Artists offer high-flying creations for series

By Lauren Brown

Columbia sculptor Anastasia Chernoff organized and hosted the art exhibit Anastasia and friends: Kiting in the Gallery recently as a part of Main Street's First Thursday series.

The exhibit was located at the Columbia Free Times office at 1534 Main St., and featured the work of Michael Anastasion, Bohumila Augustinova, Blair Gary, Paul Kaufmann, Michael Krajewski, Matthew Kramer, Michaela Pilar Brown, Alex Smith, Roe Young and Chernoff herself.

The artists involved created pieces of art on theme of kites. Local artist and jewelry-maker Bohumila Augustinova handmade a kite from copper wire and crystal and glass beads. Paul Kaufmann created a kite out of burned Pine plywood and scrap metal on cotton paper. Chernoff's kite, which was made of canvas and painted to look like a springtime sky, was being held by two sculpted female figures.

On Columbia artist Alex Smith's giant kite was painted a lamb offering a cake to the Cowardly Lion. Smith was wearing a name tag that read "Hi, I'm Alex. I've lost my voice and it hurts me to talk." Smith ignored the pain for just long enough to explain the concept behind his kite creation, titled In and Out (With Cake).

"You know the saying about March, 'out like a lion, in like a lamb," said Smith. "The lamb is giving the lion a little farewell gift. The cake says 'farewell, be brave!' since it's the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz. He's kind of adding insult to injury. That's why the kite says 'it was awkward.'"

"I thought kites were a perfect theme for this month's First Thursday," said Chernoff. "The whole kite thing is really sentimental to me. Whenever I think about March I think about flying kites as a kid growing up." She laughed, adding, "We definitely won't be testing these kites to see if they fly though." RCT