Arts and Culture

• Charleston group brings chamber music back to Hilton Head Island
  Chamber music lives on in Beaufort County.

• Beaufort woman finds inspiration in salt water and seashells
  Growing up along the shores of Isle of Palms, Chris Nietert of Beaufort always has felt a closeness with the ocean and nature.

• Five Minutes With: Appalachian storyteller John Fowler
  John Fowler was born into a long line of Appalachians. He grew up to tell their stories.

• Traveling Smithsonian exhibit celebrating American roots music comes to Beaufort library
  The gulf between today's hip-hop and the spirituals of 100 years ago might seem vast. But listen closely enough and that chasm slowly starts to narrow.

• Five Minutes With: Artist Cabell Heyward
  Cabell Heyward doesn't paint nice marsh scenes or country landscapes. He may, but they very well might end up with cartoon ducks fighting.

• Five Minutes With: Owen Hand, Light Up The Night participant
  Climbing up on the roof to hang Christmas lights requires a bit of skill and daring. Now imagine what it takes to hang lights off a sailboat mast.

• Artists add another dimension
  Sheri Farbstein would see high-end crafts here and there in the Lowcountry. But not all together, and not all at once. Major art shows consisted mostly of painters. Not that there's anything wrong with a nice painting, but a place for sculpture, pottery, fine jewelry or similar art was lacking -- a discrimination against the third dimension, so to say.

• Walking by a mini wonderland
  As a young boy, Richard Coyne would sit with his brother under their grandfather's Christmas tree and get lost in the snowy scene that was set up below.

• Teenage talent shines at Hilton Head orchestra's seasonal program
  Steven Branyon, a longtime musician in the Lowcountry, provided this review at the request of the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra.

• Photography club captures America's harmonies
  The Photography Club of Beaufort is celebrating the roots of American music at the club's annual exhibit, beginning today in the second floor gallery of the Beaufort library.

• USCB Festival Series continues Dec. 11
  Special to the Packet and Gazette

• Double take: Beaufort artists team up for 'Twin Lens Reflection'
  While their exhibit might have "twin" in the title, there's nothing identical about the work in "Twin Lens Reflections: The Art of Sandy Dimke and Karen Peluso."

• Five Minutes With: Barry Lowes, Christmas Bird Count organizer
  Christmas is an extra special time for birders on Hilton Head Island.

• Program assists military members in finding a voice
  David Ellard retired from the U.S. Marine Corps and later his 22-year-old son was deployed to Iraq. Ellard found MilSpeak as one way of dealing with both major changes in his life.

• 'Celebrate the Season' with the Hilton Head symphony
  The Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra will be joined by the Symphony Chorus and the orchestra's 2011 Youth Concerto Competition winner, Annie Bender, for the "Celebrate the Season" concert at 8 p.m. Dec. 5.

• Five Minutes With: Rebecca Sprecher, author
  Pan American Airlines was there for the fall of Saigon and Operation Babylift that evacuated orphans at the end of the Vietnam War.

• Artist invites the viewer in with colorful, three-dimensional canvasses
  Luther Vann wants his "Songs of My People" exhibit to invoke the viewer's imagination.

• David Ellard's MilSpeak essay, 'First Combat Convoy'
  This essay was written by David Ellard, a retired Marine and a Marine Corps Community Services liaison to MilSpeak.

• Book Review: The Watery Part of the World by Michael Parker
  The Watery Part of the World, by Michael Parker, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 261 pages. $23.95.

• Five Minutes With: Tom Everingham, poet
  For one day at least, Tom Everingham was the school hero. He wasn't the star quarterback or anything like that. He was a poet.