FRAA announces its 2013 Arts Awards

The Florence Regional Arts Alliance (FRAA) recently announced its 2013 Arts Awards recipients.  Among the winners were two local arts leaders, one arts organization and a global corporation.  “We’re very fortunate in Florence County to have more worthy candidates than awards to give away,” said Quincy Kennedy, President of FRAA.  “We feel like our Board did a great job in narrowing down the nominations we received from the community; it’s not an easy task though,” Kennedy remarked.  

Jane Madden, the engine behind the Art Trail Gallery’s quick and continued success, received the John W. Baker Distinguished Service Award.  Madden’s efforts over the last five years have been a major factor in the “people side” of Florence’s downtown revitalization.  “As improvements are continuously being made downtown, Jane is one of the main people promoting events and encouraging folks to visit our revitalized downtown,” said Kennedy.  

The Florence Little Theatre received the Outstanding Arts Organization Award from FRAA.  “Most people are aware of the great shows FLT produces.  Not everyone is aware of the outstanding programming they put on for young people and for lifelong learners through their Senior Readers Group.  The impact FLT has on Florence County is truly amazing,” said Bruce Douglas, Executive Director of FRAA.  

The Business & Arts Partnership Award recipient for 2013 is Honda of South Carolina.  Honda, which operates out of Timmonsville, supports several community-based programs, projects and events, both arts and non-arts-related.  “Honda’s continuous support of the arts, and the Arts Alliance, is why they are receiving this award,” said Kennedy.  Honda partners with FRAA to present the Excellence in Arts Education Awards to Florence County’s public high schools.  Honda also funds FRAA’s quarterly grants program, which disburses money to organizations, artists and teachers throughout Florence County.  

The inaugural Frank Crow Service Award winner is Bill Kress.  Kress, a long-time Florence Regional Arts Alliance board member, staff member and volunteer, worked with Frank Crow and was honored to receive the award. “This award means alot to me because it has Frank’s name on it,” said Kress.  Crow served as FRAA’s director from 2003-2012 before medical issues forced him into retirement.  The Crow Award will be presented annually to an FRAA board member, staff member or volunteer who has had a tremendous impact on the organization.  

In 2014, FRAA will add a fifth award to its lineup.  The Greg Fry Arts Educator of the Year Award will be presented in May of next year.  More information about the award will be announced soon.  

To honor the winners, FRAA produced a series of videos.  Visit floscarts.org or http://vimeo.com/channels/peedeearts to view the videos.

For more information about these awards or any other Florence Regional Arts Alliance program, contact Bruce Douglas at peedeearts@gmail.com.  

'Patz & Dogs' to open in Lake City on February 8th

(Homecoming by Heidi Bond)

In February, the Greater Lake City Artists' Guild and the Florence Regional Arts Alliance will partner to present Patz & Dogs at the ArtFields Gallery in downtown Lake City.  This dynamic exhibit, featuring the whimsical sculptures of Patz Fowle and dog paintings by Heidi Bond, will open with a reception on February 8th from 5:30 - 7:30pm.  Admission is free and everyone is invited to attend.

(Belly Button Pusher by Patz Fowle)

The exhibit will remain on display through March 15th.  The ArtFields Gallery's normal operating hours are 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday.  The gallery is located at 110 East Main Street in downtown Lake City.  

For more information about the exhibit or the Greater Lake City Artists' Guild, contact Sandy Cook at 803.435.3860 or greaterlakecityartistsguild@gmail.com.  For more information about the Florence Regional Arts Alliance, contact Bruce Douglas at 843.861.8316 or peedeearts@gmail.com.  

floscarts.org

Revisiting Tobacco Barns of the Pee Dee

Tobacco Barns of the Pee Dee, a photography exhibit that traveled through the Pee Dee in 2009, was created by Benton Henry, Dr. Wink Prince and Bruce Douglas.  This same trio came together again in 2012 to produce The Great Harvest: Remember Tobacco in the Pee Dee, a book about the region's tobacco culture.

