The 2013 Great ARTdoors Festival

October 12th, 2013, was a wonderfully sunny Fall day filled with 35 different attractions, from amazing installations and artist talks, to refreshing libations and trail walks.

Festival Highlights

Open Studio Tour & Talks with our distinguished artists-in-residence
from Japan, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Georgia

Art Installations presented by Didi Dunphy, Linda Hall and William Massey

A Performance by Beacon Dance

Printed-While-You-Watch T-shirts by printmaker Chris Neuenschwander of Noosh Studios

Invitational Pottery & Handmade Objects Exhibition featuring Hambidge
Fellows and artists from across the region (click here to see the list of artists)

U-do-Raku – choose a pot, glaze it yourself and have it fired to take home

Foot-stomping Live Music with bluegrass and blues, punctuated by ethereal folk music

An Old-fashioned Pig Roast serving up our own Bar-B-Q alongside
local tasty provisions, wines and brews

Native Plant Sale

Activities for All Ages, with hay riding, grits grinding, pumpkin painting, a bouncy house,
and face painting by Macon Faces

This is the only time during the year when full access is granted to our protected
creative sanctuary and artist studios. The 600-acre property, lovingly cared for by
Hambidge since 1934, is home to seven miles of hiking trails, waterfalls, wildflowers,
a swimming hole, and a number of historic structures including a working 67 year-old
water-powered gristmill.

Artists

Beacon Dance
Melinda Borysevicz (in residence)
The Tony Bryant Blues Band
Didi Dunphy (in residence)
Amy Godwin
Linda Hall
Akira Ikezoe (in residence)
William Massey
Michael Murrell
Chris Neuenschwander
John Oliver & Carmel Ridge
Robin Reif (in residence)
Tommy Taylor (in residence)
Dayna Thacker

Project & Artist Descriptions

Beacon Dance
The mission of Beacon Dance is to develop people’s understanding and appreciation of the art of movement as a means of communication. "We design our projects to be interactive experiences with our audiences, to reflect the realities of our time, to occur in unusual spaces, and to be created with passionate attention. We are creating a new paradigm for a dance organization that is based on inclusion, acceptance, and the development of one’s creative abilities, leaving aside all elements of hierarchy and competition."

Beacon Dance performed in several locations throughout the day of the Festival.


Melinda Borysevicz
Melinda Borysevicz has been painting for most of the past 20 years. She has been part of the Savannah, GA art community since 1996 and is probably best known for her still lifes, large landscape-based paintings and portraits. She has a BFA in Painting from Savannah College of Art and Design and is represented in Savannah by Kobo Gallery. Recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition, Still life and Memory, at S.P.A.C.E. Gallery, Savannah, GA; Women Painting Women at RJD Gallery, Sag Harbor, NY and Tapped, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnatti, OH. Melinda was recently featured in the February 2013 issue of South Magazine: Seven Artists You Need to Know.

"I've been spending the past few years on two disparate bodies of work, wondering if they will, at some point, merge. The somewhat classically inspired and highly realistic portraits I have been working on tend to take a good deal of care and time to create. They come from the part of me that strives for some kind of perfection, in both technique and expression; the latter dealing with the narrative of the birth-death-birth cycle. The landscape-based and considerably less objective work I do to counterbalance these paintings comes more from a restless, less articulate place-- one that is concerned with layers, repetition; the mark made, obliterated, re-made. In this work I am curious as to how distance and history each relate to space and time. The further along I get with each body of work, the more they begin to resemble each other, if not on the surface, then in their impetus."


The Tony Bryant Blues Band
Tony Bryant represents four generations of family Georgia Blues going back to the turn of the 20th century. His sound is a time capsule back to the birth of the blues and bottleneck slide when music was a expression of the lives of his people. 

The Tony Bryant Blues Band performed on the Main Stage in the afternoon.

