Collect Charleston. Root for reggae. And, above all, help your neighbor.
Maura's Three for the Week in Charleston, 9/30 - 10/6
This past week, Charleston eluded Helene sufficiently to be back in action by Friday, with the fall arts and culture season then returning in full swing. Among the feats of that quick shift was the phenomenal inaugural Food & Wine Classic Charleston, which transformed the spaces flanking the Charleston Area Convention & Visitors Bureau on Meeting Street into a bountiful Grand Tasting Pavilion—and fanned out to other locales and restaurants, too, for seminars, tastings, dinners, strolls and more.
The coming week continues with a host of meaningful events, too. At the same time, our thoughts are with our Southern neighbors who must now rebuild their own severely affected, culture-rich communities. Here are some ways to help them do so in Western North Carolina.
Have suggestions for other organizations and communities? Please leave them in the comments section on this post for all to see. Any Southerner worth his or her locally sourced sea salt knows that it takes a village, y’all.
Bid on Charleston works at Doyle’s first ‘Charleston Collects’ auction
Doyle’s Charleston Gallery, 123 King St. in downtown Charleston and live-streamed on Doyle.com, Tues., Oct. 1, 11 a.m.
Doyle’s inaugural Charleston Collects offers an exciting array of artwork, furniture, silver, decorative arts and jewelry from Southern collections and estates.
Among the highlights of the upcoming auction are two works by Charleston Renaissance artist Alice R. Huger Smith titled Wild Rice on the Savannah and Towers on the Scotch Church, Charleston. You’ll also find fine examples of Southern regional furniture and decorative arts via property from the collection of Joreen White Wenzl and Daniel Wenzl of Muscle Shoals, Alabama; a silver section with numerous flatware services, goblets and julep cups; and more than 40 lots of jewelry including diamonds, gold jewelry and signed pieces, as well as fine watches by Cartier, Ebel and other makers.
For more information, click here.
Explore your Roots Musik Karamu
Charleston Library Society, 164 King St., downtown Charleston, Tues., Oct. 1, 6 - 7 p.m.
One of my favorite local profiles in recent years sprung from an interview with radio host, producer and Lowcountry legend Osei Chandler of Roots Musik Karamu, the long running Caribbean music program on SC Public Radio—particularly after I discovered the poster of Peter Tosh tacked on my bedroom wall as a teenager was merch from a Charleston concert he had produced.
This Tuesday as part of the MOJA Festival, Chandler be in conversation with MOJA Arts Festival Director Charlton Singleton. The Brooklyn native will speak to his early experiences establishing his own roots in Charleston, the process of building his cornerstone radio program and his more than 30 years of creating opportunities to give back to his adopted Lowcountry community. Over the course of the conversation we will learn from his deep well of knowledge on reggae and roots and Afro pop, and perhaps even hear excerpts from his expansive music catalog.
For tickets and information, click here.
Artwalk over to ‘The Beast, the Beauty and the Buddha’
Corrigan Gallery, 38 Queen St., downtown Charleston; art walks is Fri., Oct. 4 , 5 - 8 p.m.
Artist and gallerist Lese Corrigan has returned to sculptural work, which comes together in a new installation titled The Beast, the Beauty and the Buddha that will be up in her gallery through the month of October. Plato looms largely with his Allegory of the Cave. The pygmy heads displayed years ago at the Charleston Museum and the history of the French Revolution’s penchant for putting guillotined heads on fence spikes left their impressions, too. The Buddhist monk who self-immolated in Saigon in 1963 emerges. Composed of recycled and natural materials, and devoid of plastics and machine or mold-made reproductions, each work is created in a back-to-basics method to underscore human foibles and imperfections.
The show runs from October 3 to October 30 with a public opening reception on October 4 as part of the Charleston Gallery Association Artwalk. For more information, visit corrigangallery.com.
Bonus: Help dream up Charleston’s ecological corridor
Cigar Factory, 701 East Bay St., second floor, downtown Charleston, Wed., Oct. 2, 3 - 5 p.m.
Join The M.A.R.S.H. Project and Clemson Design Center in Charleston for “Design Charrette: Ecological Corridor,” a community forum that is open to the public to to provide local input on what this corridor looks like for the environment and the community.
For more information on the M.A.R.S.H. Project, click here. For information on Clemson Design Center in Charleston, click here.
I don't live in Charleston but these culturesouth posts have been making me wish I did. They just keep getting better and better. Thank you!