“The decisions you make should be about broadening what you can do.”
Jamison Mady Kerr is the Director of Art Town Development for Art Fields in Lake City, SC. She is originally from Florence, SC where she grew up studying ballet, but eventually found her true passion in the arts.
Interview
Transcript
Sara Sobota
Can you please introduce yourself, spell out your name and tell us where you’re from.
Jamison Mady
Yeah, my name is JamesonMady, Kerr, j, A, M, i, s o, n, m, A, D, y, k, E, R, R, and I am originally from Florence, South Carolina, but now I am a proud Lake City, South Carolina.
Sara Sobota
Great, great. What do you do for work, and where are you currently working from?
Jamison Mady
So I am the director of art town development for art fields in Lake City, South Carolina, and we operate out of a couple of different buildings in downtown Lake City
Sara Sobota
how did you end up in that field and how did you hear about it? This one’s always a really long answer.
Jamison Mady
So I actually grew up a dancer. I studied ballet, and the physicality of being a dancer was not something that I felt like I could maintain. And so whenever I was going into college, had this like crisis of like, what am I? Who am I? What will I be without this thing that I put all of my time into? And so I always knew that I was creative, and I liked design and so, but really, I mean, I was so untethered by the loss of like, where I had put all of my energy. And so I tried a couple of different classes and different things. I started an education program, and I just realized that there, I needed an outlet for creativity, and so I started my visual art kind of career, I guess not career, but, you know, I started that path because of visual communications, because I thought that as someone who really loved design, that that was a pretty straightforward and maybe not so lofty, because that’s a job, right, right, in a more classic sense than some of these other so I started Taking classes. Loved being around the art department so much. I loved a lot of it, but then I took my first art history class, and I was never the same. From then on, I figured out that through art, I could care about everything else. So where I didn’t ever care about history, I suddenly was I had a path in because I found a way to care about what was going on in the world, because I was seeing it from the artist perspective, and not from, you know, data points that describe a battle that I could really not. I mean, I just don’t care, and I can’t connect to it. And because I was able to connect to people, I was able to connect to events through history, and that, like, really woke me up, because I realized that there was just so much I didn’t know. And so I ended up with a history degree because I thought I was going to go to graduate school for art history and eventually be a professor. And you know, that was the track that I had laid out for myself. And then in my final semester at Francis Marion, which is where I graduated from, my art history, Professor sent me an email about an internship opportunity in Lake City, and so I kind of laughed and rolled my eyes because I had not heard of anything positive coming out of Lake City in all of my years living in Florence and but I also thought, you know, I could use some experience that could Go on my resume and I’ll give it a shot. And so I drove to Lake City, and I can still, like, see it so vividly. I walked into this building, there’s this group of women that were kind of standing around a table and making these incredible things happen that I couldn’t have even dreamed and so lucky for me, they let me come and be an intern. And so I got to work on a project with Kirkland Smith during the festival that year. She was the previous year’s winner, and I’ve got to kind of help facilitate a project with her. I got to do some graphic design. I just, I completely fell in love with the idea of art fields and the people of Lake City, and so I just kept showing up and didn’t get paid. I was not, it was not a paid internship. I was losing money because I was driving 30. Minutes away every day to, like, sweep the floors and like, beg to do whatever they would let me do, yeah, and, I mean, I filled in for a week at a law office in town, just because, like, I was gonna be in Lake City, like I was determined. And so art Fields was over. You know, early May, by July 15 is when I started my first paid job here. And I Yeah, and I started off working splitting my time between art fields with graphic design, because I knew that that was a job. And then I also was really lucky to be at Jones Carter gallery as the gallery assistant, and the first exhibition that I got to work on from start to finish was goy as Liz Caprice. And so I can you imagine? No, wow, I was just like, What? What is this like? What? What on earth have I landed in? Like this dream? Yeah, so at that point, I just promised myself that as long as I was still learning and growing and had opportunities to challenge myself, but this was as good a classroom as any I could find anywhere, yeah, and so I said, as long as I was growing, I would stay. And it has my my 10 year anniversary passed in February, and so I have been able to not only be challenged and have been able to be a part of new things, but I’ve gotten to be in a place where I could be a part of the growth, and I could see the impact that the work that I do has, which has been incredibly rewarding and really special and and now, 10 years later, my husband has a business in like downtown Lake City. I have a little three year old girl who is, you know, we’re raising her here, and we are, we’re in, you know, we’re part, we’re we’re here for what this is, and we believe in it. And yes, you were right. This one is a longone.You aren’t growing it, and his reputation just continues to expand. I mean, yeah, I found out about it when Jim aren’t won the first competition. I was writing for a magazine, and I wasn’t at Coastal, and I got to go talk to Jim, and I was like, what? Same thing. I couldn’t believe it. And then I went out years later, yeah, that’s amazing.
