How I Go Columbia: Michaela Pilar Brown
Michaela Pilar Brown, 44, is a multi-media artist in Columbia who is among the 400 artists competing later this month at ArtFields, the nine-day juried visual arts exhibition in Lake City. She was awarded an S.C. Arts Commission AVI (Artists’ Ventures Initiative) grant and has upcoming solo exhibitions at the if ART Gallery, Coastal Carolina University and the Sumter County Gallery of Art. She lives in St. Andrews with her partner, Darion McCloud, and son Zaire.
EAT: We have been enjoying Harambe in Five Points. I lived in D.C. for a number of years and got very attached to Ethiopian cuisine. It’s rich, flavor-intense food. It’s usually a very communal experience; you eat with your hands. And I absolutely adore the Piggly Wiggly on Beltline Boulevard. I go there for breakfast and I almost always have fish and grits — and you can get it for less than five bucks. I like the nostalgic feel. The hand-painted signs are a real draw for me. It’s like stepping back in time.
DRINK: I get coffee at Drip, usually on Main Street.
PLAY: We have a 6-year-old and Finlay Park is a big hit for us. We think it’s lovely and, every warm day, that’s where we are. We spend a lot of time at the main library, particularly on Saturdays for story hour. And for big people fun, we like the Art Bar for dancing on a Friday night. Lately we’ve been attending functions at Gallery West in West Columbia. It has some exciting things happening.
LISTEN: Usually we’re looking for live music that’s accessible and inexpensive. We hang out at First Thursdays on Main Street because usually there’s live music. My partner has a funk band for children, Story Squad, that focuses on literacy, and they play a lot of libraries around town.
SEE: We go to the 701 Center for Contemporary Art. There’s always something exciting happening there. And we go to Trustus. We’re often catching shows there with the Trustus company or The NiA Company. We head out to Harbison Theater quite a bit. We saw most recently “The Mountaintop,” a play about Martin Luther King. It was done by the PURE Theatre out of Charleston.
Dawn Hinshaw
This story was originally published April 1, 2015 at 9:01 PM with the headline "How I Go Columbia: Michaela Pilar Brown."