years we’ve seen an incredible change.” Major exhibitions — including a 2012 Mark Rothko show curated by the museum, then sent on a nationwide tour — raised the bar for what the public can expect to see on the museum walls. Meanwhile, programs like the
quarterly Arts & Draughts block party attracted a younger, larger audience that now spills onto the plaza. “When we started Arts & Draughts in 2011, we hoped 250 people would come. Five hundred people came,” says Ryan-Cook. “The second one? Seven-hundred fifty people came. Each Arts & Draughts is now 900 to 1,200 people.” But the art museum hasn’t gone it alone. Ryan-Cook credits more than 100 partnerships, both large and small, for helping the museum achieve its goals. Those partnerships, in turn, have helped spur downtown’s recent growth. “People like Jay Matheson (Jam Room Festival) and myself have been around forever,” says Ryan-Cook. “But it’s great to watch somebody younger like Kristin Morris (The Nickelodeon, Girls Rock Columbia) come along and do amazing things. I think that kind of energy is exciting.”
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Photo courtesy of Isabel Cook
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MARK PLESSINGER, ’96 HOTEL, RESTAURANT AND TOURISM MANAGEMENT Several years after graduating from USC, while working in a boutique in Ohio that specializes in distinct, colorful, finely crafted eyeglass frames, Mark Plessinger came up with a plan. “That was the point at which I understood how my uniqueness and my creative bent can be a part of what I do on a daily basis,” he says. A return to Columbia in 2005 gave him the chance to live in a metropolitan area, stay close to his family, be a part of a vibrant arts scene and open his own high-end eyewear shop on Main Street: Frame of Mind. Plessinger noticed that Columbia’s arts scene had made great strides since he’d left. “I could feel the wave building,” he says, “and I wanted to be on the front edge of that wave. That’s what this store is all about: trying to be an agent of change.” His passion for the arts complements the boutique, which he considers a form of art in its own right. “So we started tying ourselves to the local scene by hosting art shows,” Plessinger explains.
KRISTIN MORRIS, ’05 MEDIA ARTS Whether trying to fill seats at an art house theater or helping start a nonprofit that empowers young girls through music education, Kristin Morris is all about building community. As the marketing manager for The Nickelodeon, Morris routinely partners with other Midlands nonprofits and businesses to help expand and improve the city’s arts offerings. It’s a full-time gig, but one she finds highly rewarding. “I feel like my position at Nickelodeon has been a dream job,” says Morris. “I like doing things that attract people not just to our films but also to our afterschool programs, summer camps and events like the Indie Grits Film Festival.” Morris has also carved out space in her own time to help launch and build the Columbia chapter of Girls Rock. The nonprofit music education program draws about 50 female volunteers who work with girls from ages 8 to 17, teaching them how to play traditional rock instruments — guitar, bass, drums and keyboard — write songs and perform on stage. Forty Midlands-area girls signed up for the program’s summer camp this year, more than doubling last year’s enrollment. “What we’re really trying to do is create a supportive environment in which these girls do something they’ve never done before — play in a band on stage, performing songs they’ve written themselves,” she says. “It’s empowering to be heard and to be supported. We think of it as a radically different way to instill self-confidence.”
That series of small art shows at his boutique morphed into a much-anticipated monthly event. First Thursday now spans six blocks and features all manner of artists, musicians and performers from Columbia and beyond. “Every day I’m kind of shocked at how deep our arts scene is,” Plessinger says, noting the scene’s continuing growth. “Everything adds up. You don’t have a brick wall overnight. Bricks are laid individually.” “I would never say that First Thursday is the cause of the recent surge in Columbia’s arts scene,” he adds, “but people seem to be an embracing what we have here.”
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Main Events:
OCTOBER
JAY MATHESON, ’82 MEDIA ARTS When the Columbia arts community needs help with anything related to live music, Jay Matheson gets a call. Matheson has been a staple in the local music scene for decades. That could mean running sound for the art museum’s Arts & Draughts series or recording a who’s who list of local and regional bands over the past 27 years at his Jam Room Recording Studio.
rockers The Hold Steady in its first year, and alt-country legends Son Volt the next, while also showcasing top-notch local talent like Can’t Kids and Josh Roberts & The Hinges. Holding the festival on Main Street, in the midst of a burgeoning downtown arts scene, was no accident. “I chose that part of town,” Matheson says, “because I wanted to bring people in to see what we had going on.”
