Meet Cindi Boiter | Founder and Executive Director, The Jasper Project

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cindi Boiter and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cindi, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Not all excellent artists can be rich or famous, but the fact that they may not be in the right place at the right time to acquire wealth and fame should not negate the value of their contributions to local culture. Unfortunately, our capitalist society places too much value on wealth and fame and erroneously uses these criteria as the sole measurements of success. I wanted to create an organization that validated local artists for their efforts and talents, and I wanted to this organization to focus on the quality of the artists’ work. So in 2011, I founded Jasper Magazine, a printed piece of art in itself that celebrates both the most meaningful and excellent art from all disciplines created specifically in the SC Midlands and the state of SC writ large. Over the years, the success of the magazine format evolved into a multidisciplinary arts engineering organization and a non-profit organization with a working board of directors.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
For the first several decades of my life I split my time between working as a freelance writer for national magazines while also writing fiction for myself, and teaching Women and Gender Studies as an adjunct instructor at the University of SC. In doing so, I was able to crate my own schedule and participate fully in the care of my children. When my daughters went to college, I wanted to make a meaningful contribution to our local culture that allowed me to exercise my beliefs in the often negative effects of capitalism on society and the intensely important contributions of the arts to our culture.

I believe that money should be a tool, but the acquisition (and hoarding of it) should not be the end-all standard by which we access value. That said, I am fortunate to live a life that, due to the hard work of my spouse and life-partner, allows me to engage in public service as a representative of my family. Public service and creating a positive impact on culture is a guiding goal for us both.

To that end, the creation of Jasper Magazine and the non-profit Jasper Project allowed me to bring together like-minded individuals, in the form of our working board of directors, who solely through our combined talents and efforts, have affected a significant impact on our local and statewide culture.

It is not easy. After four years of working on Jasper Magazine in my free time, I stopped teaching, which was fine, but I also found that I had very little time to write for myself and, therefore, very little time to hone my own skills.

It’s also not easy to find other individuals who are committed to the same principles of often thankless work in service to our community. But, over the course of the years, these incredibly important individuals have found the Jasper Project, and their generosity of talent, time, and spirit is what continues to sustain the Jasper Project.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would take them to some of our unique and exciting restaurants for drinks and dinner including War Mouth, Bourbon, Transmission Arcade, the Dragon Room, Hunter Gatherer, and I’d take them to the restaurants that allow Jasper to hang local art on their walls, like Motor Supply Bistro and Sound Bites Eatery.

I’d take them to the Columbia Museum of Art and our local galleries such as Mike Brown Contemporary and Soulhaus.

I’d want them to be intown on the First Thursday of the month so they could experience the outpouring of love and energy for the arts in our city, as well as on Saturday morning, so they could experience the Soda City Market which rivals all the European market places for its diversity, offerings, and community energy.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
All past and present members of the Jasper Project board of directors, and the thousands of SC artists the Jasper Project has served

Website: https://jasperproject.org/