We were happy to be invited to participate in the 1st Annual Collegiate Invitational Art Exhibition at the Spartanburg Public Library Headquarters. Six colleges and universities across the upstate region were invited to submit student art for this event. Each school selected 10 students and 2 faculty members to participate in the exhibit. For us that meant that each of our big areas could choose 2 students as representatives.
The opening reception and awards ceremony was held last Saturday and Jim, our department chair and I planned to attend. Since we love food, we decided we should make dinner a part of the event so we invited anyone interested to join us at Ike's Korner Grill for the best burger in Spartanburg. It's been a while since either of us have been to Ike's so Georgie and I were pretty surprised when we pulled into the empty parking lot and saw that they closed at 3:00 on Saturdays.
After a quick phone regrouping we changed our dinner destination to Venus Pie on Main Street. Two students, The Tav-manian Devil and The Cessquatch joined the three of us for pizza.
Danielle (Tav-manian Devil) and Brandy (Cessquatch) at Venus Pie
I knew it was going to be a good night when I ordered a single slice of pizza and they brought this monster out to the table. That is a regulation sized fork if you're wondering and I'd already devoured the rest of the triangle before snapping the photo. The "slice" was the size of a small pizza and there may have been a half pound of bacon on it. Good times.
Once we were all stuffed we headed a couple of streets down to the library and entered the cool shin-dig the library put on. Miranda did a great job with creating this event and putting on a great reception. There was a cellist, lots of food and tons of people. So many people that it was difficult to get photos of the work. I'm going to use that as my excuse for not having images of all the Lander students' work. That's Andrew's self portrait painting above.
And that's Andrew looking sharper than I've ever seen him. He's so dedicated that he drove from an event in Atlanta just to attend the reception. Our other painting student, Melanie Fennell was also there with her cool painting but I'm a slacker and missed that photo. Sorry.
Haley Brunhilda Floyd was also there. That's her awesome raku deer in the photo above.
And that's Megan's ceramic sculpture of a Mrs. Lettuce-Head.
That's Danielle Tav-manian Devil Tavernier with her cool steel sculpture. I'm realizing how bad it looks that I photographed all the sculptural pieces and missed all the others. Sorry y'all, I really do love 2D art too.
And there's Brandy Cessquatch Cessarich with her award winning steel sculpture "Abstract Abode". Award winning?....
Yes, award winning. Brandy won 2nd place in this exhibition for her sculpture and another Lander student Kelly Plemmons won 3rd place for her photograph "Ella Mae's Teardrop". If you're keeping score at home, that's 2 of the top 3 awards going to Lander students. I'm about as proud of them as I can be.
A group photo of the honorable mention, merit award and top winners. Cessquatch is in the center and Kelly is on the right.
Mariano was also there with his graphic design entry and Colleen came out to support everyone...which was really cool of her to do.
I will admit that my celebrating got a little out of hand afterwards. I had a Krispie Kreme doughnut AND a milkshake from Cookout. It was a good day to be a Bearcat.
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