'My favorite week in Charleston': Southeastern Wildlife Exposition returns for 30th year
Jim Rozier remembers his very first Southeastern Wildlife Exhibition, way back in February of 1983. He almost overdosed. On hand-carved wooden ducks.
It’s no stretch as the first festival accommodated limited interests. But from humble beginnings, SEWE has steadily grown to incorporate a wide-ranging terrain.
Now it’s one of the largest events of its kind in the United States, revealing a dizzying assortment of fine art, conservation exhibits and demonstrations for sportsmen and outdoor enthusiasts.
It’s grown so much and become so popular that in three decades, Rozier has only missed two SEWE weekends. Once, the former Berkeley County supervisor and Berkeley County Council chairman was out of the country. The second, he can’t exactly remember.
“But there had to be a reason. Because I love (SEWE),” he said. “It’s my favorite week in Charleston.”
Since the late 1980s, in fact, Rozier boasts perfect SEWE attendance. It’s a mark he intends to keep as SEWE returns to Charleston Feb. 17-19 for its 30th annual edition.
Another reason for the event’s popularity? It caters to each demographic.
“I try to stress that to people,” said John Powell, a Greenville, N.C., native in his first year as executive director of the exhibition. “There are just so many different SEWEs within the larger SEWE.”
This year, top attractions include:
Plus, SEWE includes more than 300 exhibitors promoting and selling their wares and services beneath tents in Marion Square. Available art includes works from more than 100 artists.
“There’s truly something for everyone,” Powell said.
Last year, among the 40,000 total attendees and artist participants were people from 40 states, as well as Canada, South Africa and Scotland.
For all of this year’s fellow festival-goers, Rozier offers a bit of advice: “If you plan to go just one year, you can’t cover it all,” he said. “Those few days, you’re just not going to see everything. You’ve got to come three or four years to cover the whole thing.”
He’s right. The event covers a large portion of the peninsula, with events slated for Marion Square, the Gaillard Auditorium, Brittlebank Park, Charleston Place, the Mills House, the Charleston Marriott and the Aiken-Rhett House.
For event locations and prices, go to sewe.com. For festival updates and photo galleries, go to postandcourier.com/news/sewe/.
Despite everything SEWE has to offer, it’s often the artistry — the wide swath of paintings, sculptures and photography showing animals, birds, plants and the natural world — that appeals most to visitors.
“These aren’t just wildlife artists,” Powell said. “These are great artists in general.
“At other festivals, it’s difficult to find a similar number of artists available to discuss their work,” Powell said. “People can create relationships with these artists. They get to understand, and to hear how and why these pieces were created. Knowing where the idea came from can be enlightening. It’s preferable to just seeing a painting hanging on the wall.”
For instance, Dustin Van Wechel, SEWE’s featured painter, last year claimed Best in Show at SEWE for the painting “Watchtower,” an oil rendering that depicts a pair of furry mountain goats perched atop rocky cliffs, their eyes cast toward the valley.
“When it comes to ‘Watchtower,’ what you see in the painting never actually happened,” said Van Wechel, returning for his eighth time to the exhibition. “It’s what I wished would have happened: the goats standing and looking around, and the combination of the storm and the lighting.
“It was a romanticized version of the trip that encompassed a number of things: the high altitude, the landscape, the drama and the lighting in the evening.”
Then there’s “Morning Graze,” this year’s SEWE poster showing a pair of American bison feeding atop a grassy hill as the morning light illuminates the animals. It’s also another painting rooted in symbolism.
“Maybe it’s not obvious, but there are a lot of significant elements in that painting,” said Van Wechel, who began painting full-time after leaving a successful eight-year stint in the advertising industry.
“The morning light almost suggests the future of the bison, and how it’s a much brighter future than 100 years ago when they were on the brink of extinction,” he said.
Both pieces typify Van Wechel’s approach as he annually treks to Wyoming, Colorado and Montana to gain inspiration and soak up the scenery. He evokes an idealistic understanding of the environment and his subjects, albeit one grounded in reality.
Don Rambadt, this year’s featured sculpture who’s returning for his 13th year at SEWE, enjoys the interplay between artist and collector, and the opportunity to demonstrate his work to newcomers and even children.
Rambadt earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture in 1995, and then began work at a Milwaukee foundry, where he cast monumental bronze sculpture. Upon leaving the foundry, he began sculpting on a permanent basis.
His core stylistic approach involves the welding of metal, triangular pieces to create birds. By using birds as his medium, Rambadt tries to delve into the relationship between positive and negative space, allowing the mixed metals to assume energy and movement.
Several public, private and corporate collections, museums, and exhibitions across North America and abroad house his work.
It would be easy to term Rambadt’s art as abstract, though it’s not necessarily precise. Anatomical accuracy still guides the artist’s baseline.
“Maybe it’s somewhat abstract,” he said. “And the more abstract work might be more personal. It’s not quite self-portraiture, but interrelated. Generally, if there are two or more birds in a piece, there’s a human story behind it, as well. Some of it is natural history. Some of it is self-expression.”
Still, no matter the narrative, Rambadt hopes to rouse similar emotions from festival-goers.
“It’s the same feeling I get when I experience a piece of artwork that might be thought-provoking and beautiful,” he said. “It can be exciting, especially for someone seeing it for the first time. It’s that sense of discovery that may help you look at the world in a different way.”
For his part, Rozier looks forward to the annual gathering and commingling of artists and enthusiasts.
Among his SEWE collectibles, he counts the 2005 and 2006 festival posters from Charleston native John Carroll Doyle and Heiner Hertling, respectively, as his favorites.
“Island Sentinel” from Doyle centers on a lone egret, while Hertling’s poster features a vibrant flock of roseate spoonbills.
Rozier tends to prefer the posters depicting birds, as they remind him of his Cedar Island home, situated at the beginning of the west branch of the Cooper River. Then, too, he’s looking forward to most everything related to SEWE.
That includes VIP events such as the SEWE Soiree, held Saturday night at the Charleston Visitor Center. But there are others, including three premium Friday night outings: the Ducks Unlimited/Southeastern Wildlife Exposition Oyster Roast, the semi-formal South Carolina Waterfowl Association’s Sportsman’s Ball and the Duck Shuck Oyster Roast.
“You’ll get to see virtually everybody during that week in some capacity,” Rozier said.
And perhaps it’s that familiarity, coupled with the new offerings that help to tweak the SEWE landscape, providing an enduring appeal for many.
“Some people might say that our show is somewhat repetitive. But remember, there are 100-plus artists with new, original works,” Powell said. “The sporting arms and decoys are returning alongside old favorites. The (festival) is just going to continue to grow.”