Didi Dunphy
An artist & designer, Didi Dunphy is a native New Yorker, Los Angeles transplant, having moved to Athens, Georgia with her family in 2000. Ms. Dunphy received an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in the contemporary arts. She is an accomplished artist having had exhibits in major venues such as the Atlanta Contemporary, COCA, St. Louis, Telfair Museum in Savannah, the Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art in Florida, the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA and more. Ms. Dunphy is currently the Director and Curator at the Gallery@Hotel-Indigo-Athens and the GlassCube project space.

For the Great ARTdoors Festival, Ms. Dunphy will install "A Swing for Two." The upholstered bench is oversized, as are the acrylic tassels that hang from the playful plastic coated chain.  The Swing Frame comes complete with a laser-cut ‘Tiara” up on top.


Amy Godwin
Amy Godwin is a singer and songwriter currently residing in Atlanta, Ga. Filled with swelling harmonies and a haunting croon, Amy seamlessly blends folk with early doo-wop, creating a sound that is both antiquated and longing. Accompanied by a baritone ukulele and vocal loop pedal, Amy creates a wall of sound drenched in harmonies often performed a capella or with her ukulele. Other projects of Amy Godwin include singing with Valley Maker, a project fronted by Austin Crane of Seattle, WA and her former band Anne Bonny.

Amy performed on the Main Stage during the Festival, as well as giving a private performance for the Hosts and VIPs.

Linda Hall
Linda Hall holds an MFA from the University of North Carolina and has taught studio art at Florida State University, where she specializes in courses on art and ecology.  Her mixed-media two- and three-dimensional works have been shown in many regional and national venues, and over the years she has participated in numerous public art projects as well.  Her family is rooted in the South, and she currently makes her home in Tallahassee, Florida, where she maintains a studio in the historic Smoky Hollow quarter of town.  In her spare time she serves as a volunteer boat tour guide at the lovely Wakulla Springs State Park.

"Like a sixteenth-century curiosity cabinet, my objects aim to provide evidence of another reality.

Most of the animal forms, domestic and wild, are constructed from handmade quilts. They are familiar to anyone, yet they have their own intimate history, as they are constructed from worn family fabrics that are repurposed by loving hands. These fabrics are again repurposed into what I call ”containers for the spirit”. The forms show evidence of the life and life events such as the wounds and the mending, the adorning with paint, beads and flowers and then sometimes negating this embellishment with coats of paint. The forms are left empty. As I can best express it, this body of work is about loss. It is about holding on to things that are evolving, and eventually passing, by freezing them in time. The work is also about letting go, as these “containers” are porous.

Sometimes bare, sometimes adorned, these containers create a space to be filled with unfamiliar and elusive intensities: an animal energy that suffuses what is human, and a humanity that resides in objects and beasts. These forms aim to contain duality as they are active and adorned yet unoccupied, as they combine a traditional male sport of hunting with what is traditional female craft of making textiles, and they are attractive yet repulsive."

Linda installed her amazing sculptures in the Spring House for the Festival, as well as in the Host's Hospitality House (Mary's Cabin).

Akira Ikezoe
Akira Ikezoe  is a New York-based artist born in Kochi, Japan. He works with painting in relation to the connection between human beings and our surrounding environment, and is investigating an illustrative approach towards concepts that raise questions about inherent contradictions of human existence. His solo exhibitions include Drawing, Ise Cultural Foundation, NYC (2012); Repeater, Sanagi Fine Arts, Tokyo (2010); and Ephemeral Garden, Esso Gallery, NYC (2009). His group exhibitions include Play with Nature-Played by Nature, Satoshi Koyama Gallery, Tokyo (2013); Kiss the Heart, Isetan Shinjuku, Tokyo (2012); Future Primitive, Ma2 Gallery, Tokyo (2010). After majoring in printmaking and graduating from Tama Art University in 2003, he received the Tomio Koyama Gallery Prize and Naruyama Gallery Prize at GEISAI #10 in 2006. He was also selected as an artist member at GEISAI MIAMI in 2007.

