Through March 15th: FRAA Accepting Arts Awards Nominations

The Florence Regional Arts Alliance (FRAA) is currently accepting nominations for its 2014 Arts Awards.  For 2014, four awards will be presented.  More information about the awards can be found below.

The deadline for 2014 Arts Awards nominations is March 15, 2014.
Award nominations should be submitted by email to peedeearts@gmail.com.
An acceptable nomination will include the following:

Name of Nominee
Name of Nominator
Nominator's Contact Info
Reason for Nomination (approximately one paragraph)

You can now make your nominations online.  Click here to view the nomination form.

Below is information about each award.

John W. Baker Distinguished Service Award

The John W. Baker Distinguished Service Award recognizes an individual from Florence County who has significantly impacted the quality of life in our community through his/her activities, contributions, and/or accomplishments in the arts.  Any individual may be nominated with the exception of current members of the Florence Regional Arts Alliance Board of Directors or Staff.

The 2013 Baker Award recipient was Jane Madden.

Business & Arts Partnership Award

The Business and Arts Partnership Award recognizes a Florence County business for its vital commitment to the arts as evidence by operational and/or project support provided on a substantial and ongoing basis.

The 2013 Business & Arts Partnership Award winner was Honda of SC.

Outstanding Arts Organization Award

This award is presented annually to the Florence County arts organization that has a tremendous impact on the community.  This may be through programming, projects, resource development, advocacy or other innovation.  No organization may win this award twice in a four year period.

The 2013 Outstanding Arts Organization Award went to Florence Little Theatre.

The Greg Fry Arts Educator of the Year Award (new in 2014)

This award will be presented annually to an educator who either resides or works in Florence County.  Public and private schools educators are eligible for this award, as well as individuals in higher education and those who teach through registered 501(c)(3) arts organizations. 

For more information about the Florence Regional Arts Alliance's Awards Program, contact Bruce Douglas at peedeearts@gmail.com.  

Click below to watch the video announcement of the 2013 FRAA Arts Awards:

February 7th: You're Invited to the Opening of Adrian Rhodes' Exhibit in Lake City

From February 7th to March 14th, the Greater Lake City Artists' Guild and the Florence Regional Arts Alliance will bring you Passages, an exhibit of artwork by Adrian Rhodes, at the ArtFields Gallery in downtown Lake City. Passages will open with a reception on February 7th from 5:30 - 7:30pm. There is no admission fee and everyone is invited to attend. You won’t want to miss this dynamic mixed-media exhibit.

This exhibit is the third exhibit brought to the ArtFields Gallery through a partnership between the Greater Lake City Artists Guild and the Florence Regional Arts Alliance.  Last year, Patz & Dogs (featuring artists Patz Fowle and Heidi Bond) and The Great Harvest (photography by Benton Henry) were shown in the gallery.

Rhodes, who studied at the University of South Carolina and Winthrop University, has shown in various galleries throughout the Pee Dee and the Midlands, as well as at Spartanburg’s Carolina Gallery and Charlotte’s Rice Gallery (to name a few).  When asked about the type of work she'll be showing, Rhodes responded that visitors will see mixed media painting and collage rooted in printmaking.

Below is an excerpt from Rhodes’ artist statement:

‘I am interested in the act of making. Rather than expressing a preconceived idea or conveying a specific message, I find that meaning and purpose within the work comes from employing art making as a way to question. Through process the content is revealed to be dependent on the internal logic of the piece. The resulting composition bears many traces of how it was made. While you can see the effects of underlying colors and patterns showing through the topmost skin of paint, there are also the traces evident in the many layers, abrasions and seams within the composition. These tactile remnants of the piece’s foundation lie beneath the surface layer and bear witness to the history of the painting’s creation.’

Rhodes hails from Hartsville, SC, where she lives with her husband, Michael, and adorable daughter, Sophie.

The exhibit will remain on display through March 14th. The ArtFields Gallery's normal operating hours are 9am to 5pm Monday through Thursday and 9am to noon on Fridays. The gallery is located at 110 East Main Street in downtown Lake City.