With the recent release of The Great Harvest, now seems like the perfect time to revisit Tobacco Barns of the Pee Dee.  Below is the online version of the exhibit.  The photographs were taken by Benton Henry.  The text was written by Dr. Wink Prince.  The exhibit was curated by Bruce Douglas. 

Tobacco Barns of the Pee Dee

This is a two-store packhouse at sunset. After the cured tobacco was removed from the barn, it went to the packhouse for further processing and storage. Workers removed the leaves from the sticks, sorted them by color, and tied them into bundles called hands. The hands of tobacco were bulked together to await transport to market.

This tobacco barn is typical of curing barns built from the 1940s through the 1960s. Curing barns were usually constructed of homegrown lumber, covered with sheathing, and roofed with tin. The standard size was 20 square feet with five rooms of tier poles for hanging sticks of tobacco leaves.

In the 1970s, tobacco farmers began curing their crop in fuel-efficient, all-metal bulk barns. Traditional barns like this one fell into disrepair. No longer in use, owners have little incentive to invest in maintaining them. Hurricanes have taken their toll as well.

A barn full of leaf tobacco could be cured in four to five days using artificial heat. Bottom leaves, known as lugs, were cured first. The middle leaves, known as cutters, were next. The uppermost leaves, known as tips, were cured last. In the Pee Dee, the harvesting/curing season usually lasted from late June into August.

A stringing shed sheltered work outside the bar. Workers fastened green tobacco leaves to wooden sticks with cotton string. The sticks were hung above flues that ran along the floor of the barn. Early barns heated with brick furnaces were fueled with wood cut from the owner's forest. in the late 1950s, kerosene and propane gas replaced wood as curing fuels.

The rustic character of the lumber on this barn testifies to its origins. These boards were likely sawn from pines that grew on this farm. The remnants of the pine forest can be seen in the in the distance. The stringing shed has been removed from this barn.

This interior view shows the beams that hled the tobacco sticks in the barn. In the bottom right, you can see the sticks that the leaves were strung on. The round metal objects are burners. In this case, propane ws used to create heat for curing. Earlier barns would have used wood fires.

In the 1950s and 1960s, one curing barn was needed for every six acres of tobacco. Approximately 90 percent of the weight of green tobacco was lost in curing. One acre yielded about 2000 pounds of cured leaf.

A few curing barns were built of concrete blocks. The insulating characteristtics of blocks saved fuel and justified their higher cost. Some block built barns have been converted to other uses. Others will stand as permanent reminders of the past.

This multi-purpose barn served as a tobacco packhouse, stable, and storage shed. Cured tobacco was kept upstairs, while horses and mules were kept downstairs. Eventually, tracotrs and implements replaced the draft animals. The truck is a Chevrolet, circa 1950.

A dilapidated tobacco barn sits abandoned and surrounded by cotton, where tobacco once grew. As tobacco farming has declined, cotton has regained popularity. This scene has become commonplace on many Pee Dee farms.

The sun rises on a former tobacco field. This well preserved curing barn bears witness to a past way of life in the Pee Dee. Fewer than ten percent of tobacco barns survive today. Many of those that have are in poor condition. Only a handful are being preserved as heritage assets.

December 7th: The Great Harvest Author Event at Burry Bookstore in Hartsville

The Great Harvest: Remembering Tobacco in the Pee Dee is a recently released book by Dr. Eldred "Wink" Prince of Coastal Carolina and photographer Benton Henry of Latta.  On December 7th from 4-6pm, Prince and Henry will be at Hartsville's Burry Bookstore signing books and talking about the Pee Dee's tobacco history and culture.  

The story of The Great Harvest making it to print started in 2008, when Prince and Henry were introduced by Bruce Douglas, who was serving as the Executive Director of Black Creek Arts Council at the time.  "Wink is widely-known as an authority on tobacco history; he did write 'the book' on it (Long Green: The Rise and Fall of Tobacco in South Carolina).  I was aware of a collection of tobacco barn photographs by Benton held by the South Carolina Tobacco Trail.  It just made sense to connect the two," said Douglas.  And that's just what he did.

The trio's first project resulted in the traveling photography exhibit, Tobacco Barns of the Pee Dee.  The exhibit traveled from Hartsville to Conway, with a few stops in-between.  "The number of people who came out to each of the openings for the photography exhibit is really what inspired the book," notes Douglas.   

