All About Arts Jam (2023)! ✨🌸🎨🎶
by editor-in-chief, Madison Foster
It's about time we did a deep dive into all of the cool stuff that's happening at our FIRST in-person event this upcoming Saturday, June 10th at The Grey Eagle in Asheville, NC! We've been gearing up for this event since November, so I am thrilled to see it finally coming together... and I can't wait to meet some of our lovely published creators and see their work outside of our digital interface!
In case ya missed it, audience members can shop art & jewelry from some of our previously published artists, get "vintage explorer"-styled portraits taken, screen print their own 0_ Collective shirts, listen music & poetry readings, and watch dance performances. Oh, and there will also be tacos & drinks for sale for those interested🌮 Like I said, a lot going on! Here's are all the details:
Visual Arts, Raffle, and Merch
Starting at 12pm and during our 30-minute intermission, you'll have the opportunity to meet our artists and purchase their work as well as enjoy a couple of other fun activities...
Ami Patel will be selling her artwork.
One of her pieces will be up for grabs in our raffle! Ami is a 2020 UNC Chapel Hill graduate from Asheville, NC, currently residing in Raleigh, NC. Her purpose is to create, lead, and inspire—all in conjunction to help others. Her artwork is focused on abstraction and centers around the intersection of chaos & order in hopes to better understand and connect with the earth & people around her.
Camille Soltani Icely will be selling her paintings and has donated this piece, "Echoes of the Sea," to our raffle. Camille is a painter & poet. Born & raised in Summerville, SC, Camille attended Rollings School of the Arts from grades 4th-8th, and in her 20s she spent many years overseas doing volunteer work abroad. Throughout her travels, she never stopped writing or creating her art, even when she only had cardboard to paint on.
Hannah Eddy will be selling her floral artwork at Arts Jam. She is originally from Tega Cay, South Carolina. She lived in Philadelphia, PA for eight years and has now moved back to the Carolinas. She sees flowers & color as the perfect friend to adversity and believes her work speaks to those in need of brevity & light.
Ty Davis is selling his abstract artwork. Blessed with a natural love for art at an early age, Ty Davis learned to develop his talents in Columbia, SC and was dedicated to becoming an artist the world remembered. After years of painting, studying, and creating, Ty discovered a technique that would cement his name as one of the Carolinas premier artists and soon caught the attention of the local Carolina art scene.
Brittany Nailon will be running a "vintage explorer" themed portrait booth and selling her landscape prints. As long as Brittany can remember, photographs have fascinated her. There was something comforting to her about being able to go back in time and remember a time, a place, or a smell just by looking at a photograph. That same sense of nostalgia for places we’ve been or where we’re going is what she aims to capture in her photos 10 years later.
Gayle Miller is selling her detailed watercolor work at Arts Jam and donating this piece, "Turquoise Fantasy," to the raffle. With confident brushstrokes, Gayle Miller tickles our imaginations with her unique take. There’s so much joy in watching the playful dance with style, color, and emotion. Gayle paints in verbs instead of nouns, movement & feeling. Gayle’s work has won awards and was included in Telfair Museum F3A Show 2017-2019.
Kenndal Rote is a self-taught artist living in Charleston, SC. She creates work that intertwines abstract, illustration, and language. Her work is childlike by nature with bold lines & swift drawing. The language used is drawn from her own journals/writing. She incorporates unwanted items into most of her pieces to create something new versus something discarded. Art is a way to make sense of the world around her and to connect to her local community.
Jessica Swank & Brooke Day will represent Zero Space Art Collective, selling artwork and running their own screen-printing booth. One of their cow tongue candles is also part of our raffle. Zero Space Art Collective began when we found ourselves trying to build community, study and make art during a time that provided no access to studios, limited access to supplies, and only virtual access to other humans. Though our group began as a reaction to the devastating changes we were experiencing, we acknowledge that initially having studios and a community is a privilege.
Up front at the merch table, we're selling Carolina Muse stickers, Arts Jam shirts, raffle tickets, and small collages by Kayla Marie Ramey! Stickers will be $3, shirts are $22 and made of 70% responsibly-sourced bamboo and 30% responsibly-sourced organic cotton.
Raffle #1
2 Asheville Art Museum tickets
Hustle Souls CD
Carolina Muse Arts Jam shirt
Gayle Miller’s 11x14" matted and framed of "Turquoise Fantasy”
Camille Soltani Icely’s fine art print, 16x20” of “Echoes of the Sea”
Kenndal Rote’s 5x7” canvas, “i love you”
Raffle #2
2 Asheville Art Museum tickets
Hustle Souls shirt
Carolina Muse sticker
Virginia Shepley’s “In This Moment” 12x12" acrylic gouache, jewelry, and greeting cards
Ami Patel’s art piece
Jessica Swank (Zero Space Collective)’s
cow tongue candle
Music, Poetry Readings, Dance
Our seated show starts at 1pm and runs until 4pm with a 30-minute intermission and plenty of opportunities to take taco & drink breaks :) Here's the line-up:
1pm • Music • Lillie Syracuse & Kathryn O'Shea
In velvet streams of joy, grief, and love, Lillie Syracuse’s voice & music fill the golden spaces of the in between. For a decade, Lillie honed her craft in Nashville, TN, where she wrote & released her debut album Coming Up Diamonds in 2020. Lillie grew up in the cradle of Table Rock Mountain. She now lives in Brevard, NC, with her wife and their three pup-children, where she writes & records new music for release in 2023.