Sara Sobota
Yeah
Jamison Mady
it is very much like you have to see it to believe it, kind of thing. And it’s just been one of the greatest honors in my life to be able to share it with people. So
Sara Sobota
that’s amazing, that’s amazing. That’s so great. You kind of covered this, but what background did you have that helped you land that role? I think you very clearly and eloquently described the interest in art, the finding of art history, anything else though, that, any background, else that you didn’t talk about?
Jamison Mady
Well, I think, you know, we are in South Carolina, and so much of I think the creatives and the people who want to strive to do something different feel like they have to leave the state to be able to find that. And I always kind of felt like it was a disadvantaged for me, but I think that it has helped me so much to know what we have, what how much room we have for all of this, you know, and that it’s made it being me, despite how many other people have may have wanted to be over my life, you know, but being me has made me ready and able to connect with other people. And so the experiences that I’ve had have helped me, and none of them have been wasted here. You know, like, I think that being able to understand why farming is important to people in this community, because if I can get on their level about farming, then maybe that’s a better way to get them on my level about art. So being able to just really, I feel like I’ve been able to be more myself over the time I’ve been here, because the authenticity is what has made me good at what I do.
Sara Sobota
That’s That’s amazing. That’s great. The next question is, can you please walk us through a typical work day? Okay, what does your work look like and what is expected of you on a daily basis?
Jamison Mady
Yeah, yeah,let’s see. So I would just say that to begin to answer this question, that there is no such thing as a typical day in a young arts organization like art fields, and particularly within my department of art fields, which is all new initiatives. I mean, everything that we’re doing is new, is new things we haven’t done before. So we just opened act on studios, and that’s a big piece of what takes up my time, but I can try to answer your question a little bit more. So I come to my office. I work right on Main Street in downtown Lake City. My office is in a building with our visitor center and our tourism kind of department and our chamber of commerce. So there’s an another art fields office, but I’m here because my job is to create a year round arts destination. And so tourism and thinking about the bigger picture of the town’s development helps me understand art town development, and so we spend a lot of time in meetings and talking about ideas. There’s a lot of conversation and development of ideas. Talking with artists. For many months, I spent a lot of time meeting with artists, taking them through the studio space, figuring out what their needs were, and trying to make sure that we could meet those needs with the new initiatives and programs that we’re developing. So I have a lot of people that I work with from day to day. Some days I come in my office and I sit down at my desk and I do paperwork and budget stuff and grant stuff and answer emails, and then some days I go straight into meetings, and I’m in meetings all day, but they’re not meetings like a lecture. They’re meetings like we’re sitting here and talking about, what could we do and how would we do that? How do we take all of the skills that we have together and make something new happen? And so it’s hard to describe a typical day, but we are always planning, always looking to the next part and always trying to think about how art can fit into the big picture and how the big picture can be more artistic in the future.
Sara Sobota
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay.
Jamison Mady
I’m sorry. I know that that one’s probably hard for people to answer.