Douglas, Henry and Prince hope to see the same outpouring for The Great Harvest.  Their stop at Burry Bookstore on December 7th will be the first of many across the region.  Stop in and enjoy their talk and reminisce about our shared past in tobacco culture.  The book will retail for $25.  

Burry Bookstore is located at 130 West Carolina Avenue in downtown Hartsville.

The Great Harvest's production was supplemented by a generous grant for design from the South Carolina Arts Commission.  Chesterfield-native Nathan Gulledge designed the layout of the book. 

About the Book:

For much of the twentieth century, flue-cured tobacco culture dominated the Pee Dee economy. On farms throughout the region, families labored to plant, cultivate, harvest, cure, and ready the crop for market. In the market towns of Mullins, Lake City, Darlington, Timmonsville, Conway, and Loris, warehousemen turned the crop into cash. Between 1988 and 1993, faculty and students-mostly from Coker College-conducted interviews among Pee Dee tobacco growers and warehousemen. Many subjects had been involved in tobacco culture throughout their lives and spoke knowledgeably of producing and marketing the crop. Their stories are here, woven into an engaging and highly readable narrative. The brilliant photographs of Benton Henry, shot on the country roads and city streets of the Pee Dee, provide a poignant visual commentary on the agrarian architecture of another time.

"Benton sees and shows us the beauty of this world in a most singular way." -Sam Abell, Photographer, National Geographic.

"Studies based on memory can be fraught with inaccuracies, but not so with this textural and photographic study of the Pee Dee tobacco culture by Eldred Prince and Benton Henry. They have provided a valuable-indeed indispensable-account of tobacco culture in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. Based on oral histories and evocative images, this study arouses sensory details of sight and smell and sound. With a deft hand, Prince places the daily lives of the Pee Dee community within the larger regional discourse on tobacco's role in the culture. And Henry's eloquent and sometimes haunting images are essays in themselves. The result is an extraordinary contribution to historical understanding and photographic art." - Orville Vernon Burton of Clemson University.

South Carolina native Benton Henry makes his living as a commercial photographer, working throughout the Southeast for both individual companies and advertising agencies. Passionate about his career of nearly four decades, Henry finds personal satisfaction with each assignment and especially "feels God's pleasure" as he sees and captures the beauty of modest places that most people miss. His editorial work has been used to illustrate over 400 articles and his fine art photography has been displayed in museums and private collections throughout the region. Henry currently serves on the board of the American Society of Media Photographers of South Carolina. He lives in his hometown of Latta with his wife, Tina, and their daughter, Elizabeth. 

Eldred E. "Wink" Prince Jr. is a Professor of History and Director of the Waccamaw Center for Cultural and Historical Studies at Coastal Carolina University. Prince received his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina and joined the CCU faculty in 1987. His publications include Long Green: The Rise and Fall of Tobacco in South Carolina, and, as co-­author,South Carolina: Then and Now (2002) and Tobacco in History and Culture (2005). Prince was an Associate Editor of The South Carolina Encyclopedia. He and his wife Sallye reside in Conway and Surfside.

Bruce Douglas is the Executive Director of the Florence Regional Arts Alliance and coordinator of Pee Dee Arts, an online arts marketing vehicle for Chesterfield, Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Lee, Marion, Marlboro and Williamsburg Counties. Douglas received an MA in Museum Studies from Newcastle University in 2005. He serves on the Board of Directors for the South Carolina Arts Alliance and works to promote artists in the region through two guilds, the Artisans of the South Carolina Cotton Trail and Artisans of the South Carolina Tobacco Trail. In addition to being a constant advocate for business and arts partnerships, Douglas works for Duke Energy as a Continuous Business Excellence Leader. He lives in Hartsville with his wife, Brianna, and children, McKendrie and Lila.

Books by Local Authors Make Great Holiday Gifts

Two recently released books by Pee Dee authors will make great Christmas gifts this holiday season.  The Great Harvest: Remember Tobacco in the Pee Dee and The Legend of Ayame are available at the Art Trail Gallery in downtown Florence and Burry Bookstore in downtown Hartsville.  

