“Leaves of Grass: Area Artists in National Publications” download this text in printable .pdf format Spartanburg and the area that surrounds it is extraordinarily rich in creative talent and vision. For over a century, our artists, writers, and musicians have contributed magnificently to the American Arts, yet many of those who hail from our counties are unaware of our cultural consequence, dismissing the fruits of our creativity as provincial, mundane, or otherwise inferior. Sheer numbers dictate that the Charlottes, Atlantas, Chicagos, and New Yorks will have more culture, but does that necessarily mean that it is a better culture? Is the culture to be found in larger metropolitan areas (of which much is imported) any more profound or any more deserving than that found closer to home (of which some is exported)? In 1835, William"Singin' Billy" Walker, a Spartanburg preacher, published a Southern Harmony, a hymnal based on his innovation of shaped note music notation. One million copies later, church singing in the rural South had been revolutionized. Spartanburg emerged in the 1880s as an East Coast music center where many of the country’s finest musicians would play. By the 1890s, an 800-seat Opera House had been built on Morgan Square, and within a decade, an auditorium (later to be named Twichell) was built, and Converse College would host The South Atlantic States Music Festival from 1898 to 1930. When asked if he knew of a small town group of strings that could play in her Christmas Special, virtuoso violinist Mark O’Connor directed Kathy Lee Gifford to The Greater Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra. The nationally reknowned Brevard Music Center draws people into the area from all over the country, and for years pianist Carlos Moseley influenced the international musical world through his leadership of the New York Philharmonic (Incidentally, Moseley’s mother, Helen Dupré Moseley, was a widely exhibited artist and one of the charter members of The Artists’ Guild of Spartanburg, while her sister, Grace Dupré was a nationally recognized portraitist.). Soprano Gianna Rolandi, who grew up in Spartanburg, appeared in the film version of the Strauss opera Arabella. Dorman High School alumnus David Daniels is the first countertenor to have a recital at Carnegie Hall. Blues great Pink Anderson (from whom the band Pink Floyd took half of their name), David Ball, Marshall Chapman, Ira Tucker and The Dixie Hummingbirds, Hank Garland, Don Reno, Daryle Ryce, Arthur Smith, The Marshall Tucker Band, and many others got their start in Spartanburg. Edwin McCain is among Greenville’s many contributors to the popular music scene, and Greer’s Aaron Tippin continues to be a presence on the Country charts. The literary arts have thrived as well. Thomas Wolfe and poet laureate Carl Sandburg (of Asheville and East Flat Rock respectively) were towering figures whose prominence brought national attention to our area, and The Flatrock Playhouse is nationally known for its productions. Since 1994, The Hub City Writers Project, an organization of Spartanburg area talent, has directed its focus on place-based literature. The attention it has received in the national media has included articles in the New York Times, Utne Reader, and Orion Afield, while Beaufort, S.C.; Flagstaff, Ariz.; Fidalgo Island, Wash.; and Charlotte, N.C. have all used the Hub City model as the basis for new literary organizations in their cities. One of the HCWP’s books, the 1998 title New Southern Harmonies: Four Emerging Fiction Writers, was named “Best Book of Short Fiction in North America” by Independent Publisher Magazine. Although the Tryon Artist Colony (1892-1942) was predominantly a haven for Northern artists and intellectuals, several of Spartanburg’s artists were participants in what was probably North Carolina’s most vibrant art colony. Two of these artists, Josephine Sibley Couper and Margaret Law, organized Spartanburg’s first major art exhibition in April of 1907. It was an event which featured over one hundred works by well-known painters including Robert Henri, William Chase, Elliott Daingerfield, F. Luis Mora, and Anna Heyward Taylor. Today, three works by Margaret Law, who was nationally recognized during her life, are on loan to The Brigham Young University Museum for an upcoming exhibit in 2005, “The Women Students of Robert Henri.” In 1933, Black Mountain College was founded and soon became recognized as a national center of creative innovation. The college's faculty included some of that generation’s greatest artists and thinkers: Joseph and Anni Albers, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Walter Gropius, Hans Hoffman, Willem de Kooning, and Robert Motherwell. The college’s Board of Directors included Albert Einstein and William Carlos Williams. Ten years prior to the creation of Black Mountain College, Penland School of Crafts was founded. It continues to this day as an internationally known center for craft education. As one of the state’s oldest existing organizations for visual artists, The Artists’ Guild of Spartanburg (whose membership is open to artists residing in all counties adjacent to Spartanburg County) has continued much of the work of nurturing the creators of visual art. In fact, nine of the twelve artists in this exhibit are Guild members. For over thirty years, The Guild’s Annual Juried Exhibition, along with the Museum of Art’s Annual Sidewalk Art Show have attracted the participation of artists from within a hundred mile radius and beyond. Greenville’s Arts in the Park, and annual juried exhibitions produced in Anderson and other municipalities, help to inspire our population to celebrate and support our area artists. In 2001, the Spartanburg Museum of Art added another major exhibition to the area’s repertoire, The Biennial Hub City Competition. When Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was first published in 1855, it was a declaration of independence, a proclamation that a new nation would forge its own culture out of that which made it distinct, and that European cultural domination would no longer be accepted. It was a rhapsody of the soul as well as of verse, a freeing of the spirit from the spiritual wells of metered rhyme. Though it spoke from the heart about the heart, it employed a visceral language that was more appropriate to pioneer stock than to demure societies. Whitman was the cultural prophet of the young nation, and from his pen flowed the energy and ideals of its youth. Likewise, the artists in this exhibit, embody the spirit and energy of our people, reflecting the land in which we live and invigorate our existence with the power of creation. The comment has been made that Spartanburg’s new cultural center will be a crown jewel. At the Museum, we will view it as a jewel box that will showcase the special gifts that we have to offer the rest of the world. That this show has a distinct Spartanburg flavor is simply a matter of convenience: it has grown out of information that was close at hand. We are sure that there are many other artists throughout Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina that deserve to be recognized as a part of this group. We hope that they will come forward and share their contributions which have helped to make our area a national cultural center. To this end, a second Leaves of Grass Exhibition will be scheduled in five years. If you are an artist or know of an artist whose artwork or methods have been featured in a national publication, and live(s) within a 75 mile radius of Spartanburg, please send us a copy of the original publication for our files with the artist’s contact information so they can be included in the next show. If you are an institutional or commercial gallery in our area, and would like to borrow these display materials to create an exhibit of your own, please contact us at (864) 582-7216 or email us at office@spartanburgartmuseum.org For more information about the museum and its programs, visit our website at www.spartanburgartmuseum.org or use the search engine at www.sparklenet.com