"My most recent group exhibition was titled “Play with nature and played by Nature”, the concept of which aims to re-think our relationship with nature after Japan’s earthquake in 2011. While working with this concept, I started to think of the contradiction that human beings inherently have—we can’t live without the connection to nature, even though sometimes nature invades our territory and possibly ruins our lives.  As an extension of the concept of this exhibition, I am thinking of focusing on the human body as the subject of my work. I recognize nature not only in our surroundings but also in my body. The growth and aging of our body, sickness, blood from wounds and many activities related to animal instincts, some of which I try to protect myself from, make me feel the connection to nature. The existence of human bodies lies in between humans and nature. I seek to investigate approaches that are able to accept this contradiction."


William Massey
William Massey was born in Birmingham, Alabama and graduated with honors from Valdosta State University with a BFA in Art - emphasis in sculpture and painting. After graduation, William traveled throughout Europe; interning, apprenticing and collaborating with artists in Italy and Spain. Now working and creating in Atlanta, William continues to create large-scale, mixed-media portraits in gallery spaces as well as outdoor locations, as well as painting and glass blowing. William strives to create life and history in each work of art. Using imperfect fragments, layers, and finding relationships between them, he focuses on building a balanced and honest whole.

For the Great ARTdoors Festival, William created a large installation work by using found materials from the Hambidge campus; piecing together a portrait of (and tribute to) founder, Mary Hambidge.


Michael Murrell
Energy Loop, by Michael Murrell,  is made of tall red cedar spikes connected by a hot pink muscadine vine. To place the sculpture, dowsing rods were used to find an enegy anomaly in the ground.

Chris Neuenschwander
Chris Neuenschwander is a caddywampus individual who very thoughtfully stains various surfaces with ink, paint, or other extremely toxic materials. Living in Atlanta, Georgia, Chris attended Kennesaw State University and graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts concentration in Drawing, Painting and Printmaking. Chris has exhibited nationally, internationally, and locally since about 2009. In that time he has won various awards, most recently he was chosen as best in show at the annual Atlanta Printmakers Studio member’s exhibit with his piece He only comes out when the city sleeps, As well as first place in drawing at the 28th Annual Juried Student Exhibition at Kennesaw State University. Chris works with very playful ideas and is currently exploring topics of imagination, He considers himself a visual entertainer and invites you to use your imagination freely while viewing his work. It should be a fun and playful experience.

Chris offered printed-while-you-watch T-shirts for sale during the Festival.


John Oliver & Carmel Ridge
A Hambidge favorite, John Oliver & Carmel Ridge will be performing their toe-tapping old-time Bluegrass on the Main Stage.


Robin Reif
Robin Reif currently teaches crafts and ceramics and Minot State University in North Dakota. She is a transplanted southern-based artist from Georgia. She is a recent graduate from University of Georgia where she obtained her M.F.A in ceramics. Prior to studying at Georgia she attended Alfred University for her B.F.A and the University of Florida for her post-baccalaureate.  She have received several art-based scholarships throughout her studies, including the Dorthy McRea Scholarship and the Kiki Smith scholarship for the Haystack Mountain School of Craft.

"During my time in graduate school I was focused on making conceptual ceramic sculptures, that blended the idea of the domestic with human flesh. Since being out of school I am more fulfilled as a potter. I wish to combine some of the same notions of my conceptual work into in my pots. I have been experimenting with screen printing on clay and decals. Much of what I have done in the past has been therapy for my soul. Now that I am older and more at peace in my life, I seek to make work that is light-hearted yet thought provoking."


Tommy Taylor
Tommy Taylor graduated from the University of Georgia with a BFA in Drawing and Painting. Since then, he's lived in Brooklyn and Atlanta, showed work with the Mindy Oh gallery, and participated in many group and solo shows. This summer he was included in a book produced by Institute 193 in Lexington, Kentucky, highlighting artists they have show over the past four years. Last year he attended the ArteStudio Ginestrelle artist residency in Assisi, Italy, and participated in a group show in the Cultural Center of Assisi.

