Mark Sloan

Halsey director puts his imprint on projects as 'ambassador of the arts'

Wade Spees
The Post and Courier

Mark Sloan, director and senior curator for the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, is known for curating out-of-the-mainstream art. He is shown in front of the exhibition 'Richard McMahan's Mini Museum,' a collection of miniature copies of artwork mounted at the college's Addlestone Library earlier this summer.

The book 'Self-Made Worlds: Visionary Folk Art Environments,' co-authored by Mark Sloan, looks at colorful artscapes and artists who create them.

When you walk into Mark Sloan's office, don't be startled if you encounter a grotesque monkey head atop the figure of a "Fee Jee Island" mermaid sculpted in 1843. Lying beside it is a display of tiny disembodied porcelain legs arranged on a bed of framed cotton.

"I'm intrigued by ordinary people engaged in extraordinary endeavors," says Sloan, who says if he were not a college professor, he probably would be running a circus.

The director of the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, where he is an associate professor in the School of the Arts, Sloan, 50, seems to be everywhere at once.

Last winter, he collaborated with Medical University of South Carolina President Raymond Greenberg in selecting and installing an impressive collection of contemporary art to humanize the hospital setting of MUSC's Ashley River Tower.

Greenberg, who grew up with Sloan in Chapel Hill, N.C., says, "Even then, Mark was very outgoing, and he has used his incredible energy to put his own imprint on important projects. He's a wonderful ambassador for the arts."

Two years ago, Sloan arranged for 10 Japanese artists to visit and create installations at colleges all over the state, and then went with his family to Japan to visit the artists. At the Halsey, Sloan plans the exhibits, curates some exhibits himself, and selects guest curators for some of the displays. To top it all off, this industrious Southerner is the author or co-author of seven books. But not all the books are about the visual arts.

The professor says, "My book about circuses, 'Wild, Weird and Wonderful,' was used as the inspiration for a New York Times best-seller, 'Water for Elephants,' and the author credits my book and uses a number of the book's photos."

It's the Fourth of July and Sloan is at home near Hampton Park taking a breather after disassembling his most recent project, Richard McMahan's minimuseum. The exhibit featured replicas of artwork from 30,000 B.C. to the present accurately copied in miniature by McMahan, a Jacksonville, Fla., savant.

Sloan's knowledge of minutiae is beyond amazing.

Want to know when the first circus opened in America? Sloan can tell you it was April 3, 1793, in Philadelphia. When was juggling invented? Sloan has a photograph of ancient Egyptians tossing balls in the air. How about when elephants started doing tricks? In 275 B.C., Romans watched performances by elephants.

One could tag Sloan as an eccentric, but definitely an exceedingly controlled eccentric.

He is not afraid to take a chance on any new idea. For 13 years, in a step toward cross-fertilization, he has allowed the Halsey to be used by budding playwrights from the theater department to present staged readings of their original plays.

Two years ago, the gallery director was responsible for getting the name officially changed to the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art. "Rather than having traveling exhibitions, we prefer to initiate our own shows," he says. "Also, I think 'institute' better describes a place with numerous outreach programs such as lectures, films, workshops and demonstrations, such as we produce.

"This is a very exciting time for us, especially with the promise of a new facility for the Halsey to be ready sometime in 2009," Sloan says of the new gallery that will be part of the School of the Arts building under construction at Calhoun and St. Philip streets. "We have put together a terrific advisory board and are exploring ways that we might broaden our cultural impact on the region."

Despite his dizzying work schedule, he maintains a low-key, but sociable home life with his wife, Michelle Van Parys, a photography professor in the studio art department at the college, and their son, Andre, 15. Sloan's daughter, Mara, from a previous marriage, often visits.

On a humid afternoon, Sloan and Van Parys have been putting furniture back in place after painting the inside of their craftsman-style bungalow decorated by Navajo woven rugs and throws. They are getting ready to leave the next day for North Carolina so that Andre can attend a two-week wilderness camp, while they vacation at Ocracoke Island.

"We love it there; it's where we went on our honeymoon," says Van Parys.

One might ask her what it is like to live with a human tsunami of the arts.

Van Parys carefully constructs her answer:

"Mark and I strive to achieve a balance in our lives between work and family, and we both have very active lives outside our jobs at the college. When we collaborate, as we have on two books and on many exhibitions, we have devised a system that allows us to leave our home life out of project decisions: If we come to a point of disagreement, Mark may say, "That's a 6 to me" (on a 10-point scale), while it may only be a 5 to me. This works both ways, of course, and we have managed to hone our negotiation skills as a result."

Reach Dottie Ashley at 937-5704 or dashley@post andcourier.com.