About the Books:

The Great Harvest: Remembering Tobacco in the Pee Dee
Benton Henry, Dr. Wink Prince & Bruce Douglas

For much of the twentieth century, flue-cured tobacco culture dominated the Pee Dee economy. On farms throughout the region, families labored to plant, cultivate, harvest, cure, and ready the crop for market. In the market towns of Mullins, Lake City, Darlington, Timmonsville, Conway, and Loris, warehousemen turned the crop into cash. Between 1988 and 1993, faculty and students-mostly from Coker College-conducted interviews among Pee Dee tobacco growers and warehousemen. Many subjects had been involved in tobacco culture throughout their lives and spoke knowledgeably of producing and marketing the crop. Their stories are here, woven into an engaging and highly readable narrative. The brilliant photographs of Benton Henry, shot on the country roads and city streets of the Pee Dee, provide a poignant visual commentary on the agrarian architecture of another time.

The Great Harvest retails for $25.

The Legend of Ayame
Dr. Shawn Lay

The Legend of Ayame is a beautiful fairy tale about the power of love, kindness, and tolerance. It makes extensive use of Japanese themes and features 16 original color illustrations. Written and illustrated by Dr. Shawn Lay, a professor of history at Coker College, the book sold out its first printing in less than a month and has received many favorable reviews. It would make an ideal holiday gift for those looking for something truly special to read.

The Legend of Ayame retails for $6. 

The Art Trail Gallery is located at 185 West Evans Street in downtown Florence.  Burry Bookstore is located at 130 West Carolina Avenue in downtown Hartsville.  For more information about either of these books, contact Bruce Douglas at peedeearts@gmail.com or 843.861.8316.

December 7th: The Great Harvest Author Event at Burry Bookstore in Hartsville

The Great Harvest: Remembering Tobacco in the Pee Dee is a recently released book by Dr. Eldred "Wink" Prince of Coastal Carolina and photographer Benton Henry of Latta.  On December 7th from 4-6pm, Prince and Henry will be at Hartsville's Burry Bookstore signing books and talking about the Pee Dee's tobacco history and culture.  

The story of The Great Harvest making it to print started in 2008, when Prince and Henry were introduced by Bruce Douglas, who was serving as the Executive Director of Black Creek Arts Council at the time.  "Wink is widely-known as an authority on tobacco history; he did write 'the book' on it (Long Green: The Rise and Fall of Tobacco in South Carolina).  I was aware of a collection of tobacco barn photographs by Benton held by the South Carolina Tobacco Trail.  It just made sense to connect the two," said Douglas.  And that's just what he did.

The trio's first project resulted in the traveling photography exhibit, Tobacco Barns of the Pee Dee.  The exhibit traveled from Hartsville to Conway, with a few stops in-between.  "The number of people who came out to each of the openings for the photography exhibit is really what inspired the book," notes Douglas.   

Douglas, Henry and Prince hope to see the same outpouring for The Great Harvest.  Their stop at Burry Bookstore on December 7th will be the first of many across the region.  Stop in and enjoy their talk and reminisce about our shared past in tobacco culture.  The book will retail for $25.  

Burry Bookstore is located at 130 West Carolina Avenue in downtown Hartsville.

The Great Harvest's production was supplemented by a generous grant for design from the South Carolina Arts Commission.  Chesterfield-native Nathan Gulledge designed the layout of the book. 

About the Book:

For much of the twentieth century, flue-cured tobacco culture dominated the Pee Dee economy. On farms throughout the region, families labored to plant, cultivate, harvest, cure, and ready the crop for market. In the market towns of Mullins, Lake City, Darlington, Timmonsville, Conway, and Loris, warehousemen turned the crop into cash. Between 1988 and 1993, faculty and students-mostly from Coker College-conducted interviews among Pee Dee tobacco growers and warehousemen. Many subjects had been involved in tobacco culture throughout their lives and spoke knowledgeably of producing and marketing the crop. Their stories are here, woven into an engaging and highly readable narrative. The brilliant photographs of Benton Henry, shot on the country roads and city streets of the Pee Dee, provide a poignant visual commentary on the agrarian architecture of another time.

