Last Day to Vote in ArtFields, Lake City, South Carolina

Today is the final chance to visit an extraordinary art exhibition and the last chance to vote for your favorite art work. I hope I’ll be able to vote from my cell phone like they said we could.

In yesterday’s post, I showcased my own difficult to find but still present drawing in Art Fields, Lake City, South Carolina. There are indeed many art works in the exhibition which are large, obvious, and accessible and others that are tucked away in the corners of shops that might be missed by those on a tight schedule. My favorite art works in this exhibition come from both categories. This venue is at times like attending a gallery or museum, and at other times like a treasure hunt.

In the spirit of the hunt, I noted a charming outdoor installation of tiny seated sculptural figures resting on a series of steps in a practically microcosmic alleyway - also perhaps constructed. Checking the Exhibition Catalogue it appears that it could have been Yelita Diaz’ "Small Beings in Evolution." Another outdoor installation that I did photograph reminded me of some of the German Expressionist stage set designs, with a graffitti style wall that could be espied through planks of rough hewn lumber nailed together to create an almost biomorphous environment. Created by an art team from Knoxville, TN. The sign I photographed for this is partially obscured, but the art work is here below:

Art Fields is a great showcase for installation art. Many contributing artists, aware of this emphasis, feature work that is composed of multiple images: a cohesive grouping of photographs, paintings, relief sculpture and drawings. An impressive example is Alicia Leeke’s Under the Microscope II. This work features sixteen digital media based images adapted from microscopic discoveries of the beauty that can emerge from the zooplankton and phytoplankton found in water samples. It is a kind of art work that seems to encourage selection. Which one is my favorite? This one? This one as well.

Tucked away in the corner of the same space that housed Under The Microscope is another work that invites scrutiny of a different kind, by video artist Margaret O’Hara. Her work, This in My Nowhere, elicits a disturbing feeling of what it means to be "less than." The woman in the video speaks of pain through small screens placed on the floor. One actually has to stoop down low to even see them.

There were singular works of art that left a lasting, glowing, visual impression. The first one was an impressive glass mosaic portrait by a mother/daughter artist team, Virgina and Sarah Haynes. "Dreamer" is composed of very tightly knit luminous tesserae and was a sheer joy to behold.

A wild boar with the moniker Uncle Bluegill, took center stage at the W.A. McClam Stables. Ross Turner’s tour de force work in plastics and shaped papers belies the solid weight of this giant pig on a bed mattress.

Jim Toub’s drawing, Mapping Invisible Cities, made me feel like I had a kindred spirit in an artist working on a modest scale in a meticulous way and influenced by quiet reading.

We only were able to see a small portion of this exhibition, but every moment was extraordinary.