Featured Artist & Exhibits
Richard Pillsbury - April Featured Artist
Illusions Along the Edge
What is it about one place which brings an instant identification while another just down the road fades into oblivion even before one passes the "Thanks for Visiting" sign. Certainly the grubby buildings, the "sea of grass" surrounding the island, the beach, and the patrolman hiding behind the 35 mph sign
on the edge of town are little different in Folly Beach than those found in a hundred other Low Country towns along the shore. Yet, Folly, the Edge of America as it is affectionately known, reaches out and grabs a place in memory of casual visitors and residents alike. What is a sense of place?
Comic strip character Ted Forth was recently admonished that reality was nothing more than a shared illusion. Shared illusions indeed! If our sense of place and being stems as much from our experiences and
our momentary feelings as they do from photographic reality, how can any two of us possibly see or have the same interaction with a place?
The answer is simple -- we can not. Yet, the shared images and reactions come from somewhere. Richard Pillsbury explores his vision of this multi-personality community at the end of the causeway on the Atlantic Ocean in his new show. No bars, no tourist junque shops, no crowds of beach bunnies populate his vision. Rather, he brings us a kinder, softer community of river, family beach, pelicans and sea gulls living in harmony.
Richard Pillsbury, artist, author, and geographer, has spent his life exploring the meaning, the look, and the nature of place. His life on Folly Beach challenges him each day to come to terms with the interface between reality and illusion.
Richard's show, Illusions along the Edge, attempts to put images to musings. It runs from April 1-30 at the CAG Gallery, 6 N. Atlantic Wharf in Charleston.
To see more or Richard's work, visit www.richardpillsbury.com
Show location: Charleston Artist Guild Gallery, 6 N. Atlantic Wharf ( near East Bay St.), Charleston, SC 29401. 843-722-2425.