"Benton sees and shows us the beauty of this world in a most singular way." -Sam Abell, Photographer, National Geographic.

"Studies based on memory can be fraught with inaccuracies, but not so with this textural and photographic study of the Pee Dee tobacco culture by Eldred Prince and Benton Henry. They have provided a valuable-indeed indispensable-account of tobacco culture in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. Based on oral histories and evocative images, this study arouses sensory details of sight and smell and sound. With a deft hand, Prince places the daily lives of the Pee Dee community within the larger regional discourse on tobacco's role in the culture. And Henry's eloquent and sometimes haunting images are essays in themselves. The result is an extraordinary contribution to historical understanding and photographic art." - Orville Vernon Burton of Clemson University.

South Carolina native Benton Henry makes his living as a commercial photographer, working throughout the Southeast for both individual companies and advertising agencies. Passionate about his career of nearly four decades, Henry finds personal satisfaction with each assignment and especially "feels God's pleasure" as he sees and captures the beauty of modest places that most people miss. His editorial work has been used to illustrate over 400 articles and his fine art photography has been displayed in museums and private collections throughout the region. Henry currently serves on the board of the American Society of Media Photographers of South Carolina. He lives in his hometown of Latta with his wife, Tina, and their daughter, Elizabeth. 

Eldred E. "Wink" Prince Jr. is a Professor of History and Director of the Waccamaw Center for Cultural and Historical Studies at Coastal Carolina University. Prince received his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina and joined the CCU faculty in 1987. His publications include Long Green: The Rise and Fall of Tobacco in South Carolina, and, as co-­author, South Carolina: Then and Now (2002) and Tobacco in History and Culture (2005). Prince was an Associate Editor of The South Carolina Encyclopedia. He and his wife Sallye reside in Conway and Surfside.

Bruce Douglas is the Executive Director of the Florence Regional Arts Alliance and coordinator of Pee Dee Arts, an online arts marketing vehicle for Chesterfield, Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Lee, Marion, Marlboro and Williamsburg Counties. Douglas received an MA in Museum Studies from Newcastle University in 2005. He serves on the Board of Directors for the South Carolina Arts Alliance and works to promote artists in the region through two guilds, the Artisans of the South Carolina Cotton Trail and Artisans of the South Carolina Tobacco Trail. In addition to being a constant advocate for business and arts partnerships, Douglas works for Duke Energy as a Continuous Business Excellence Leader. He lives in Hartsville with his wife, Brianna, and children, McKendrie and Lila.

December 7th: The Great Harvest Book Signing at Burry Bookstore

Benton Henry and Dr. Wink Prince will be signing copies of their recently released book, The Great Harvest: Remembering Tobacco in the Pee Dee, at Burry Bookstore in downtown Hartsville on December 7th from 4-6pm.  Prince and Henry will give a series of short talks on tobacco culture and tobacco farming in the Pee Dee.  

Everyone is invited to the event to hear from Henry and Prince and reminisce about our region's tobacco history.  The book is priced at $35.

Joining Henry and Prince in this project are the book's editor, Bruce Douglas, and designer, Nate Gulledge.  

Burry Bookstore is located at 130 West Carolina Avenue in downtown Hartsville.

About The Great Harvest:

For much of the twentieth century, flue-cured tobacco culture dominated the Pee Dee economy. On farms throughout the region, families labored to plant, cultivate, harvest, cure, and ready the crop for market. In the market towns of Mullins, Lake City, Darlington, Timmonsville, Conway, and Loris, warehousemen turned the crop into cash. Between 1988 and 1993, faculty and students—mostly from Coker College—conducted interviews among Pee Dee tobacco growers and warehousemen. Many subjects had been involved in tobacco culture throughout their lives and spoke knowledgeably of producing and marketing the crop. Their stories are here, woven into an engaging and highly readable narrative. The brilliant photographs of Benton Henry, shot on the country roads and city streets of the Pee Dee, provide a poignant visual commentary on the agrarian architecture of another time.

“Benton sees and shows us the beauty of this world in a most singular way.” 