For more information about the exhibit or the Greater Lake City Artists' Guild, contact Sandy Cook at greaterlakecityartistsguild@gmail.com. For more information about the Florence Regional Arts Alliance, contact Bruce Douglas at peedeearts@gmail.com.

Established in 1984, the Florence Regional Arts Alliance is a community-based non-profit organization that is committed to preserving, supporting, and promoting the Arts in Florence County. Additionally, FRAA strives to promote and strengthen the arts in the region through its online arts marketing initiative, Pee Dee Arts.

March 4th is FRAA's next Quarterly Grant Application Deadline

The Florence Regional Arts Alliance (FRAA) is currently accepting quarterly grant applications from artists, organizations, schools, and teachers for arts projects scheduled to begin July, August and September 2014.  Applications are due on or before 5pm on March 4th.  Applications sent by mail must be postmarked on or before March 4th.  

Applications can be obtained by contacting the Florence Regional Arts Alliance at peedeearts@gmail.com. Applicants may request up to $2,500.  Because application materials change from time to time, it is recommended that previous applicants request copies of the current materials.

All individuals applying for funding must reside in Florence County.  All organizations must be based in Florence County.  

Examples of funded project include: performances and readings, workshops, services to artists and arts-presenting organizations, exhibitions, artistic and managerial development and public festivals and events.

FRAA will not fund the following: deficits for completed or ongoing projects, tuition for academic study, contingency funds, the purchase of long-term rental equipment, capital improvements, interest on loans, fines, or litigation. 

FRAA's Grants Program is partially funded by South Carolina Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as from a generous contribution by the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina.  Additional funding is provided by Honda of South Carolina.  Since FRAA's Grants Program's inception in 1987, over $250,000 in financial support to individual artists, organizations, teachers, and schools has been awarded. 

Established in 1984, the Florence Regional Arts Alliance is a community-based non-profit organization that is committed to preserving, supporting, and promoting the Arts in Florence County.  Additionally, FRAA strives to promote and strengthen the arts in the region through its online arts marketing initiative, Pee Dee Arts.

October 23rd: Darby to be featured at Live @ Central

On October 23rd at 6:30pm, a great friend of FRAA, Betty Ann Darby, will present “Where did the names of the Florence Schools come from?” as part of Central United Methodist Church's hit series Live @ Central.  Please join us at Miss Darby's presentation.

Betty Ann remembers when Circle School became McKenzie School, when Florence Junior High School became Poyner Junior High School and she has many other anecdotes to share. A Florence native, Miss Darby taught in the Florence District I music system for 39 years and will help to fill in some blanks in what we don’t know about the Florence schools in the second half of the Twentieth Century! 

For the “Live @ Central” evening, the Program begins at 6:30. There is a dinner at 5:30pm. Cost is $5 for adults and $2 for children. 

Reservation for dinner at 843-662-3218.

Betty Ann Darby is the namesake of FRAA's annual scholarship program.  Click here for more information about that program.

November 15th is the next deadline for applications to FRAA's Grants Program

The Florence Regional Arts Alliance (FRAA) is currently accepting quarterly grant applications from artists, organizations, schools, and teachers for arts projects scheduled to begin April through June 2014.  Applications are due on or before 5pm on November 15th.  Applications sent by mail must be postmarked on or before November 15th.  

Applications can be obtained by contacting the Florence Regional Arts Alliance at peedeearts@gmail.com. Applicants may request up to $2,500.  For the upcoming deadline, FRAA will be awarding up to $10,000 to successful applicants.  Because application materials change from time to time, it is recommended that previous applicants request copies of the current materials.

All individuals applying for funding must reside in Florence County.  All organizations must be based in Florence County.  

Examples of funded project include: performances and readings, workshops, services to artists and arts-presenting organizations, exhibitions, artistic and managerial development and public festivals and events.

FRAA will not fund the following: deficits for completed or ongoing projects, tuition for academic study, contingency funds, the purchase of long-term rental equipment, capital improvements, interest on loans, fines, or litigation. 

