Palmetto Portraits Project on display
In
its second year, the Palmetto Portraits Project, which depicts the
diversity of life across South Carolina, features six emerging and
noted photographers from each corner of the state.The photographers are: Nancy Marshall of McClellanville; Vennie Deas-Moore of Columbia; Milton Morris of Charleston; Sam Wang of Clemson; Caroline Jenkins of Greenwood; and Kathleen Robbins of Columbia.
A self-portrait by
Kathleen Robbins. The Palmetto Portraits Project Series II photographs are on display in the Student Education Center/Library until fall of 2008 when the third series will be exhibited. The first series of photographs are on permanent display in the Hollings Cancer Center.
The project partners include MUSC, the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, and the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia.
Bess Park of
Greenwood was photographed by artist Carolyn Jenkins.The current slate of photographers was selected by photographers from the Palmetto Protraits Project's inaugural year. MUSC and the selected photographers have broadened the impact of the project by donating an identical set of photographs to the permanent collection of the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia.
The Palmetto
Portraits Project Series II photographs are on display in the Student
Education Center/Library until 2008, when the third series will be
exhibited.The S.C. State Museum is planning to open a major exhibition in 2010 in the Lipscomb Art Gallery focusing on these art photographs donated to the museum by MUSC. This exhibition will provide the photographers, their subjects, museum guests and the people of South Carolina and beyond the opportunity to see this entire body of work, developed over five years within one gallery.
“When I first heard about the project from Leah Greenberg [wife of MUSC President Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D.], the first thing that came to mind was the Works Progress Administration’s Farm Security Administration photo project that started in the mid 1930s documenting individuals across the rural south in their environments where they worked, lived and played,” said Paul Matheny, curator of art at the South Carolina State Museum. “Today, as our landscape constantly changes, these new images of individuals by contemporary photographers maintain that historic significance and reflect that historic link, but expand broadly beyond that initial thought. These images are intimate snapshots of the people of South Carolina, across the state and in specific communities today.
The artists
Jenkins
A native South Carolinian, Jenkins received a bachelor of arts degree in dance theatre from The College of William and Mary in 1981. She subsequently moved to New York City where she was a professional actress for five years, and then on to Los Angeles where she worked in film, television and commercial production. While out West, she discovered her passion for photography and for finding ways to translate previously learned elements of movement, composition and light into her still images. Jenkins has worked as a full time corporate photographer and has freelanced from Key West, Fla., to New York. Jenkins lives in her hometown of Greenwood.
Robbins
Robbins is an assistant professor and head of the art studio area’s photography program at the University of South Carolina (USC). Her work has been widely exhibited including the 2006 Ping Yao International Photography Festival in Ping Yao, China. Her work is also included in several public and private collections including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. After receiving a master of fine arts degree (MFA) in 2001 from the University of New Mexico, she taught at Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss., before joining the USC faculty in 2003. She lives in Columbia.
Marshall
A native of Atlanta, Marshall taught photography at Emory University for 17 years. She received the National Endowment for the Arts/Nexus Artist Book Grant, the Southern Arts Foundation Fellowship for Photography, and was a fellow at the Ossabaw Island Genesis Project. Marshall received her MFA degree in photography from Georgia State University School of Art and Design in 1996. She has work in the collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Art. She resides in McClellanville.
Deas-Moore
When she first became a photographer/writer, Deas-Moore studied the 1930s photographers/writers Julia Peterkin, Zora Neale Hurston, Doris Ulmann, Dorothea Lange, and Walker Evans. Considered a documentary photographer, she was taken by the stories told in the faces of people in the era of the Great Depression. In her South Carolinian series Deas-Moore focuses on young people in downtown Columbia.
A research specialist in immunology at MUSC in the early 1980s, Deas-Moore left Charleston to attend George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She returned to South Carolina as a guest curator at McKissick Museum at USC where she became a folk-life photographer and writer. She has published numerous articles and books, notably, “Home: Portraits from the Carolina Coast.”
Wang
Wang was born in Beijing, China, and grew up in Hong Kong. He came to the United States after high school and attended Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D. After receiving an MFA in photography and a minor in painting from the University of Iowa, he joined the faculty at the School of Architecture at Clemson University in 1966. He taught graduate and undergraduate photography and computer art, and helped initiate the masters program that prepares students for the animation industry. He retired from Clemson in 2006 as an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Art.
Morris
After earning a degree in business from Clemson University, Morris spent a year in New York City working as a photographer’s assistant. When he returned to South Carolina, he started his own business photographing a variety of people and places for advertising and editorial clients. While most assignments require digital capture, Morris prefers to shoot large format film. He acquired a 40-year-old Deardorff 11x14 camera and had it fully restored. For the P2 project, all images were captured on 8x10 or 11x14 film using either the 11x14 Deardorff or a Horseman 8x10 view camera.
Friday, Dec. 7, 2007
Catalyst Online is published weekly,
updated
as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public
Relations
for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of
South
Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at
792-4107
or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to
Catalyst
Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to
catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island
Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.