He has seen firsthand Columbia’s arts scene grow over the years and watched it develop into a particularly vibrant community. “I didn’t start the movement,” he is quick to say. “I was just a part of it early on.”
Matheson had been working with so many people involved with Main Street’s resurgence and had been active in the community for so long that he felt he needed to take more of a leadership role in helping the scene grow.
A big part of that movement is Matheson’s own Jam Room Music Festival, begun in 2012 to mark the studio’s 25th anniversary. The free fall concert landed national acts like indie
“So now we’re helping to fit music with the visual arts and other things going on in Columbia,” he says. “We’re trying to serve the artistic core of the community.”
The next First Thursday event is Oct. 2, 6-10 p.m., on Main Street, between City Hall and the S.C. Statehouse, and will feature a wide array of arts-related programming. The third annual Jam Room Music Festival, featuring Superchunk, Southern Culture on the Skids and 10 other bands, will be held Oct. 11, noon-10 p.m., at Main and Hampton streets. Both events are free.
Down the road… The fall Arts & Draughts is Nov. 7 at the Columbia Museum of Art, 7-11 p.m. The Nickelodeon’s Indie Grits Film Festival is April 15-19, 2015. Contact the specific venues for more details.
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OFF THE SHELF
RUTH
BY CRAIG BRANDHORST
BEHIND FICTION
Our bookshelves overflow this fall with new fiction titles by USC faculty and alumni. Creative writing MFA alumnus Mark Powell’s fourth novel, “The Sheltering,” arrived in August via Story River Press, the new USC Press imprint edited by novelist Pat Conroy. Creative writing MFA director David Bajo’s third novel, “Mercy 6,” arrived in September. Finally, Women’s and Gender Studies assistant professor Julia Elliott’s debut short story collection, “The Wilds,” is scheduled to hit shelves Oct. 14. We asked all three authors for the who, what, when, where and, most importantly, the why behind their new books. Considering the nature of their craft, we even invited them to make stuff up, though we’re pretty sure none of them did.
MARK POWELL, ’01 MFA CREATIVE WRITING “The Sheltering” Story River Books, USC Press
Several years ago, I was sitting in the common room of a St. Augustine, Fla., bed-and-breakfast. It was very late, or perhaps very early, and slouched into one of the couches was a man deep in his cups. He was muttering semi-coherently, so my friend and I did the only reasonable thing: We sat down and attempted a conversation. Eventually, before he drifted into some deeper incoherence, it came out that he was a drone pilot. From a base in the United States, he flew a Predator drone over Afghanistan. He was clearly a troubled man, and walking out, my friend said something that sticks with me still. “I would hate,” he said, “to be privy to his inner life.” I thought about that comment for a long time. This man’s inner life: What would I find there? What would have brought him to this couch, drunk and troubled in equal parts? From that I began to create the character of Luther Redding and his wife, Pamela Redding, who are at the center of my fourth novel, “The Sheltering.” A commercial airline pilot, Luther and Pamela make and lose a small fortune in the casino that was the Florida real estate market. Eventually, Luther loses his job as well and turns a reserve commission into a full-time job flying a drone from MacDill AFB in Tampa. “The Sheltering” follows Luther and his family as their lives intertwine with that of another family, representing, I hope, the moral, economic and visceral, gut-level fallout from a decade of uncertain war.
