ASCCT Exhibit

The Artisans of the South Carolina Cotton Trail will hold their first, in three years, exhibit at the Art Trail Gallery in Florence, SC on the corner of Evans and Irby streets.  The show opens Wednesday, January 8th and the opening reception is Friday, January 10th from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.  The exhibit features oil paintings, water color paintings,photography, hand blown glass, fiber arts, jewelry, wood arts, mixed media sculptures and wall art. 

Members participating are: Anne Baldwin, Bobbi Adams, Carolyn Atkinson, Lee Benoy, Brenda Branson, Laurie Brown, Denny Stevenson Frankie Bush, Jim Fernandes, Bob Feury, Mike Gann, Jim Gleason, Gaye Ham, Janis Hobbs, Linda Humphries, Rachell Hyman, MJ Martin, Vicky McLain, Barbara Mellen, Suzanne Muldrow, Jackie Stasney, Denny Stevenson, and Ann Page.

Jim Gleason

Jim Gleason

The urge to create combines with a reverence for musical instruments, and the desire to preserve whatever life remains in the parts and pieces of an instrument. As a professional musician and a master technician in the repair of brass and woodwind instruments, I have spent much of my life devoted to extending their lives. Now, when the parts and pieces or whole instruments are no longer in a state that makes sense to repair them, I find myself giving them new life in a form that celebrates their previous existence, saving them from being discarded completely.

Greg Benner

Chesterfield County

Painting

I have loved great oil paintings since early childhood and visited many museums in my youth, pondering the masters' work with enthusiasm.  I especially enjoy painting the human form and other life forms, but try not to limit myself to that genre entirely.  

I believe that all art should give back to this world, that in which this world takes away from us. We all suffer from life's uproar. In art there exists a unique prospect for a ray of hope in our lives -- and in art, there is a fitting prospect to bring about a glimmer of expectancy.

I guess if you were to ask what makes a great oil painting, I would say a meaningful moment captured in time, which excites the soul. This "stirring of the soul" is best said with a balance of many facets of visual impression. All of these attributes coming together in one equalized statement of compositional lines, color statement (palette), light/contrast, color balance and economy/efficiency of brush strokes.

I also enjoy writing and composing music in my studio in Chesterfield, SC.

Contact:

Greg Benner
150 Main Street
Olde Towne Centre
Chesterfield, SC 29709
843.623.3200
800.605.5761
Greg@Benner.com