The Footlight Players' theatrical production of Crowns is sponsored by The Hat Ladies of Charleston. The run will be accompanied by a silent auction where people can buy hat-related art by John Carroll Doyle, Sophisticated Whimsy, Chuck Wolf Galleries and over 40 other local artists and artists' representatives.

All money received from the auction will benefit the Footlight Players Theatre.

Visual Arts: Nakey Art

A couple of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) students told me about the perils of drawing nudes. "We always get fat, ugly models," they complained. This was brought home to them when SCAD did a nude show with a beautiful, lithe young model on the poster. "How come our models never look like that?" asked a male student.

Over here in Charleston, our nudes are as tasteful as the populace is polite. Hopefully we'll get a mix of real-life lumpiness and ethereal beauty in Nudes, a group show at the John M. Dunnan Gallery in downtown Charleston. The talented bunch of professional artists include Dunnan, Brianna Stello and John Carroll Doyle.

Here are the full details:

The John M. Dunnan Gallery is welcoming John Carroll Doyle, John Dunnan, Anna Murray, Landis Powers, Patrick Pelletier, Brianna Stello and McLean Stith for their opening exhibit Nudes, Tuesday January 22nd from 5:30-8:30pm at 131 King St. The Nudes exhibit is on display through February 14.

About the artists:

John Carroll Doyle is a nationally acclaimed, self-taught artist born in Charleston. He began his career doing commissioned large-scale paintings in the eighties for restaurants. Best known for his creative and impressionistic use of light and color, his paintings incorporating many different subjects and scenes are uniquely timeless pictorial representations. Doyle has also worked to become an accomplished photographer working on such projects as Femininity & I See London I See France.

John Dunnan, a native of Washington, D.C. now resides in Charleston, SC, where he owns the John M. Dunnan Gallery. Dunnan, a graduate of the Corcoran College of Art, is well known for his stylistic gesture drawings, abstract and figurative paintings and sculptures as well as his contributions and involvement with numerous arts organizations.

Born and raised in Charlotte, N.C. Anna Murray’s career has spanned from Wall Street to King Street. Anna’s work behind the lens of her camera has grown to include not only candid portraits of children and families, but also fine art studies of the human form and the world around us.

Landis Powers, a native of Detroit, Michigan, began his artistic career in early youth. After years of traveling as a designer and educator in the art of hair design, he moved to Charleston. Landis’ intellectual artistic vision is manifest in his contemporary expressionist style and free-spirited nature.

Born in California, Patrick Pelletier possesses a level of fresh creativity that is grippingly conceptual. Patrick has also had an immense passion for art since his youth, influenced by everything that surrounds him and inspires him in daily life. His mostly abstract work is a somewhat transcendental representation of reality.

Brianna Stello is a native of Cape Cod, exposed to the noble art of photography since birth by means of her mother Jennifer Stello. Brianna’s eye and mind-opening travels and imaginative perspective reflect a diverse and culturally rich aesthetic. Through the lens, she is able to materialize her vision, and the result is a captured moment, which speaks for itself.

McLean Stith was born in Great Lakes, Illinois and raised in Greenville, SC. Her first form of personal artistic expression was through the written word; however, poetry could not satisfy her hunger for a life-changing creative experience. McLean began painting during her medical residency in the late nineties, and fell in love with this new way of connecting deeply and emotionally to not only herself but the world around her as well. Artistically self-taught, McLean’s work portrays great diversity of subject matter.