Sara Sobota
They’re all over the place. But, you know, regardless of how people answer it, they always come around to saying something really poignant, the sort of the mission of their work, or why it really appeals to them. So yeah, don’t yeah, there’s no right, wrong or off tracking. Can you describe it as defining moment in your creative journey? Maybe a particular project or something you produced that showcased your creativity. Oh,
Jamison Mady
so I had a really almost said dumb, because it wasn’t dumb. It was a great idea, but I felt so silly for ever saying it out loud because of what I had to do to get it accomplished. I don’t know if that brings totally works,
Sara Sobota
right? I mean, that totally works, yeah,
Jamison Mady
yeah. So whenever I was kind of doing, like, mostly project management for public art and exhibition work, this was maybe 2017 or so, we were trying to figure out how we could get people to some of the outlying venues, because it’s a competition. We need people to get around town, but there are some where there’s gaps between a bunch of activity and the venue. And so I was kind of trying to think about, how could we fill in some of those gaps and get people to walk all the way around and Lake City, and Darla is known for her relationship to the masters and Augusta National Golf Course. And so I thought, you know golf, I just, for some reason, said out loud, what if we had a mini golf course and every hole was designed by a different school? And my boss at the time, I think, was like, surely, this is going to be it. This is going to be the thing that she gets, that she writes her way out of here on this one, because there’s no way. And I just was so determined. So I found these, like boards with astroturf that have little holes in them. I drove. Them all over the state. I drove to Clemson, and I had no budget because I bought I put all the budget towards being able to pay the schools for materials and the boards themselves. So I was driving a minivan of my friend’s minivan, with all the seats down and like the boards were literally like resting on my shoulder. I was just so determined that it was going to get done, and it happened. And I think what it showed me was a like, maybe think a little bit about what you would have to do if someone says yes
Sara Sobota
yeah, careful what you ask for.
Jamison Mady
But also, you know, whenever you really think about the way that we create networks of engagement and people being excited and feeling ownership over what we’re doing here in Lake City, that expanded the way that people saw themselves as a part of it, in a way that I kind of had underestimated, because there were students from Clemson, there were students from Claflin, there were students from Francis Marion, and there, you know, there were high school students who were in shop class, and they made these great like Keith Haring Inspired, cut out to people as their obstacles and wow, we used like it just the way that it opened up art for people, because they were able to have a prompt that was a fun prompt, yeah, and they just kind of were able to fly from there. Yeah. It was a really rewarding experience, and one that made me really grateful, and, like, sure about the way that I wanted to move forward in, in being able to pull people together in that name of art, yeah,
Sara Sobota
yeah, yeah. Okay, awesome.
Jamison Mady
then you would see like families out there playing golf, mini golf, and whether it was intentional or not, like they were viewing artwork, yes,
Sara Sobota
yes, yeah.
Jamison Mady
And so I always think about like those formative, like, those core memories that every kid has, like, every person has them of like this thing they saw that they’ll never be able to get the image of it out of their heads. Yeah, and to know that that is that a lot of people walk away with that when they’ve come to art fields, that some of the most spectacular things they’ll ever see were in Lake City, South Carolina. If that’s possible, and that’s true, we can all be anything, because Lake City was completely dead, you know, it was totally counted out. And if, if people can come here and see something magical and special, what can happen in a place like the beach, you know what I mean, like? Because, yeah, so, yeah, yeah. Just the way it, like, gives people hope is so important, and it’s what has been, like, the most remarkable shift here in the 10 years I’ve been here.
Sara Sobota
Wow, yeah, that’s amazing. Oh yeah, I was waiting for that. That’s amazing. Yeah, so I’m going to ask the last two are there any local organizations, programs or events that you recommend for aspiring creatives in South Carolina, other than come to art fields?
