Seascapes and seafood in Old Town Bluffton

Calhoun Street was teeming with life on Sunday as the Historic Bluffton Arts & Seafood Festival came to a close.

Artists traveled from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and even Indiana — to name a few — to participate in the art festival this year.

Beaufort County artists had a number of booths, as well, and represented several forms of artistic media.

Photography

Beaufort photographer Dave Shipper has a passion for wildlife photography, especially birds, but said his favorite photograph at his booth is of a group of boats at a Port Royal dock at dawn. Up until about three years ago, Shipper owned a landscaping company and photography was more of a hobby.

“I started off chasing hummingbirds around my backyard,” Shipper said. Now, photography is his main gig and his work is shown at Thibault Gallery on Bay Street in Beaufort. “I try to capture the ultimate sense of realism. I want people to feel like they’re standing there looking at the scene itself,” he said.

Nearly all of Shipper’s photographs are of places within a 30-mile radius of Beaufort, he said. Hurricane Matthew damaged many of his go-to spots, including Hunting Island State Park, where he said he makes his best landscape photos. For a little while at least, he’ll shift his focus to photographing some wetland areas that hopefully have not been negatively impacted by the storm, he said.

Gourds, wood

Sun City based artist Nancy Adams creates her art from dried gourds and wood that she finds along her walks or by the water. Adams brings them to life with nature-inspired subjects or scenes. When she begins a new piece, she said she doesn’t have a specific image in mind. Adams lets each one develop as she goes, never knowing what to expect the final product to look like.

The beauty of this festival, Adams said, is the diversity of the art displayed. She has come back for the last 10 years or so to show her pieces and see the varying talents of her peers.

Jewelry, woodworking

Bluffton jewelry designer Terri Martin and Sun City woodworker Jim Renauer were set up just off Calhoun Street. Martin’s earrings, bracelets and “one-of-a-kind” necklaces are made of all quality materials, she said, and much of her work is made in an “Old World style” with antique pearls. She began making jewelery with a friend in Arizona just a few years ago and is now hoping to expand into a business now that she is settled in Bluffton. She’s eyeing Thursday’s farmers markets to get herself started, she said.

Renauer joined a Sun City woodworking club about 10 years ago and has been working at it ever since. He said he loves working with wood because every piece is unique. If a project should meet an unexpected roadblock halfway through the job, the design can be reworked into a brand new one, he said. He’s known as “Mr. Bottlestopper,” he said, for his intricate wine stoppers that unscrew if the decoration makes the bottle too tall for a refrigerator shelf. His work can be found at Pluff Mudd Art Gallery on Calhoun Street.

New artists

Some folks showing their work were just starting out. University of South Carolina Beaufort students from the Art Club had an opportunity to show off some of their early career pieces over the weekend.

Studio art seniors Chloe Threatt and Mandy Mitchell and junior Jeremiah Buoy were manning the booth Sunday afternoon along with their club adviser Lisa Victoria Ciresi and interim department chair Kim Keats. Buoy was celebrating a first; one of his drawings was purchased by a festivalgoer. Threatt and Mitchell, who both work with ceramics, said coming the the festival allows them to not only gain experience, but also draw inspiration from or learn about new techniques from other artists.

Seafood also served

The festival wouldn’t be complete without the seafood, nestled in the center of the long row of artists’ booths. The Crazy Crab staff was happy to be back for the fifth or sixth year, said Sean O’Sheill, chef and kitchen manager. Their restaurant on Hilton Head Island suffered only some downed trees on the property after the hurricane and luckily no damage to the building itself, he said.

Candi O’Sheill, a server and bartender for the restaurant, said business had been great throughout the festival. By Sunday afternoon, the barbecue shrimp and crabcakes were starting to run low, which was a sign they were selling quickly, she said. The staff was worried that the hurricane aftermath would have kept people away, but it seems they were ready to get out for some fun.

The Pearl Kitchen and Bar had a spot set up just across the street from the restaurant on Calhoun Street. Co-owner Alex Nightingale said he had met quite a few Northern visitors who were “expanding their horizons” and trying shrimp and grits for the very first time. It was the new restaurant’s first year participating in the festival, and Nightingale said he plans to be back next year.

Hundreds of people of all ages trickled in and out throughout the day by free trolley to and from Red Cedar Elementary School or parking wherever possible and walking on the lovely sunny day. Music poured out from three different stages while folks meandered through booths, sometimes taking ending up with new pieces of art to take home.

This story was originally published October 23, 2016 at 5:49 PM with the headline "Seascapes and seafood in Old Town Bluffton."