PopCult Rudy Panucci on Pop Culture

HallowEast IV and ArtMares

The PopCulteer
October 26, 2012

It’s the weekend before Halloween and there’s just way the hell too much stuff to do in and around Charleston. Your Popculteer will be at the ArtMares reception tonight at Contemporary Galleries from 6 to 10 PM, where there will be beer, wine, and horsd’oeuvres, plus live music from Sean Sydnor. In addition to my work, nearly thirty other local artists (like Olivia Burch and Rebecca Recco, seen right) will be showing off their dark side with macabre, horror-themed works. The bulk of this week’s column is a photo essay devoted to the ArtMares exhibit.

But that’s not all that’s going on. It’s the fourth year for HallowEast and this year, they have combined with Festivall Fall to make sure that there are more really cool things going on at the same time than any one person could humanly attend. Tonight, while the ArtMares reception is going on, there will be a special Live On The Levee encore featuring Radio Free Charleston guests The Tom McGees and Qiet, plus two of Columbus’ ships. At 10 PM, the No Pants Players bring their filthy, dirty adult comedy to Timothy’s, downstairs at the Quarrier Diner.

That’s not all going on this Friday night. Nelson Illusions Vaudeville and Magic Show will be at the Davis Fine Arts Theater at West Virginia State University at 7:30 PM. “Animal Farm,” presented by Charleston Stage Company, will be staged at the WVSU Capitol Center Theater, also at 7:30. The Charleston Light Opera Guild presents “Hello, Dolly!” at the Clay Center at 7:30. At 8 PM, the Alban Arts Center in St. Albans presents “Greater Tuna.”

Holy Cow will be performing a free show at Taylor Books at 7:30 PM. Blue Million will be performing a free show at Bruno’s at 9 PM. Marshall Petty will be at the Upstairs Lounge at Little India at 9 PM. And finally, at 11 PM with a $7 cover, the Hybrid Soul project rolls into The Empty Glass.

That’s just Friday night.

Saturday, the last East End Bazaar of the year takes from 9 AM to 2 PM with live music and cool crafts, plus some artisans will be on hand to do zombie makeup for people. That’ll come in handy because the Zombie Walk kicks off at 5:30 (lines start forming at 4:45 PM), starting at the Moxxee Coffee parking on the corner of Lee and Morris Streets in Charleston. You can see a map of the Zombie Walk route at the HallowEast website. Among the zombies, “Walking Dead” fans might want to indulge in a game of “Where’s Carl?”

The Zombie Walk will end where the HallowEast Costume Crawl begins. The Zombie Walk is free, the Costume Crawl is not. The Costume Crawl will last until 11 PM, whereupon it will mutate into The Empty Glass’ Halloween Hootenany, featuring The Renfields and The Big Bad. The Costume Crawl is $20 and the Halloween Hootenany at the Glass is $7.

Many of the same theatrical events from Friday night are also taking place Saturday.

With our pre-Halloween weekend rundown out of the way, we now present our photo essay of ArtMares at Contemporary Galleries. Please come out and support your local artists in spite of all the other millions of cool things they scheduled at the same time. We’re including most of the artists involved in the show, but some of our photos didn’t come out well, and none of them do justice to seeing the art in person.

ArtMares

This year ArtMares, the horror-themed art exhibit moved to cool new digs on the third floor of Conemporary Galleries…you know, that photo doesn’t really look spooky enough…
…there, that’s better.

Art being taken in by patrons of the arts.
Big wigs, making plans.
Clay Sayre
Rob Cleland
Glen Brogan
Sandra King
More Sandra King
Emily West
Sarina Parker
More Sarina Parker
Rhonda Sarcone
Blake Wheeler
More Blake Wheeler
Stacie Marie Leech-Cornell
Chase Henderson
Dale Morton
Rebecca Recco
Rebecca Recco and Olivia Burch
Betty Gay
Lee Harrah “Bloodmoon”
More by Lee Harrah
Tani Bergins
Kelly Bryant
A close up of Amy Williams interactive graffiti piece
J.J. Deakins
Ian Bode
Audrey Beckner
More Audrey Beckner
Even more Audrey Beckner
Bernice Deakins
Elle Xombeah
More Elle Xombeah
Matthew Thompson
Charly Hamilton
Chet Lowthar
Gary Needham
Erin Creelman
Mark Wolfe
Somehow, this stuff got into the exhibit. “Monster Faces” by Frank Panucci and Rudy Panucci, and “Ghouls Night Out” by Rudy Panucci
I admit it. I’m happy with how this one came out.
More by Clay Sayre
These pices by Eric Holstine really caught my eye
A parting shot of some of the folks at Wednesday’s early opening. The big shindig is Friday night, and half the proceeds go to East End Main Street

That’s it for this week’s PopCulteer. Stay tuned for our regular features and other cool stuff, and Happy Halloween!