 - Sam Abell, Photographer, National Geographic

“Studies based on memory can be fraught with inaccuracies, but not so with this textural and photographic study of the Pee Dee tobacco culture by Eldred Prince and Benton Henry. They have provided a valuable—indeed indispensable—account of tobacco culture in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. Based on oral histories and evocative images, this study arouses sensory details of sight and smell and sound. With a deft hand, Prince places the daily lives of the Pee Dee community within the larger regional discourse on tobacco’s role in the culture. And Henry’s eloquent and sometimes haunting images are essays in themselves. The result is an extraordinary contribution to historical understanding and photographic art.”

 - Orville Vernon Burton of Clemson University

For more information, contact Bruce Douglas at peedeearts@gmail.com. 

Coming Soon: The Great Harvest

Coming soon:  The Great Harvest: Remember Tobacco in the Pee Dee, a book written by Dr. Eldred 'Wink" Prince of Conway with photography by Benton Henry of Latta.  The book was edited by Bruce Douglas of Hartsville and designed by Nathan Gulledge, a native of Chesterfield. 

The book is scheduled for release in November 2012.

Pee Dee Arts will update its blog with purchasing

 information as soon as those details are available.

Four New Board Members Join the Florence Regional Arts Alliance

L to R: Jade Perkins, Shaw Thompson, 

Larry Anderson, Hilton Howe Cooper

FRAA Board Welcomes Four New Directors

Quincy Kennedy, President of the Florence Regional Arts Alliance (FRAA), recently announced the addition of four new members to the FRAA Board of Directors.  Jade Perkins, Hilton Howe Cooper, Larry Anderson, and Shaw Thompson attended their first Board Meeting on July 24^th. 

“This group of new board members comes to us an exciting time.  The arts are thriving in our County and region.  They’re going to help us keep that momentum going,” said Kennedy.    

Jade Perkins is the Content Producer for the Florence Convention & Visitors Bureau.   A native of Ohio, Perkins also has experience in broadcast journalism.  Currently, she resides in Florence.

Hilton Howe Cooper of Scranton currently is employed by DHEC.  She became involved with FRAA through her connection with the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. 

Larry Anderson is Chair of the Art Department at Francis Marion University.  In addition to serving on the FRAA Board, Anderson serves on the Board of Directors for the South Carolina Arts Alliance.  He has a long history of involvement with the arts in Florence County. 

Shaw Thompson, an active member of the Florence Little Theatre and the Masterworks Choir, is also new to the FRAA Board.  A native of Florence, Thompson is employed at Shaw Lumber Company and serves as an adjunct faculty member at FMU.

FRAA Board Members serve three-year terms and may serve up to two terms before rotating off. 

Established in 1984, the Florence Regional Arts Alliance is a community-based non-profit organization that is committed to preserving, supporting, and promoting the Arts in Florence County.  Additionally, FRAA strives to promote and strengthen the arts in the region through its online arts marketing initiative, Pee Dee Arts. 

For more information about FRAA, visit their website: peedeearts.org.     

Kennedy replaces Parham as Florence Regional Arts Alliance President

Quincy Kennedy of Hilliard Lyons was recently voted in as the President of the Florence Regional Arts Alliance (FRAA).  Kennedy will replace U.S. District Attorney Brad Parham, who will serve as an ex-officio to the FRAA Board of Directors. 

“Brad’s leadership was instrumental during a huge transitional period for the organization.  We’ve moved our offices and had a change in Executive Directors.  Brad helped make those transitions seamless,” said FRAA director Bruce Douglas. 

Quincy Kennedy & Bruce Douglas

Kennedy, who has served on the FRAA Board since 2008, is looking forward to assuming his role as President of FRAA. “This is an exciting time to be involved in the arts in Florence County.  With all that’s happening in downtown Florence and the incredible things taking place in Lake City, the arts in Florence County are thriving.” 

Established in 1984, the Florence Regional Arts Alliance is a community-based non-profit organization that is committed to preserving, supporting, and promoting the Arts in Florence County.  Additionally, FRAA strives to promote and strengthen the arts in the region through its online arts marketing initiative, Pee Dee Arts. 