Kathryn O’Shea is an Asheville-born singer/songwriter mostly known for conjuring unsolicited catharsis for strangers in bars. Carried only by her unmistakable voice & soft electric banjo picking, O’Shea’s soul-stirring original songs employ confessional lyricism and winding melodies to leave listeners tear-stained yet somehow deeply galvanized to wake up and fight the good fight again tomorrow.
Spoken Word Poetry • Loni Covington
Loni is a graduate of Furman University, where she majored in theatre arts and communication studies. She is a passionate actor & performer from Spartanburg, SC. Vocalizing her voice in performance-based work has been so fruitful for her as she continues to grow as an artist. She believes that in her dance work, theatrical pieces, and singing endeavors are ways to inspire & connect with the people.
1:30pm • Dance • Rush Johnston
Rush (they/them) is a Bronx-based multimedia choreographer, poet, performer, filmmaker, and movement researcher. Rush creates at the intersection of visual & performing art, often exploring modes of artistic expression beyond the binary. As a queer, Native, neurodiverse artist, their work often plays with perception & identity, inviting viewers to question proposed truths of self & social misunderstanding. Rush is the founder & artistic director of Kaleid Dance Collective, an interdisciplinary artistic platform for creative exhibitions. Rush is our dance editor at Carolina Muse Literary & Arts Magazine.
Poetry • Piper L. White
Piper is a self-published author of two young adult novels titled Flicker and Flare. Her work is featured in literary magazines such as Atlantis, Portals, etc. Her debut chapbook, Barefoot in the Woods, was published by Bottlecap Press in May 2022. She has lived in North Carolina her whole life.
1:50pm • Music • CerVon Campbell
From South Carolina, Campbell is an artist known for his soulful sound & venting lyrics. Campbell is not only a singer/rapper but also a stand-up comic & songwriter. Favored for bending genres, Campbell has crafted mixtures of Pop, Hip-Hop, and R&B along with Alternative, Indie, Country/Folk, Rock, and EDM throughout his discography.
Dance • Caitlin Elledge
Caitlin is an accomplished choreographer & dance instructor born & raised in Simpsonville, SC. Caitlin has found her favorite genres to be ballroom, hip hop, and contemporary. She holds multiple regional & national choreography awards and has led many students, soloists, and teams to national titles. She has studied from the industry’s top teachers & choreographers.
2:15pm INTERMISSION
Poetry • Kayla Marie Ramey
Kayla Marie is an NC-born-and-bred writer and collage artist who tries very hard (and often fails) to keep her house plants alive. She is currently pursuing her Creative Writing BA at App State University in Boone. In 2018, Kayla wrote a one-act play entitled “Sunday Wine” that was produced by Glasbox Theatre in El Paso, TX. Recently, her short stories have been published in Altitude magazine and Carolina Muse. In April, her small collage collection, “Damsels De-Repressed” was featured in an art show at 3rd Place hosted by Oasis High Country.
2:50pm • Dance • Grayson Anthony
Grayson is a performer, choreographer, & dance teacher currently based in Greenville, SC. She is originally from Lexington, SC and has been dancing since she was 3. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Communications (digital media) with a minor in theatre from Anderson University. In the spring of 2019, she completed Broadway Dance Center’s Professional Semester program in NYC. This past year she choreographed Mamma Mia! at Greenville Theatre (GT), Cinderella at South Carolina Children’s Theatre (SCCT), and just finished choreographing Shrek The Musical at GT which runs until June 25th.
Poetry • Camille Soltani Icely
See bio under “Visual Artists.”
3:15pm • Music • EK Wallace
EK Wallace has lived in Raleigh, NC her whole life and is proud to call the Carolinas home. She grew up listening to country music, which fostered a love & appreciation for songs that tell a story. Once she picked up a guitar at 16, she never looked back. Since 202, she has put out several original songs with her best friend, Jess Avellino, under the name ‘five thirty two.’ She is currently working on her first solo project.
Poetry • Micheal Kleis
Michael Kleis is a musician as well as a poet and performs around the U.S. While on tour, Michael had the opportunity to camp in the Appalachian mountains outside of North Carolina, and he has hiked parts of the Smoky Mountains. Since then, Michael has planned to visit more of the Carolinas and explore more of its breathtakingly serene nature.
3:40pm • Music • dog fanclub
Katherine Anne Ledbetter, dog fanclub, is a North Carolina born & raised artist. As a child, she performed all over the Triad in various musical & operatic performances. Ms. Ledbetter formally studied classical voice at UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC. While her main focus is opera, she also enjoys performing in the more modern or indie style. She recently released her first full-length album under her solo project name, dog fanclub, entitled it won’t last forever.
Purchase your $10 ticket online here, or buy yours for $15 at the door. I can't wait to see you at The Grey Eagle this Saturday!
Welcome to My Monthly Musings
If you're here, you have either: 1. subscribed to our monthly newsletter, or 2. had your work published in our magazine. Thanks for being our truest pals. Your support means the world, and we hope you'll stick around for some monthly musings from your favorite editor, Madison Foster!
Here's the lowdown: I have creative arts advice for all artistic mediums, local Carolina arts events (don't worry, they're virtual and/or socially distant in-person), and my favorite, some creative inspiration from my lovely & talented team. See you next month :)
WRITTEN and EDITED BY
Madison Foster