FRAA's Grants Program is partially funded by South Carolina Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as from a generous contribution by the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina.  Additional funding is provided by Honda of South Carolina.  Since FRAA's Grants Program's inception in 1987, over $250,000 in financial support to individual artists, organizations, teachers, and schools has been awarded. 

Established in 1984, the Florence Regional Arts Alliance is a community-based non-profit organization that is committed to preserving, supporting, and promoting the Arts in Florence County.  Additionally, FRAA strives to promote and strengthen the arts in the region through its online arts marketing initiative, Pee Dee Arts.

Lake City's Jones-Carter Gallery to host W.H. Johnson Exhibit

A traveling exhibit of work by Florence’s own and one of America’s most powerful African-American painters William H. Johnson will visit the county for three months beginning in September, according to the Smithsonian Institution.

“William H. Johnson: An American Modern” is a traveling exhibit that features 20 pieces from the James E. Lewis Museum at Morgan State University. The work exhibits aspects of his career from post-impressionism and expressionism of the 1920s to his refined aesthetic in the 1940s through expressionist and vernacular landscapes, still life paintings and portraits that feature Johnson’s primitivism aesthetic within the context of modernism.

The work will be on display at the newly renovated Jones-Carter Gallery in Lake City from Sept. 21 to Dec. 29. Executive director of the Museum Society of Lake City Ray McBride, who oversees the gallery, said the exhibit was months in the making, but was confirmed last week per the facility being brought up to Smithsonian standards later this month by adding a fire suppression system and backup generator.

"It had been tentative that we could (get the exhibit) once we met requirements for the building,” McBride said. “We’ve reported hourly humidity for the past three months and progressed, bringing the building up to code with a timeline showing that we can meet the requirements.”

The $20,000 participation fee was covered by the museum. The Lake City Partnership Council will reportedly, through a grant, cover the gallery’s upfitting costs and for a conservator to unpack the exhibit, costs that McBride said will be worth it.

“This will possibly rival the numbers from ArtFields throughout the event,” McBride said. “It’s all about economic development and drawing people to Lake City.”

And with the largest exhibit of Johnson’s work on display in the state, interest is already mounting.

Born in Florence in 1901, Johnson moved to Harlem when he was 17, working odd jobs to save money to attend the National Academy of Design. Upon completion of school, Johnson’s teacher and mentor Charles Hawthorne helped Johnson study in France for three years; a transformational time for the young artist when he enhanced his painting style while studying European artists.

He returned to New York in 1929 and traveled to Denmark a year later where he married Danish artist Holcha Krake. He remained there, later moving to Norway, until returning to New York in 1938.

Johnson’s return marked a transition in his art, a transition where he began exploring the black experience, reminiscing of life in the rural south earlier in the century paired with upbeat ambiance of Harlem, according to Smithsonian American Art Museum chief curator Virginia Mecklenburg.

In 1941 Johnson had a solo exhibition, but a series of events over the next few years caused his decline including a studio fire and the death of his wife, pushing him back to South Carolina for support and then to Denmark where he was diagnosed with advanced syphilis. He returned to New York in 1947 where he remained in a hospital for 23 years until his death in 1970. He ceased painting in 1956.

More than 1,000 of Johnson’s artworks were saved from destruction by the Harmon Foundation and donated to what is now the Smithsonian American Art Museum under the terms that the Smithsonian donates artworks to several black colleges and universities.

The exhibit will open to the public on Sept. 21 during the South Carolina Tobacco Festival.

Article by Gavin Jackson; reposted from scnow.com.

Quarterly Grants Program Update

For the fiscal year 2013, the Florence Regional Arts Alliance awarded $11,750 in Quarterly Grants to Florence County artists and arts organizations.  In all 12 quarterly grants were awarded.  According to the final reports from awardees, the projects funded through FRAA's grants program reached nearly 7,000 people, including 1,772 youth.  

For the fiscal year 2014, the Florence Regional Arts Alliance has budgeted $19,000 to award to Florence County artists, non-profit organizations and teachers.  For more information about this program, click here.

FRAA's Quarterly Grants Program is made possible through funding from Honda of South Carolina and the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives funding from the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation of SC.