As a musician, Charlie McAlister’s records have been sent to Brooklyn, New Zealand. As an artist, his pieces hang in Baltimore and Chicago. But in Charleston, where McAlister is from and has lived the majority of his life, too little of the population knows his name.
Just like his music and art, one can collect Charlie McAlister stories. There was this one time at SXSW in Austin when McAlister came out on stage not to perform in the regular musical way, but instead he melted a bunch of things in a skillet. The wine and cheese he serves at art openings is hooch and Kraft singles. He stays up till 4 A.M. recording records at his house in McClellanville, SC, long after the band has called it a day. He plays music with a potato sack over his head. He works on a boat, and if you flub and drop your keys over the side, he’ll spend 30 minutes fishing with a magnet to help you.
Bear in mind, this is all hearsay. He’s a man of legends. Then you meet him and you’re equally certain and uncertain that it’s all true. He’s a practical guy who always wears a cut off t-shirt sleeve on his head to catch his sweat in humid Charleston. And his eyes hint at a life lived for the opposite of practicality—for adventure.
McAlister’s most accessible art are his chapbooks* and Sardine Magozine. (Yes, that’s an “o.”) Sardine includes product reviews, parking tickets, destruction and flooding in the city, and photos of open fields with the caption, “What they gon’ build?” He says, “I named it Sardines because I was kind of getting into eating sardines at the time.” But it has to mean more, right? The symbolism of how sardines are packed into a vacuum-sealed can seems to pair perfectly with the major theme in his art: according to him, the development of Charleston.
McAlister illustrates his point with a simple business example: “Everybody I know is talking about it. Those guys on the docks! Shem Creek is the perfect example of how this city is changing. These paddle boarding companies have come in, and they charge $40 to rent one for four hours. That’s how you can make money down there. It’s tough for the shrimpers to make a living on those docks now.”
Then he goes into this great story about a baby manatee knocking a girl off a paddle board.
Recently, McAlister started showing his art at Rebekah Jacob Gallery, which seemed completely out of character for him, but it makes sense too. “I’m tired of my art just sitting around. And I’m getting older now. 45. It’s time to just let things go. They’re nice folks, and they have a nice space.”
RJG hangs a combination of hard edge painting and ink on mylar. They have cucumbers with “ME” written on one side and “MAYOR JOE RILEY” on the other. McAlister leaves what they mean up to viewers. He says he just grew vegetables that were too big to eat, so he found another use.
And, again, this is what good artists do: give it to you straight, but leave you questioning everything.
*Chapbook (noun.)
1. A small book or pamphlet of popular tales, ballads, etc., formerly hawked about by chapmen. 2. A small book or pamphlet, often of poetry. Origin 1790-1800
words: Elizabeth Bowers