Fearless Martha

During the past century Spartanburg has produced an abundance of world-class artists and dispersed them across the world. At the same time, the city has become a magnet for painters, sculptors, ceramicists, and more who have converged here in the South Carolina piedmont to create a vibrant and diverse arts community. Intrigued by this variety, one of them—Stephen Stinson—began in summer 2008 to shoot portraits of the Hub City's citizen-artists. He was particularly interested in capturing the faces of those whose civic spirit has helped build the local arts community through regular participation and association with such institutions as the Spartanburg Art Museum, the Spartanburg Artists Guild, HUB-BUB, the West Main Co-op, our public schools, and colleges.Stinson teamed with Edward Emory, who owns and operates Spartanburg's Carolina Gallery—one of the most active galleries in the Carolinas—to produce Artists Among Us, a celebration and tribute to the people who have shaped, and are continuing to shape, a remarkably robust art community. This book itself is a snapshot in time, a sampler of what Spartanburg has to offer as we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century. What's startling about this group of artists is how widespread their backgrounds are. They have settled here from the Kentucky coal country, the Illinois prairie, rural Ireland, the countryside of France, the industrial Midwest, the wild swamps of Louisiana, and all points in between. Others are homegrown, blossoming after finding their way to master teachers at our local schools and colleges.These creative citizens are carrying the torch for the monumental artists and art-lovers of Spartanburg's past: Margaret Law, Josephine Sibley Couper, Peggy Gignilliat, Helen Dupre Moseley, August and Irma Cook and many others. They are your neighbors, your teachers, and your co-workers, offering up their personal stories as well as some of their favorite artwork. This book is presented with gratitude for the spark and the beauty they have brought to Spartanburg.