Art Shares Spotlight At Event

January 13, 2008

By JOSEPH SITARZ
Index-Journal Features/Accent Editor

GREENWOOD, SC - There's usually more than meets the eye when looking at a painting or piece of art.  There's something that led to that particular moment captured on canvas.  And there's something that happens long after that instant is but a memory. 

There's more than meets the eye regarding the annual Greenwood Music Festival.  While the festival is about music, there's an art element that's featured prominently through Sunday here.

That's by design.

Festival founder and director Keith Jameson wanted to showcase an artist, so in its first year, he called on a former teacher to produce a print for the event.  Greenwood artist Ruth Martin used cotton in "Ready for the Pickin'."

This year's art by Jeffery Callaham is a "frozen image" of a slice of everyday life.  "Old Maid" features his grandmother playing a card game with children while the daily happenings go on around her. Callaham selected "Old Maid" because he wanted to pull from something offered during the festival.  The three American one-act operas are "A Hand of Bridge" by Samuel Barber, "A Game of Chance" by Seymour Barab and "Old Maid and the Thief" by Gian Carlo Menotti.

Jeffery Callaham

 "That was one within the opera theme that I was familiar with," Callaham said, noting he understands "The Old Maid and the Thief" involves a card game among three people or four people.  "Individuals are pulled out and then it goes back to the card game."

Greenwood Music Festival this year offers opera, chamber and choral music along with a children's performance.

Keith Jameson

The three American operas are short comedies and are 8 p.m. Thursday and Saturday at Greenwood Community Theatre on Main Street in Uptown Greenwood.  The operas star international sopranos Kathryn Cavenaugh and Martha Guth, mezzo-soprano Aidan Soder and baritone Marcus DeLoach.  Jameson is director and Lynn Baker is musical director. Tickets are $20.

At 7 p.m. Friday there is a chamber music concert by The Peachtree Consort, a woodwind quintet from Atlanta, at the Arts Center at the Federal Building. 

Tickets are $10.

At 4 p.m. Sunday Greenville Chorale Chamber Ensemble performs at the First Baptist Church on Grace Street in Greenwood.  Bringham L. Vick, Jr. is the ensemble's founder and conductor and Elizabeth Bennett is accompanist.  The ensemble will perform "Lord Nelson" Mass by Joseph Haydn and the music of PDQ Bach, including the oratorio Oedipus Tex.

Tickets are $10.

At 11 a.m. Thursday is the free event for children - and adults can attend too.  "The Three Little Pigs" will be performed by Opera for Kids:  FBN Productions from Columbia at the Arts Center.  Reservations are requested.  Call the Arts Center at (864) 388-7800 to make reservations.

"In my piece, I'm using kids.  Old Maid is such a universal game.  I reflected on the times when I played it.  I'd spend a lot of time at my grandmother's house playing.  It was quality time, it was good, clean fun," Callaham said.  "We were having a good time with cards."

"There's a bird in my piece.  In most of my pieces, you have to look at the details.  When you look at life, it's looking back at you.  Whatever is happening inside, the little bird is looking in at it and he's enjoying the game as much as they are, but he's missing out."

Callaham's work can be found in galleries in Greenwood, Abbeville, Edisto Island and Bluffton.

Beside the bird, Callaham said there's more to "Old Maid" than meets the eye.  There's a pot boiling on the stove in the background, and of course, there are the card players.

"In the piece, I'm the little boy who's beside the grandmother.  The identical brothers, in real life, are first cousins.  They are good at games.  The grandmother is the oldest person in the piece.  It's interesting to watch someone old playing with someone younger.  There are so many lessons to be learned."

The story continues beyond the captured image.

"Someone becomes upset because they're losing," Callaham said.  "There's always and underlying story."

Jameson selected Callaham as the second artist because he likes the Lincolnton, GA, born, McCormick raised artist's work.

"He came to the studio," said Callaham, who has a studio at the McCormick Arts Council Keturah (MACK) in McCormick.  "He told me, 'There are a lot of things here that I like."

Jameson offered Callaham the option to select something he already created or to craft something new.

"I decided to do something new.  I wanted to meet the challenge of pulling something out of the hat.  When someone comes in to you and asks you to create something, you didn't give them something you've already done.  You set aside time and reflect on what you want to do to make this a perfect piece for them."

Jameson liked what Callaham created.

"Yes, he was happy.  Just when I thought it couldn't get better, he said, 'How did you do this?'"

"I'm happy when the client is happy," said Callaham, who talked to Jameson about the art in June.  "At that point in time, it was what I expected.  When he first came and saw it, he was impressed.  It went with what he was trying to offer Greenwood.  When he saw it, it was like conformation of what I thought.  When that happens, wow."

Callaham was more than willing to work on a piece for the festival.

"I think I needed the challenge," he said.  "It's great to go the extra mile.  There's another dimension for that you didn't know you had.  It's something that had been lying dormant in you."

Callaham said Martin set the state for all the artists who follow her.

"Oh my goodness, the piece spoke volumes," said Callaham, who attended Bauder College of Fashion in Atlanta, completed his undergraduate education at Lander University and complete his masters in creative arts from Leslie University and earned his specialist in education degree from NOVA Southeastern University.

"It was a watercolor of some cotton.  It was almost a bouquet of cotton on the stalk.  When you think of cotton, you think of cotton fields.  When you looked close up at it, the color palette drew you to it."

She also helped dictate how the art should be presented.

About "Ready for the Pickin'," Martin wrote in last year's program, "I came to Greenwood to teach in 1950 in the hey-day of the cotton farmer and the cotton mills - the life blood of Greenwood.  The old Kinard cotton gin still stands near Ninety Six in Greenwood County.  It probably is the last one left in the state."

Callaham said, "I think what I gained from Miss Ruth was that it came from the heart.  That adds a whole nother dimension.  What Miss Ruth did with that cotton piece related to a lot of people.  Particularly, as Southerners, it's the fabric of our lives."

Callaham is pleased to have the music festival in Greenwood.

"I think the festival is wonderful.  It connects the community.  It opens its doors to opera, to theatre, and to the arts," Callaham said.

Tickets are available through the Arts Council of Greenwood County at the Arts Center at the Federal Building in Uptown Greenwood.  Tickets are also available at the Greenwood Chamber, Heritage Corridor Discovery Center in Edgefield and Savannah Lakes Village.

For more information about Greenwood Music Festival, visit www.greenwoodmusicfestival.org or call (864) 388-7800.

For more information about Callaham, visit www.jefferycallaham.com.