RELIGIOUS ART | NEWS OF WEEK

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton

Verneida Iva Britton holds an ice cream cone as she celebrates her 80th birthday on Tybee Beach, Georgia. Photo by Debbie Caldwell-Britton-Crum-Smith

Eighty years ago this week, Ernest's mom was born, and what did she want to do to celebrate? She wanted to spend a week at Tybee Beach, Georgia, and that's where we took her! The Book of Ephesians 6:1-4 reminds us to "Honor your father and mother," and in January, we began giving her 12-months of birthday parties on the 7th day of each month. Celebrations have included a picnic along the Ohio River and a performance by the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre. Born on August 7, 1938, in Xenia, Ohio, today Ms. Verneida Iva Britton is a museum docent, a black art collector, and a writer, and she's our best news of the week!

Design for Charleston attack memorial draws on pain, strength and forgiveness

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Kevin Sack

Curving, high-backed benches and a fountain are features of the proposed memorial at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., seen in an artist’s rendering. Credit Dbox for The Mother Emanuel Nine Memorial/Handel Architects

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Three years after a racist blood bath in its fellowship hall — and 200 years after its defiant founding as one of the South’s first black congregations — Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., unveiled designs on Sunday for a contemplative memorial to the nine victims and five survivors of the horrific attack. As envisioned by the architect Michael Arad, who also designed the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, sections of the church’s parking lot would be transformed into two meditative spaces, one a stone memorial courtyard, the other a grassy survivors’ garden. Together they would speak to the suffering and resilience of a church that has outlasted two centuries of persecution through its practice of faith and forgiveness. The focal point of the memorial is a pair of sleekly curving high-backed pews, carved of white marble, that would welcome visitors from Calhoun Street like outstretched arms. [More]

South Carolina Baptists to remove their Jesus statue today for being ‘too Catholic'

THE STATE
By Noah Feit

In this 2007 file photo, Bert Baker, an amateur artist, had recently finished a 7-foot-tall sculpture of Christ at Red Bank Baptist Church. The piece, which also depicts multiple scenes from Christ's life, was installed on Easter Sunday. Gerry Melendez online@thestate.com

RED BANK, SC---Jesus Christ is being removed from a South Carolina church. A statue of Jesus Christ and accompanying artwork that has been displayed at Red Bank Baptist Church for more than a decade will be taken down by Thursday, according to church officials. The art will be removed because a majority of the congregation voted that the 7-foot-tall statue and sculpted reliefs were "causing some confusion." According to the church, many people think the sculptures are Catholic and not representative of a Baptist church. In the church's letter, it offered Baker the opportunity to remove the sculptures if he desired to keep them, adding: "The art needs to be removed by May 31, 2018." [More]

‘Spanish Colonial, Religious Art’ on exhibit in South Carolina

WOFFORD NEWS

Selected works from Robicsek collection to be shown through April 7

SPARTANBURG, SC–The arrival of the Spanish to the Americas from the 15th century through the 19th century introduced Spanish beliefs and traditions to the regions, creating a new artistic tradition that evolved with the convergence of cultures. This influence can be seen through selected works on exhibit at Wofford College, on loan from the collection of Dr. Francis and Mrs. Lilly Robicsek of Charlotte, N.C. The exhibition, “Spanish Colonial and Religious Art,” in the Richardson Family Art Museum in the Rosalind Sallenger Richardson Center for the Arts, “offers a unique opportunity to appreciate paintings, sculptures and silver pieces from three centuries (c. 1600-1800) of colonial Americas,” says Dr. Youmi Efurd, curator of the art museum. [More]

Controversial nude self-portraits inspired by Hindu religious art at Columbia Museum of Art

THE STATE
By Lezlie Patterson

“The Ajak Web Cycle” by Renee Cox, 2016. Mixed media; 46 inches by 46 inches by 5 inches. Columbia Museum of Art courtesy of the artist

COLUMBIA, SC---“Soul Culture” is not your grandmother’s art exhibit. The exhibition of Renee Cox’s work – considered controversial by some, boundary-breaking by others – open[ed] Friday, Dec. 15, at the Columbia Museum of Art. A guided tour will be 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17. The artwork in the exhibition deconstructs issues of race and gender using the body as central image to promote positivity and empowerment. Cox transforms her photographic portraits into hypnotic video and mandala-like reliefs influenced by Hindu and Buddhist religious art, the visual escapism of 1960s psychedelia, and the use of fractals in African culture. [More]

President, Barack Obama designates Baptist church as a national monument

HYPERALLERGIC
By Allison Meier

Stained glass window "Alabama Window" by artist John Petts in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, funded by the people of Wales as an in memoriam after the 1963 bombing (Spring 1963)

As he approached his last week as the US President, Barack Obama designated three national monuments that represent post-Civil War Reconstruction and Civil Rights heritage. Announced [last Friday], just ahead of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the new monuments include 19th-century architecture in Beaufort County, South Carolina; pivotal Civil Rights movement locales in Birmingham, Alabama; and places associated with the 1961 attack on the Freedom Riders in Anniston, Alabama. National monuments can be designated by the president through the Antiquities Act of 1906. [link]