VOL. 25, NO.9 15
DAVID BAJO, MFA DIRECTOR, CREATIVE WRITING “Mercy 6” Unbridled Books
“Mercy 6” is about an ER doctor in a Los Angeles hospital battling the very same contagion protocol she initiated. Acting on both instinct and expertise, Anna Mendenhall calls for containment after receiving four mysterious deaths during the final minutes of her shift. Almost immediately, she begains to second-guess her call. But it is too late. The controlling powers inside and outside Mercy General act on the premise of contagion, forcing Mendenhall to work covertly in order to uncover the real cause of death. It is a contemporary story exploring the current viral culture we live in, one in which information is validated more by swiftness than by truth. Mendenhall’s antagonists are not evil; they believe, or have convinced themselves, that they are helping the hospital, the city, the world. Operating on a slice of information, on unexamined appearances, they take control and use protocol to gain power. Mendenhall, perhaps too fierce in her professional pride and independence, draws on her experience as a trauma specialist and on her passion for “good medicine” to search for the right diagnosis and antidote. In this so-called Information Age, I think every thoughtful person goes through something like this, where one must weigh individual knowledge and experience against a superficially informed general consensus. I think we live in a time where even the individuality of our imagination is constantly threatened by political, cultural and communal forces. I wrote “Mercy 6” in order to play out that conflict. I used an ER doctor and a medical setting in Southern California because I come from a family of San Diego and Los Angeles physicians and nurses. My sister, Dr. Suzanne Town, has been an ER doctor for over 20 years. My father was a physician at Mercy Hospital for over 40 years. My brother, John, is an ER nurse. Three more of my siblings are physicians. Four others are nurses. A lot of family dinner conversation concerned unusual medical cases. As one of the younger kids, I was cast as listener and questioner. I suppose I was more interested in the human angle of those cases, those quirks in our nature that sometimes defy and warp medical precedence and diagnosis. My protagonist in “Mercy 6” wants medicine to be an exact science, to be fully guided by physiology, but she knows, from the stream of odd cases she has fielded in her ER, that human emotions and psychology almost always influence diagnosis and treatment.
JULIA ELLIOTT, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES, ENGLISH, EXTENDED UNIVERSITY “The Wilds” Tin House
Since my collection, “The Wilds,” includes 11 short stories published in literary journals between 2004 and 2014, it charts a decade’s worth of obsessions, genre-mixing experiments, fantastic and scientific speculation and linguistic revelry. While some of the more “Southern Gothic” stories take place in South Carolina, my home state, others explore more remote, even dystopian settings. My story “Rapture,” for example, describes a slumber party during which two middle-class Southern girls are unexpectedly transformed by the mystical ravings of their host’s evangelical grandmother, a woman who calls them “harlots,” compulsively eats candy while spouting lurid apocalyptic imagery and performs a miraculous feat of levitation (her harrowed buttocks hovering for a few seconds above a stained sofa cushion). Although my story “LIMBs” takes place in a South Carolina nursing home, the setting is vaguely futuristic, describing the effects of newfangled therapies on a disabled woman suffering from memory loss. As the cyborgian senior ambles around on robot legs and undergoes memory restoration procedures, her lost past slowly re-emerges. “Regeneration at Mukti” explores therapeutic transformation more elaborately, describing a Caribbean health spa that offers grotesque rejuvenating therapies, an absurd blend of cutting-edge medical and holistic procedures — youth-worshipping narcissism disguised as Zen-infused self-help. Through sci-fi, fairy tale, horror and dystopian tropes, these stories indulge my fascination with various forms of metamorphosis, uncanny encounters between the grotesque and the sublime, and the effects of technology on human and post-human bodies and minds. While I often indulge in language play and test the boundaries of genre, I try to adhere to classic tenets of storytelling and character development, keeping the reader earthbound with the familiar gravity of narrative.
16 USCTIMES / OCTOBER 2014
BREAKTHROUGH BREAKOUT ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
WHERE ARTS AND SCIENCE MIX BY STEVEN POWELL
Organic chemistry, quantitative analysis and materials science might seem pretty far removed from Rembrandt, Monet and Warhol. Alumna Samantha Skelton knew better, though, when she was sketching out a career plan at the South Carolina Honors College. Blending an art history major with a chemistry minor gave her the foundation she needed to make it in the field of art preservation, and now she’s getting paid to handle works by some of the finest painters in the world. Growing up, art was an important part of Skelton’s life, but being an artist is a pursuit she came to came to realize just wasn’t for her. “I enjoy drawing, and I have the technical skills to execute a copy of a painting,” she says, “but I don’t really have my own artistic vision, so I don’t create my own works.” After two years at Midlands Tech, Skelton transferred into USC’s Honors College through the Bridge Program. There, she learned about art conservation as a potential career. It seemed like the perfect fit, and she found an abundance of guidance. “Everyone was just so willing to help,” she says. “When people can tell you’re really passionate about something at USC, they really get on board and push you off the ledge and let you fly.” Skelton found she needed some coursework outside the confines of the fine arts to go further in the field. Preserving or restoring artwork is rooted in science, she says. “Paintings, for example, are particularly complicated,” she says. “There’s often textile as a support, then you have layers of chalk and glue, usually, as the base, and then the oil layers. You have to understand the chemistry of all of those very different types of materials and how they
age and how they react to things like temperature and humidity and moisture and solvents. There’s a lot of chemistry involved and a lot of materials science.” As a summer intern, Skelton even worked at the Library of Congress on a preservation project of an aural nature, helping implement a method devised by chemistry professor Stephen Morgan to rapidly assess the stability of historic reel-toreel audiotapes.