For more information about FRAA, visit their website: peedeearts.org.       

Regional Artisans' Group Sets August 6th As Application Deadline

The Artisans of the South Carolina Cotton Trail have set August 6^th as the deadline for their next round of applications for inclusion into the five-county guild. Currently, 32 artists make up the group’s roster. In that group are painters, potters, photographers, collage artists, soap-makers, jewelry-makers, glass artists and a weaver.

“We are hoping to attract members in all media, as well as add to the great list of painters and photographers that we already work with,” said Beth Wicker, who serves as the Chair of the group’s Standards Committee. "New members will see a benefit (of joining the guild) immediately. We have a group exhibitions lined up in Florence for September and at the Aiken Center for the Arts in October," noted Bruce Douglas, ASCCT's President.

Artists and artisans from Darlington, Chesterfield, Lee, Marlboro, and Florence counties are eligible for inclusion into the group. Artists whose work is considered “of the area” or cotton-related can also apply to be in ASCCT.

All potential members are selected through a two-part jury process to ensure their craft is of a good standard. For the first stage, works will be reviewed by e-mailed jpeg photographs. Artists can submit five jpeg photos of their work to peedeearts@gmail.com (please include contact info) to initiate the process. These photos will then be distributed to the jury. Those meeting basic standards will be asked to present their work in person for the final jury stage. This will take place at the Art Trail Gallery in downtown Florence on August 17^th. 

Accepted media for jurying are: clay, drawing, fiber glass, jewelry, leather, metal, mixed media, natural materials, painting, paper, photography, sculpture, handmade books, and wood. Specialty foods made in the area will also be considered for jurying. The following forms of production are prohibited: crafts produced from commercial kits; commercial patterns, molds and forms; any item violating copyrights; plants (except Bonsai), polished rocks, decoupage and similar items; hobby crafts, shell crafts, country crafts, decal crafts, silk or dried floral arrangements, mass-produced items, commercial re-sales. No work made from commercial stencils or prefabricated forms. No copies of masters, advertisements or widely distributed photos. Work produced in a class or workshop is not eligible to be juried or shown.

Applications for Membership can be obtained by emailing Bruce Douglas at peedeearts@gmail.com. 

The mission of the Artisans of the South Carolina Cotton Trail is to bring together artists, artisans, and retailers for the benefits of marketing, tourism, education, and shared resources.

The Artisans of the South Carolina Cotton Trail promotes the tradition of fine visual arts and fine crafts. It serves the professional artists, craftspeople and retailers of the South Carolina Cotton Trail area, and work representing the area. It is run by and for its members; volunteers do most of the work. A board of directors is elected from the membership. Dedicated to excellence in craftsmanship, it promotes the career development of its members through marketing, by operating wholesale/retail shows, and maintaining a website. 

Douglas named Executive Director of the Florence Regional Arts Alliance

Bruce Douglas was recently named Executive Director of the Florence Regional Arts Alliance (FRAA).  Douglas replaces Frank Crow, who held the position for ten years after serving on the organization’s Board of Directors.  Crow recently retired due to health reasons.  “Obviously, I am excited about the opportunity, but it does come with mixed emotions.  I have known Frank for several years and I would have preferred this transition to come under different circumstances,” said Douglas. 

Bruce Douglas

Douglas comes to the position with experience working with artists in the area.  He is currently the president of the Artisans of the South Carolina Cotton Trail and has held positions at Black Creek Arts Council of Darlington County and Coker College.  Over the last year, he established Pee Dee Arts, an online marketing vehicle for the arts in Chesterfield, Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Lee, Marion, Marlboro and Williamsburg counties.  You can find Pee Dee Arts online at peedeearts.org, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. 

“Changing directors is a huge decision for any organization, but it’s especially vital to make the right choice for small organizations.  We feel we’re in great hands,” said Brad Parham, President of FRAA. 

Established in 1984, the Florence Regional Arts Alliance is a community-based non-profit organization that is committed to preserving, supporting, and promoting the Arts in Florence County.  Additionally, FRAA strives to promote and strengthen the arts in the region through its online arts marketing initiative, Pee Dee Arts.