Coulter Fussell is a painter first, but adding quilting to her skillset has paid off as she prepares to exhibit her work in South Carolina next week.

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston is presenting an exhibition of Fussell’s work, titled “The Raw Materials of Escape.” The exhibit begins on Jan. 17 and runs through Feb. 29.

Making quilts was not something Fussell said she was interested in as child, but she learned the art by watching her mother, as most all girls did in the South in generations past.

“My mom is a like a prolific, really good quilter and has been my entire life,” Fussell said. “When I was in my late teenage years, college, she and I made some quilts together. That was the point in which I really figured out the method in doing it.”

After being a painter “for years,” Fussell then returned to quilt making after the birth of her first son, when she made him a quilt 12 years ago. Since then, all Fussell has done is make quilts and sew.

As is the case with many Southern summer road trips, the winding route between Atlanta and Water Valley, Mississippi, is a swath of verdant farm land creased by state highways. Heavy, sluggish heat seeps under your clothes as you travel. By 10 AM, a roadside thermometer reads “101 F” in a smirking, digital glare. Continuing due west, signs that you’re moving into Water Valley—which by name seems to promise a miraculously cool spring that will save you from the heat of high summer—begin to crop up. Rather than offering any such aquatic feature, Water Valley has the air of most small, former-railroad-towns you’ll find throughout the South. On Main Street, the town’s central artery, there’s a meat-and-three restaurant, a post office, a Methodist church, a Shriner’s meeting house, and a hair salon called Hair Trendz. And then, a jewel box: in a modestly shaded, shotgun-style storefront, you’ll find the cloth-plumed studio of artist Coulter Fussell.

Art, like life, thrives where there is a sense of adventure, of extending one’s gaze beyond immediate perceptions. In the 25 years since Mark Sloan took the helm as director of the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, the old maxim has been embraced wholeheartedly. The Halsey is both an enterprising teaching institution and a global showcase of some of the most arresting work in modern art. Sloan, ably abetted by associate director Lizz Biswell and their staff, continues to cast a wide net, with the rather surprising result that the Halsey is better known (and more esteemed) outside the state than within. Though this is changing.

The Hunter Museum presents Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South, featuring more than 200 images by 56 photographers and representing the largest exhibition of photographs of the American South in the twenty-first century. The exhibition will open Friday, Jan. 31, 2020.

Review for Southbound: 

The history of the American South is among the most storied of any region in the world. As a result of its cultural vitality and the diversity of its inhabitants, the area has also come to be among the most photographed. Since capturing the essence of this complex region and its inhabitants would be impossible – even with 20 images – the exhibition presents a kaleidoscope view. With multiple perspectives, each viewpoint comprises a single facet that taken together represent a multilayered, colorful vision of a region steeped in tradition yet constantly changing.

This fall, I was honored to spend time in Charleston, South Carolina, and to take part in three arts-focused events.

On the evening of October 1, the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art hosted a conversation between me and local visual artist Colin Quashie. The museum is currently exhibiting Quashie’s latest series, titled Linked, in which the artist “juxtaposes images of well-known Black figures with other representations of artifacts to comment on stereotypes as they exist today.” The discussion covered a range of topics within that vast arena, including the meaning of monuments, their impact on our public spaces and what it would mean to remove those figures.

It’s not hard to fall for Charleston, South Carolina. From its Instagram-worthy architecture to its exciting culinary scene to its warm residents who embody Southern hospitality, there’s no question why Travel + Leisure named it the top city in the United States.
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And for museums, go to the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art. This museum features contemporary art and visiting artists from around the world. The Halsey always provides a wonderful juxtaposition of contemporary art in a historic city.  

If you were on campus in the fall of 2018, it’s likely that you took note of “Southbound,” the photographic exhibition that hung at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art (and Charleston’s City Gallery) for the entire fall semester. That mammoth show, which featured the work of 56 photographers, offered a vivid portrait of the diverse social culture of the American South. The catalog of that exhibit – a hardbound book of the same name – is equally impressive. That’s why it’s not surprising that the Southbound book recently won the Alice Award, one of the most prestigious book prizes in the U.S.

“Andry’s work explores the negative effects of stereotypes on the lives of Black people and how these stereotypes give rise to biased laws and ideologies in our society. Her large-scale prints confront the viewer with these derogatory cultural clichés. The figures in the prints represent those who are targeted by racist characterizations. However, Andry specifically uses non-minority figures in this role to illustrate the fact that stereotypes are unjustly perpetuated.

For her exhibition at the Halsey Institute, Andry explores the stereotypes that engender gentrification. As Charleston’s neighborhoods are rapidly changing in multifarious ways, this exhibition provides a springboard for community-wide conversations on gentrification.”

from the accompanying text

8. Appreciate Contemporary Art

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art is a modern gallery exhibition space located on the College of Charleston campus. Not only is admission always free, but free guided group tours are available on-site as well. Visitors can expect diverse works showcasing all sorts of themes and inspiration. The museum is one of Charleston’s true hidden gems. Please note that the gallery is closed every Sunday, so plan accordingly.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art include an engaging 1978 interview with Alice Manheim Kaplan, a prominent New York-based figure in the cultural world of the 1960’s and beyond who served as president of the American Federation of Arts and as a board member of the Whitney Museum and the American Folk Art Museum, among other posts. Known for her extraordinary eye, Kaplan described herself in the interview as an “accumulator” of art—rather than as a collector who worked with intention and a logical plan. Her interests ranged widely, from works by the itinerant early American portrait artist Ammi Phillips to African art to the drawings of the Austrian modernist Egon Schiele.  

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The winner was Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South, edited by Mark Sloan and Mark Long and published by the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art of the College of Charleston.