Having finished a master’s degree at Rhode Island, Skelton is now completing a fellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. She has already worked with pieces by 16th century Italian painter Domenico Tintoretto and Color Field painter Morris Louis, and those are just a couple of early strokes on the canvas of her career.
VOL. 25, NO.9 17
SYSTEMWIDE
Q&A
WITH TOPHER MARAFFI USC Beaufort media arts instructor Topher Maraffi specializes in 3D animation, character creation and performatology. In addition to his work as an artist and educator, he has written three technical books on the subject.
How did you first get interested in 3D animation?
Why the interest in performatology?
I got into computer graphics as a way to commercialize my fine arts skills after graduating with a bachelor’s of creative arts from UNC Charlotte in 1994. After working as a professional designer and animator in New York City, I became certified as a 3D animation trainer and began teaching. The three technical books I later wrote evolved from curriculum developed for classes in New York, San Francisco and Orlando.
Performatology is using computational methods to scientifically study the figurative arts, such as live performance and animation. Actors and animators create believable characters in media, but we don’t have a scientific model of what they actually do. Understanding the figure composition process has direct applications for improving virtual character aesthetics.
What’s been the biggest success of your career? Working and teaching in an interdisciplinary area that balances my personal and professional interests. I returned to school in 2008 to holistically balance the artistic and technical aspects of my life, which resulted in an MFA in digital arts and new media and a master’s of science in computer science from the University of California, Santa Cruz. These two areas intersect in the research and practice of media arts, which is what I’m here at USCB to teach.
What do you like about working at USCB? That it’s a small school with a big vision. With strong roots in traditional arts practices, we’re embracing a media arts initiative that has tremendous potential to expand the curriculum and student career opportunities. I’m currently teaching a new media arts class that focuses on computer animation. Next semester, we’re proposing to offer a class on video game design. This new focus is also facilitating relationships with computational science and with community organizations like the Beaufort Film Society.
AROUND THE SYSTEM USC Aiken English professor Tom Mack will receive the Governor’s Award in the Humanities this month. USC Beaufort will conduct its inaugural Gateway to Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Conference this month, showcasing graduate education opportunities available to students. USC Lancaster’s Lancers baseball team was an NJCAA Academic All-American team for the 2013-14 academic year and boasted the highest GPA in Region X.
USC Salkehatchie will recognize academic scholarship recipients at a banquet Oct. 6. BSN nursing students will be honored Oct. 8 at a stethoscope ceremony at Carolina Theatre. USC Sumter will showcase student achievements with Merit Pages, a social media and hometown news program that allows students to share academic and extracurricular successes with family and friends. USC Union reached record enrollment this fall with 681 total students.
USC Upstate received a five-year $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to invest in student engagement and advising success. USC School of Medicine Greenville first-year students will participate in the annual Emergency Medical Technician Operations Exercise this month. Partnering with local emergency and law enforcement agencies, the event gives students the opportunity to use their EMT training in response to two simulated disaster scenarios.
OVERHEARD @ UofSC
“The writer Thomas Merton observed that ‘Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.’ I believe that this is true. I am so grateful for the many artists among us who, through poetry, dance, music, theater and art, help us both find and lose ourselves. Your creativity feeds our intellectual spirit, and you are essential to our community. I thank each of you for the rich texture you bring to Carolina, and I look forward to another year of inspiration.” PRESIDENT HARRIS PASTIDES
State of the University address Sept. 4, 2014