Beth Logan

Arts Southeast’s ON::View Artists-in-Residence Invite Participation By Beth Logan

The collections, exhibits, artists, and news to know in the Savannah art scene By Beth Logan

An innovative show presented by the five-member Art Quilters of the Lowcountry opens July 18 at the Coastal Discovery Museum in Bluffton, South Carolina, and it is both contemporary and refreshingly artistic.

My columns usually focus on the tangible arts of painting, fibers, photography, or ceramics though occasionally I’ve written about the work of authors, choirs, and theaters. This column focuses on the artistry of Michele Mikulec, an entrepreneur and floral designer I have long admired. Our mutual friend, realtor Shelley S. Smith, says, “Michele has been a self-sufficient business owner for the past 18 years, a one-woman show until recently. As a single mother she has managed to nurture and grow her business with her own unique style that marries floral design with pure art."

It’s time to get out your sequins and ruffles, tease out your hair (or freshen up that mullet), find that ruched dress, and insert those shoulder pads á la Joan Collins in Dynasty or Linda Gray in Dallas … Patty is turning 16 and you’re invited to an '80s prom in her honor.

A September 2023 New York Times Style Magazine article declared, “Fiber Art Is Finally Being Taken Seriously. Long caught in the liminal space between craft and something more prestigious, works of thread and fabric are reaching newfound institutional recognition.”

The dog days of summer. We are most definitely in them. The ‘dog star,’ or Sirius, is the brightest star in the Canis Major or Greater Dog constellation and it rises with the sun in late July to usher in the hottest and sultriest days of the year. Not so comfortable for sipping cocktails…unless it’s a low ABV concoction of Vermouth Blanc, Calabrian Clementine, fennel, and tonic.

Clayer & Co. pottery teaching space to debut Ology Gallery in Thunderbolt with "Yin Yang."

Fresh-faced, beautiful, and eight months pregnant, photographer Anna Ottum (b.1987) greets me in the sun-filled Baldwin Park home she shares with photographer husband, Parker Stewart. We are both struck by her soon-to-be newborn son’s parentage — she, the mother is a documentary photographer and Stewart, the father, is a landscaper photographer — just exactly as her parents were when she was born.

Found Anthologies is just totally unique, striking in its individuality and creativity. I can think of no other show like it. Simply not to be missed.