TECH
Join in on the Broken Record Podcast, exploring the music you love.
“Broken Record” is an editorial collaboration among producer Rick Rubin, writer Malcolm Gladwell and former New York Times editor Bruce Headlam. Listen as they talk about art, life, inspiration and craft.
A podcast for relentless creative types with accompanying narratives, a digression, an aside, a backstory and ultimately a conversation between the artist and the audience and the audience and the rest of the world.
Hot Off the Press
The World’s Largest Man
by Harrison Scott Key
Growing up in Mississippi, author Harrison Scott Key was raised around men who either shot things or got women pregnant.
At the center of his world was Key’s larger-than-life father—a hunter, a fighter, a football coach, “a man better suited to living in a remote frontier wilderness of the 19th century than contemporary America, with all its progressive ideas, and paved roads, and lack of armed duels.”
The fact that Key himself didn’t fit his father’s mold left him feeling disconnected, but that divide is bridged in his remarkable memoir that manages to be poignant and hilarious without getting sappy or overly sentimental.
Heartfelt and tirelessly humorous, “The World’s Largest Man” is an unforgettable memoir—the story of a boy’s struggle to reconcile himself with an impossibly outsized role model, a grown man’s reckoning with the father it took him a lifetime to understand.
Events
September 12, Art exhibit opening reception for women on paper
5-7 p.m. Sacred Heart Cultural Center
Women on Paper through October 31. Women on Paper is a group of professional women artists who nurture the creative urge in each other. Their paintings are of people and places, of gardens and interiors, of landscapes and flowers, still lifes and imaginings, light and shadow. They all work on paper with watercolor, oil, gouache, pastel, collage or mixed media. Their work weaves solitary studio work with paintings resulting from group sessions.
Keep Augusta Beautiful
EdKesha Anderson and the Keep Augusta Beautiful organization have been tasked with improving Augusta’s awareness around litter prevention, recycling, and beautification.
Established in 2018 by the Environmental Services Department of the City of Augusta, Keep Augusta Beautiful’s mission is literally in its name. If you are a community member who does not have a neighborhood association or simply want to share your ideas and concerns, you can contact Keep Augusta Beautiful at (706) 312-4125 or at [email protected]. Organizations can “Adopt A Spot” for periodic cleanups, volunteer for recycling drives and more.
GETAWAYS:
Lake City, S.C.
Voted USA Today’s 10 Best Reader’s Choice Award for Best Small Town Cultural Scene
For Lake City, a revitalized former tobacco town of around 7,000 people located 89 miles from Charleston, creating a community that values the arts, agriculture and horticulture in equal measures is important. With an ongoing spirit that encourages bringing artistry to the everyday, Lake City has topped the lists of best small town cultural scene.
What Lake City lacks in size, it makes up for with a big cultural punch – museums, art galleries, performing arts and a busy events calendar.
While walking through the downtown historic district, you’ll see eye-catching floral scapes made of native plants grown locally by professional horticulturalists, as well as colorful murals that express an artistic heart and soul.
Agriculture remains a staple of this community, but with a strengthened and enriched artistic vibe. Come experience the inspiring results of small town revitalization that beautifully blends agricultural roots with new growth in the arts.
What to Do
Moose Farms. Nestled among fields of corn and soybeans, this dynamic 65-acre garden is set in the rural Pee Dee region. Embracing its Southern pastoral setting through an informal yet expressive design scheme, the garden is a careful blend of exuberant plant displays, bounding meadows and enduring vistas of grey-green pines. This is a wildly beautiful, creative and soulful place, of both inspiration and comfort, where plants rule and there is a feeling of discovery.
Jones-Carter Art Gallery. A free, state-of-the-art exhibition gallery located in the heart of the downtown historic district that sits near contemporary gift shops, clothiers and restaurants. The gallery hosts several exhibitions of local, regional and national artists each year, as well as ArtFields, the annual, nine-day art competition, dubbed “The South’s Most Engaging Art Event.”
And Oct. 18-19 will bring Rhythm and Q’s, a BBQ and live music competition held in partnership with the South Carolina Barbecue Association. The event will award more than $45,000 in prize money to winners of both music and barbecue contests, and feature a country music headliner soon to be announced.
Where to Eat
Crossroads on Main. An upscale bistro style restaurant serving a regional type cuisine with a European twist. Utilizing high quality ingredients such as certified Angus beef, fresh seafood, farm-raised free-range chicken and an abundance of locally grown foods from the Pee Dee and surrounding areas. The scratch-based farm-to-table menu items are prepared to order in effort to achieve the highest level of flavors.
Faces:
Katie & Joseph Kameen
Box Truck Studio Projects
As part of the 2019 Westobou Sponsorships, Joseph Kameen created an anamorphic-projection painting and selfie booth inside of a 10-foot box truck.
Describing his project, Kameen says, “An anamorphic projection is an image that only resolves properly from a single viewpoint. In this case, that viewpoint is roughly eye-height from the ground in front of the truck.”
As viewers approach Kameen’s Box Truck Studio Project from the side, they will only see bright colors and abstract shapes. Once they reach the correct viewing angle, as designated by an “X” on the ground, the shapes resolve into a coherent image.
Attendees can explore how these shapes combine to create a single image and take a selfie of themselves inside the space of the painting.
As engaging and creative as this sounds, there’s even more to Westobou Festival this year as many individuals, groups and organizations were invited to submit proposals for sponsorships to Box Truck Studio Projects, Public & Performance Art Projects and the Special Programs Projects. Those chosen were sponsored up to $1,000 to implement their project.
Joseph and his wife, Katie, both submitted proposals and were each chosen to participate. Joseph and Katie received sponsorships to implement their own individual projects.
For Katie’s Box Truck Studio Project, she will open a space where visitors can interact with her artwork as well as create their own.
She says, “My work is a result of looking at old objects in new ways. I am interested in how everyday plastic objects can offer more uses than their intended functions. This space will be a great opportunity to share this process and concept with Westobou visitors.”
Inside of her truck, Katie will reflect the aesthetic of her art work with mid-century colors and furniture reminiscent of a candy shop or children’s museum. She says, “Inside of the shop, there will be colorful bins full of small, color-coordinated plastic objects. All these objects will be salvaged, either from newer product packaging or from discarded vintage objects. Each object will be fitted with one or more traditional button snaps allowing the objects to easily be attached or detached from each other like Legos.
Visitors, including children, will be encouraged to choose several objects, sit down at one of the tables and combine them into a one-of-a-kind project. Smaller works of mine, such as brooches and earrings, will be for sale behind the shop counter. I will be available behind the counter to speak with viewers, help in assembling pieces, and to answer questions about my process or where objects came from.”
Westobou will be held October 2-6. Over the course of five days, the festival will transform downtown Augusta into a vibrant, creative playground where friends, family, neighbors and visitors connect and celebrate infinite creative possibilities.
Article appears in the May 2021 issue of Augusta Magazine.
