Puppeteer and artist Kimi Maeda: How I Go Columbia

When it comes to local arts events, Kimi Maeda, 37, is all over the place. She helped organize the Spork in Hand Puppet Slam featured at Indie Grits, going on this week; and collaborated on a performance installation piece coming up at ArtFields. Soon Maeda (pronounced “My-etta”) will be touring with her piece “Bend,” which debuted at the Tapp’s Art Center here. It’s a multimedia performance about her father in which she does live sand drawing combined with archival footage from the World War II Japanese American internment camps. She’s also done set designs, costume design and prop building at Trustus and USC. Maeda and her husband, Andy Smith, live in Earlewood.

EAT: Our favorite restaurant is Terra in West Columbia, definitely. Mike Davis is really talented as a chef, so everything we’ve tried there has just been incredible. It’s definitely a special night out. We tend to get the lamb mac and cheese.

DRINK: All of my meetings happen at Drip on Main Street. I’m a tea drinker, I’m not a coffee drinker, but they tend to have really interesting tea.

PLAY: I walk the dog every morning in Earlewood Park. It’s a lovely walk. The Nickelodeon is great. I saw a whole bunch of their programming during “Burn to Shine” (commemorating the 150th anniversary of the burning of Columbia). They had a mash-up of local filmmakers remixing “Gone with the Wind,” which was really interesting. Right now the show that’s going on at the Columbia Marionette Theatre, “The Frog Princess,” is interesting. It’s there through May. I know some people think, ‘Oh, I can’t go there if I don’t have a kid with me.’ I’d say it’s worth checking out. The last Friday of every month, they’re doing an evening performance of the show because I think they want to get more adults in.

LISTEN: My last concert would have been at Conundrum Music Hall. It was a really interesting electronic duo. It’s an intimate space; it’s great that they exist in Columbia. They’re bringing people through that are not going to play at the Music Farm, but it’s great they’ve got a venue here.

SEE: If we have visitors, it depends on the day, right? If it’s a Saturday, we’ll take them to the farmers market. We’ll take them to 701 Whaley, their gallery out there. We might see Tapp’s. There’s usually some sort of exhibition going on all the time.

Dawn Hinshaw

This story was originally published April 15, 2015 at 11:13 AM with the headline "Puppeteer and artist Kimi Maeda: How I Go Columbia."