Jamison Mady
Yeah, well, of course, art group, duh. I don’t know. I mean, I think that South Carolina is increasing opportunity all the time for artists and for creatives. I don’t know that’s a hard one, like right off the top of my head, because I think I really admire the work that the Public Works center in Somerville is doing. I think that they’ve done a really great job of blending programming and community. They’ve been so scrappy to like put it together. And I really admire them as an organization, and I think that there something to watch, in my opinion, maybe not necessarily as a resource for young people, but as just a place that good creative acts happen. And I think that that’s really important, that we remember that those things exist. Yeah, yes, and I’m sorry I don’t have more than that, but I just want to talk about art fields Junior and art fields and all of that stuff.
Sara Sobota
Well, I mean, that’s perfect for a middle school, high school audience, yeah.
Jamison Mady
I think that, you know, making sure, so I’ll say this. This is what I always say about youth and art when you. Are really good at football. Everybody knows you’re really good at all. If you’re really, really smart, they’ll put your name in the newspaper because you are in the on the Dean’s list. There’s all kinds of like measures of success and of just like people being really talented, and I think that for parents and family members, just as much as the students themselves. What we can do through art fields, Junior and providing a little bit of a measure, I think, is really, really important, because we don’t want, when I say that, I want to dispel the starving artist narrative. It’s not because I want for their for everybody to be unrealistic about how what they can be and what they can do, because, like, what are we going to do? Like, eat each other’s art? No, we have to make money, and we have we have responsibilities, and I understand all of that, but I think that some of the ways that art fields Junior has encouraged young people who maybe don’t know, like, is this something that I could explore, or am I good at this? Because art funding and things in schools is not, I mean, it’s one of the first things to go and so if you don’t have anybody to teach you or to recognize your talent, then you might go your whole life and never be able to fulfill that need in you. And and it’s not, it’s real, like people who are creative need to express that. So if we can provide a place where that can be done and celebrated, then that’s so that is such an important piece of what art fields is. And so I think, and I’m so excited for you to talk to Carla, because she’s just gonna, I mean, her perspective on this kind of stuff is insanely inspiring and just wonderful, but genuinely like, what kind of confidence can we instill in people who do need that outlet, and who are sensitive and connected and have an ability to relate to other people like that is a skill that is needed and necessary. And, yeah, I just love that. You know, we were, after we were doing this for a few years, the skiza art show came to Lake City, and for the last couple of years they’ve had it in the Rob and I just think like for people to start to associate Lake City with recognition in the arts is really, really cool, but for skiza to have taken what we’re doing and seen An opportunity to expand on their Art Awards. That is, that’s it like, that’s the goal. Like, it’s great that it ended up here, yeah, but it’s even better that they felt the need to put more emphasis on that. And I would love to take a little bit of credit for like that, that art fields Junior has helped to elevate the importance of that in the state of South Carolina?
Sara Sobota
Absolutely. Yeah, wow, that’s great. Okay. Last questions, do you have any advice for current college students or pre professional young adults who are pursuing a career in the creative world?
Jamison Mady
think my best advice for anyone in the arts, or just in general, is that sometimes you can’t reopen a door that you’ve closed. The decisions that you make should be about broadening your opportunities and where you can go, not narrowing, because if I I thought I knew what I was going to be doing so many different times. I thought two years ago I knew what I was going to be doing, and my job is completely different now than it was, you know, two years ago, and remaining open and taking the opportunities that are presented to you and doing your best at the things that you have in front of you are only going to help propel you forward whenever you do, figure out exactly where you fit, no connection that you will ever have. You don’t you don’t know how things come back around. People remember you. Make sure that they remember you the way you want them to be remembered. And just because you’re young now. You won’t be young forever, and people are waiting for you. We’re waiting for you.
Sara Sobota
Hey, that’s amazing. Okay, great. So many great things. I’m not gonna be able to fit them all in. I don’t think
Jamison Mady
I will. I can. I mean, I can talk.
Sara Sobota
This has been great. I think I can give students a snapshot of what our Okay, not only looks like, but feels like and does and yeah, yeah, so, yeah. This has been great. Okay. Thanks very. Awesome.
Jamison Mady
Well, thank you so much. This was so much fun. It has been
Sara Sobota
All right, you
Leave a Reply