Arts & Culture

Hours: Mon-Fri: 8am-5pm, Sat: 8am-4pm. For that old time shopping experience, come see us in downtown Chester.  We have many wonderful items including antique furniture, clocks, jewelry, linens, photos, and art glass, dating from the early 1800s through the 1950s.

Ashley Flynn is a contemporary jewelry designer working with sterling silver, gold, and semi-precious stones. She is also a photographer, focusing on modern family photography. She offers art classes at her studio for children, as well. Please contact her with any questions or for more information about current classes. Hours vary, call for appointment.

Turning out hundreds of pieces of concrete pottery each day, this five-acre site also carries on the 60-year-old Old Bethune Pottery's tradition of digging, processing and supplying Bethune clay to artists and classrooms across the state.

Dru Blair is an aviation airbrush artist whose realistic paintings dramatically portray subjects that salute man's greatest technological triumphs. His realistic aircraft paintings are often mistaken for photos. Four day workshops, are held on a scenic 100-acre campus that is part of Sumter National Forest. Students are housed on site in private bedrooms or suites and meals are available on campus. Normal office hours are 10:00 am-9:00 pm EST Mon-Sat.

Metalworking studio with metalsmith on site. Unique gifts and handcrafted jewelry. Jeanie Roundy, owner. Wed-Fri 12-6; Sat 11-3.

This was one of several educational institutions for freed slaves and their children started by the Board of Missions for Freedmen of the Presbyterian Church USA. Formally organized in 1868, Brainerd merged with Fairfield Institute (Winnsboro) in 1888. Brainerd was a feeder school for many colleges, including Benedict College and Johnson C. Smith University. The last class graduated in 1939. Today one building, Kumler Hall, remains on the 18-acre campus. In the late 1990s, actress Phylicia Rashad and her sister, dancer Debbie Allen answered the call for support. Rashad purchased the property in honor of their mother, Vivian Ayers Allen, who was in its last graduating class. Both Rashad and Allen continue to assist in programming and fundraising for the site now being preserved for the establishment of a cultural center. On the National Register of Historical Places.

The Catawba Indians have lived on their ancestral lands along the banks of the Catawba River dating back at least 6000 years. Before contact with the Europeans it is believed that the Nation inhabited most of the Piedmont area of South Carolina, North Carolina and parts of Virginia. Early colonial estimates of the Catawba population when settlers arrived are between 15,000-25,000. Early Catawbas lived in villages which were surrounded by a wooden palisade or wall. There was a large council house in the village as well as a sweat lodge, homes, and an open plaza for meetings, games, and dances. The homes were rounded on top and made of bark. The dwellings were small with extended families living in a single structure. Catawbas were farmers. They planted crops like corn and squash along the banks of the river. They also fished and hunted. The Catawbas were a large and powerful group and waged war with neighboring tribes, especially the Cherokee.