“I just saw Kim Gordon in SoHo” read a text I received at Saffron Café and Bakery last Friday. While my friend was spotting the Sonic Youth legend in Manhattan, I was witnessing the next generation of female rock stars in Charleston as Girls Rock hosted their annual benefit to raise funds for their week-long summer camp for musically inclined girls and trans youth.
The camp works to empower girls at a young age through creative music education programming, and local leading ladies like Lindsay Holler and the Local Honeys set a fine example. Girls with giant pieces of chocolate cake sat in comfy booths, legs swinging, as their rockabilly moms and tattooed dads looked over the auction items — many people went home with stupendous winnings. We spoke with local artist Dorothy Netherland about her daughter, who looks forward to participating in the camp this year.
Friday night brought art openings at two of our favorite venues, Redux Contemporary Art Center and the new location of Rebekah Jacob Gallery. We walked into Redux after the artist’s lecture and the place seemed to have cleared out, but we didn’t mind the empty room — it gave us plenty of space to roam around Jason Hackenwerth’s large-scale installations made from insulation and wood. Later, we found most of the art crowd had migrated to Jacob’s gallery for the opening of Confluence, which features works by Bo Joseph and Tim Hussey. The airy space was a lovely anchor for the colorful art. Artist Ben Hollingsworth spoke to us about splitting his time between New York and the Holy City before heading inside to inspect Hussey’s new work. Most attendees were fellow artists and local creatives looking for a bit of culture on Upper King.
After our fill of aesthetic inspiration, we strapped on our helmets and headed to the Hippodrome for the Charleston Moves Bike to Work Week party. The nonprofit organization was ending a week of bike-centric activities with a celebration of all things on two wheels. D’Allesandro’s Pizza served up slices, and New Belgium provided the beer. Charleston Moves Director Tom Bradford took the mic to address the crowd on the group’s fundraising and advocacy efforts, promising that next year we would see “five times as many people” at the event. The crowd may have been sparse, but the passion for cycling in the Lowcountry definitely is not. —Erin Perkins
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