Muslim woman says Trump backers are supporting 'hateful rhetoric'

RUETERS
By Karen Brooks

SOUTH CAROLINA---A U.S. Muslim woman who was ejected from a Donald Trump rally in South Carolina while engaging in a silent protest said on Saturday she wanted to make the Republican presidential candidate's backers recognize they are supporting "hateful rhetoric." Rose Hamid, a 56-year-old flight attendant from North Carolina, stood up silently in the stands directly behind Trump during Friday night's rally when the billionaire businessman suggested that refugees fleeing violence in Syria were affiliated with Islamic State militants. [link]

The incredible ways art is helping Charleston unite after church massacre

THE HUFFINGTON POST
By Kate Abbey-Lambertz

Jia Sung, a recent graduate of Rhode Island Institute of Design, said painting watercolors of each victim was her way of mourning.

SOUTH CAROLINA---In the week since the shootings, many other Charleston residents have expressed their emotions in powerful and creative ways, from thousands of people joining hands in a unity chain to making handmade signs honoring the victims. It was a clear choice, Enough Pie executive director Cathryn Zommer told The Huffington Post. “People use creativity to make sense of all of this. They use the arts to express these deep emotions of sorrow and pain and loss,” Zommer said. “The arts can do that. They can help us heal.” From designers and dancers in Charleston’s tight-knit creative community to musicians who live hundreds of miles away, artists have addressed the killings. Their work, below, shows how art helps us survive and strengthen amid tragedy. [link]

America is bringing down the old, and raising up freedom

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton

As the Confederate battle flag comes down, the Rainbow flag is rising. How do you feel after this week? Following the racist massacre in a South Carolina church, lawmakers throughout the south, as well as major retailers, have made quick plans to remove a racist symbol that represents a war to uphold slavery. Following yesterday's same-sex marriage ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, churches, lawmakers, and corporations are celebrating another milestone on the road to full equality in America. While these changes do anger and disturb some, progress has always had that impact, but  in our constant journey to form "a more perfect union" both instances are moments to celebrate.  So, bring down the old, and raise up the new!

How pastors are approaching Sunday services after Charleston shooting

ABC NEWS
By Meghan Keneally

Police tape surrounds the parking lot behind the AME Emanuel Church Friday as FBI forensic experts work the crime scene where nine people were murdered during bible study

Pastors at churches across the country are preparing for their Sunday services amid piqued security concerns after nine people were killed at a African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, this week. While one pastor at an AME church near Washington, D.C. told his congregation to close the doors on anyone who they did not know or could not provide identification, many leaders further south have chosen to embrace their longstanding acceptance of strangers. [link]

Artists Philip Davydov and Silouan Justiniano Revive Iconography

MOULTRIE NEWS

SOUTH CAROLINA---Interestingly, the “rediscovery” of medieval icons in the early 20th century had a profound influence on the development of early modern art. Orthodox Arts Journal, a member of the Charleston Regional Alliance for the Arts, and Holy Ascension Orthodox Church present “Living Tradition: Painting Sacred Icons in the 21st Century” on May 23 at 1 p.m. Two prominent artists, Philip Davydov and Silouan Justiniano, will present their work in an afternoon of talks and an exhibition of icons. [link]

South Carolina's McLeod Plantation Museum Tells the Story of the South

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Eve Kahn

Slave quarters at the McLeod Plantation, which has been turned into a museum on the outskirts of Charleston, S.C. Credit Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission

SOUTH CAROLINA---A new museum on the outskirts of Charleston, S.C., will focus on the lives of slaves owned by middle-class farmers. The McLeod Plantation, which opens to the public on Saturday, is set on 37 acres a few miles from a downtown wharf where newly arrived Africans were sold.  It went through a half-dozen owners before the Civil War, including several slave traders. The largely unfurnished buildings, Mr. Halifax said, are meant to encourage visitors “to have their own almost spiritual connection to the site, without it being cluttered by things.” [link]

Supreme Court Declines To Put Gay Marriage On Hold In South Carolina

THE HUFFINGTON POST
By Igor Bobic

SOUTH CAROLINA---The Supreme Court has declined to issue an emergency stay of same-sex marriages in South Carolina, according to WISTV. The ruling means marriage applications will be accepted at noon Thursday. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel ruled the state's ban on gay marriage as unconstitutional last week. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to issue stay on that ruling, prompting an appeal to the Supreme Court. A judge issued the first gay marriage licenses in the state on Wednesday. [link]

Federal Judge Affirms the Freedom to Marry in South Carolina

THE ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

SOUTH CAROLINA---Today U.S. District Judge Richard Mark Gergel ruled that denying marriage for same-sex couples in South Carolina is unconstitutional. The decision also cites a previous ruling from the U.S. Fourth Circuit of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over South Carolina. As of last month, a majority of Americans now live in a freedom to marry state. Once the pro-marriage rulings from the 4th, 7th, 9th, and 10th Circuits are fully implemented, same-sex couples will have the freedom to marry in 35 states plus the District of Columbia, representing nearly two-thirds of the American people. [link]

