Saturday, January 1, 2011

new carolina arts

If you've been in a gallery in NC, SC or GA in the last couple of decades, you've seen the Carolina Arts publication. This monthly paper provides information and listings for exhibits and shows in our region. Tom Starland, creator and sustainer of the paper has long been a cheerleader for the arts in the Carolinas and our red clay cousin to the west. He's also honest and funny and you can check out his relatively unfiltered thoughts by clicking on the Carolina Arts Unleashed blog link over to the right of this page.

Beginning this month you'll no longer see those stacks of Carolina Arts papers in the galleries. The past few years of tough times for the arts has put an end to Carolina Arts as we have known it.

The good news is that Carolina Arts will have a new life beginning today as an online entity. Sure you could read the paper online before but now since going completely online the paper will be in color and will be much more user friendly in a downloadable .pdf format. So while you cant fold it and tuck it under your arm or stash it in the little door pocket of your car, you can still take it with you on your laptop or phone.

I was initially bummed out by the news. But after giving it some thought I realized that it was not always easy to keep up with that physical copy. This is probably something I shouldn't say out loud, but I don't really get out to galleries on a regular basis. There's a great deal of truth in the "hermit" part of the title of this blog. Tom's big step into internet technology will allow me to continue my hermit ways without missing my local art news.

Carolina Arts has always been free and the new online version will continue this great deal. We should all know that there is still great expense involved and if we want to keep this arts resource available to us we need to make every effort to support the paper with mouse clicks. Go read the paper at www.CarolinaArts.com and then follow some links and make sure the advertising galleries know you're visiting their websites and reading about them in the online paper.


While you're at it, send Tom an email at info@carolinaarts.com and let him know how much you appreciate his hard work. Trust me, he's sacrificed a lot to help us out.



and.......a new drawing for the new year:


"Billy Believer" ink on wood panel, 24" x 24"


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