For many years Tommy worked mainly in acrylic on canvas making abstract images. This changed about 2 years ago to a more figurative style. This new style continues to develop and he is now pursuing a desire to push the imagery into a new film and video format.


Dayna Thacker
Working in collage, assemblage and installation, Dayna Thacker uses found materials to investigate the thought systems we create in order to make sense of the world and ourselves. Thacker was awarded a studio space at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center for 2008-2013; she was a finalist for the Forward Arts Foundation 2010 Emerging Artist Award; and her work was featured in the 2009 Southern issue of New American Paintings. She was named in the December 2012 issue of The Atlantan Magazine as "One to Watch.”  Her work is currently represented by Barbara Archer Gallery in Atlanta and Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, Texas.

This sculpture, Check and Balance, is a simple meditation on the way we balance natural vs. man-made objects, nostalgia vs. being present, creation vs. decay, and treasured objects vs. discarded ones.

Event Chair

Michael McGaughey

Hosts

Pork-Pie Hat Hosts Alecia Adair-Foltz & Doug Foltz + Susan & Ron Antinori + Lucinda Bunnen + Melissa Bunnen Jernigan & James Jernigan + Sherry & Jeff Cohen + Margaret & Dallas Denny + Dillard Tourist Association + Jesica & Brian Eames + Martha Eskew & Chet Tisdale + GAP Partners + Jen & Bowman Garrett + Nena Griffith + Maggie Hagedorn Fitzgerald & Brian Fitzgerald + Dorothy & Joe Hamilton + IMAGERS Printing + Dorothy Yates Kirkley + Judy & Scott Lampert + Liz Lapidus + Elizabeth & David Martin + Marchant & Ron Martin + Michael McGaughey & Craig Kettles + Jo & Jim McLean + Donna & Jeff Mintz + Selene & Don Morgan + Kirk Rich & Todd Higginbotham + Rosemary & Bill Stiefel + Mary Callan Thomas & Sam Thomas + Ruth West & Bob Wells + Barb & Thom Williams + Woodie & Steve Wisebram

Cloche Hat Hosts Cyndae Arrendale + Lyn & Rick Asbill + Margaret Baldwin & Paul Pendergrass + Turner Ball & Alan Richmond + Annette Cone-Skelton & Robert Hipps + Carol Green Gellerstedt + Beth Jones + Marianne & Dick Lambert + Robin & Mary Line + Susan Reed + Paula Francis Rogers & Russ Rogers + Jane Fickling Skinner & Dan Skinner + Claire Sterk & Kirk Elifson

Bonnet Hosts Keri & Bob Allen + Judy & Dick Allison + Lisa & Joe Bankoff + Bonnie Beauchamp-Cooke & George Cooke + Becky & Tom Callahan + Robbie & Jim Caswell + Jane Cofer & David Roper + Terri Dilling + Pat & Jim Durrett + Brooks Franklin & Lisa Ezzard + Charles Gandy + Sarah Gillespie + Norvin Hagan + Margaret & Bob Hatcher + Judy & Spurgeon Hays + Nancy & Gene Hooff + Wanda Hopkins + Janis Hughes + James Jackson & Gedney Vining + Ann & Tim Johnson + Lori-Ann & Bill Johnson + Jane & Owen Jones + Chris Lewis and John Johnson + Rosemary Magee & Ron Grapevine + Katherine Mitchell & Jack Lawing + Margaret & Kincaid Patterson + Malissa & William Peace + Lynn Pollard + Saundra Robinson + Judy Shreve + Joe Staley & Stuart Clayton + Anne Sterchi + Timpson Creek Gallery + Susie & Lee Winton

Sponsors

The Hambidge Center is funded in part by the LUBO Fund, the Fulton County Commission under the guidance of the Fulton County Arts & Culture, and the National Endowment of the Arts.