Alvin Staley's Exhibit, "Icons and Images: Christian Metaphors" Opens in North Charleston

TIMES AND DEMOCRAT

"Resurrection #2" by Alvin Staley

SOUTH CAROLINA---Paintings by Alvin Staley of Orangeburg, along with works in pyrography by North Charleston artist DeWayne Sykes, will be on exhibit through June 30 at the North Charleston City Gallery. The artists will hold a free public reception at the gallery from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, June 5. Staley will present a collection of work spanning 30 years in his exhibit “Icons and Images: Christian Metaphors.” The featured paintings focus on the artist’s Christian beliefs, concerns, doctrines and fascination with the souls of people. A number of the paintings contain personalized icons that signify Staley’s visual concept of Deity. His recurring use of floating monoliths, or icons, was originally inspired by a painting titled “La Chateau des Pyrenees” by the Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte. [link]

Message of Passover is One for All of Humanity: Jews, Blacks, Everyone

ISLAND PACKET
By Rabbi Brad Bloom

"The Captive Slave," by John Philip Simpson (1827) SUBMITTED PHOTO

SOUTH CAROLINA---I was strolling through The Art Institute of Chicago when I came across a painting from John Philip Simpson, an English artist, titled "The Captive Slave." Simpson painted it in 1827, and it portrays a black man wearing an orange shirt with shackles around his wrists. This painting was considered controversial at the time because of the national debate in England concerning the moral and political issues of slavery. This painting might have caught my attention because Passover is this week. The power of art is that it tells a story.  Slavery was, and is today, an abhorrent institution. Even though Passover is exclusively a Jewish holy day, it does possess a universal theme of freedom for humanity, which inspired writers and painters in history up through today. [link]

Shen Yun’s Compelling Story of China's Religious Oppression of the Falun Gong

THE STATE

By Greg Garrison

Shen Yun acrobatic dance is at the Koger Center 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday

SOUTH CAROLINA---Is it entertaining to mix Chinese art with religion and politics? Yes, when there is a compelling story behind the art. Shen Yun is advertised as a cultural spectacular, a celebration of 5,000 years of Chinese dance and music. I did not tell my wife the background of the religious group that puts on the show, but we were talking about it on the way out. You cannot walk away from Shen Yun without a mixture of marvel at the high level of dance, music and cultural celebration interspersed with alarm at the treatment of religious dissidents in China. Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa as it is also called, has continued to spread within China and throughout the world. [link]

Catholic Gift Stores See a (Papal) Bull Market

THE STATE

SOUTH CAROLINA---At the International Christian Retail Show in June, for example, attendance was down to 3,700 from a high of 15,000 in 1999. While sales were reportedly up from previous years, a growing number of stores had closed. Centuries ago, Roman Catholics helped kick-start the market for religious articles with their insatiable demand for rosaries, icons, prayer cards and all manner of devotional objects and spiritual souvenirs. But in recent decades, evangelical Protestants have dominated the art of religious retailing, building a national network of bookstores and stamping the Christian message on almost any item that an American consumer might want, from perfume to golf balls to flip-flops. Now, Catholic entrepreneurs are looking to catch up, and at the 17th annual Catholic Marketing Network trade show last week there was a sense that the Catholic sector has a new opportunity to expand — if businesses can update their approach and broaden their inventory beyond the usual catalog of sacred objects. [link]

Steven Naifeh's Large Scale Islamic Art Comes to South Carolina Art Museum

THE TIMES AND DEMOCRAT

Viewers at the Columbia Museum of Art. Courtesy of White Cubb Diaries.

SOUTH CAROLINA---The Columbia Museum of Art new exhibit by South Carolina-based artist Steven Naifeh will be on display May 18-Sept. 1 in the museum’s special exhibition galleries. The CMA has organized the first retrospective museum exhibition of Naifeh’s paintings and sculpture, titled “Found in Translation: The Art of Steven Naifeh.” The 26 large-scale works of modern art reflect the artist’s personal taste, preferences and attitudes about geometric abstraction that developed over the span of 40 years. For more information about the exhibit, visit columbiamuseum.org. [link]

INSPIRE ME! Artist, Chris Koelle

"signals of truth, beauty, and goodness"
~ CHRIS KOELLE

"Call His Name Immanuel"

By Ernest Disney-Britton

When I first encountered the work of South Carolina artist Chris Koelle on Twitter, I was stunned. It was a video promotion for his "Book of Job," and I cried. I didn't cry just upon one viewing, but upon repeated viewings before I could even share it with anyone else. His imagery drove a path into my soul, and cracked open a piece of me. I am better as a result. Soon afterward, I was smiling with admiration as I watched him creating in his studio/home. To this day, I feel blessed to have met Chris Koelle. I know you will enjoy meeting him too: Chris Koelle, INSPIRE ME! Artist of Month.