Morgan Schemel ’11
We’ll call it “A Dutch Affair.”
When artist Morgan Schemel ’11 was unable to attend the best party on the East Coast – the College’s A Charleston Affair – on account of moving to the Netherlands in January 2015, she did the next best thing and hosted her own sophisticated shindig.
And instead of tulips and wooden shoes, Schemel stayed true to her College of Charleston roots and insisted on a Lowcountry-themed party replete with bow ties, fancy flower arrangements and punch cocktails.
As Schemel explains:
Here’s the long story short: I graduated from CofC in 2011, was able to attend The Charleston Affair in 2012 and 2013. Work made it impossible to attend in 2014. Life made it impossible to attend in 2015.
BUT that didn’t stop me from celebrating! Instead, I hosted my own “Charleston Affair” both years. It’s something that I’ve looked forward to since graduating and I wasn’t about to let a few thousand miles come between me and this event.
To pull off a European version of A Charleston Affair, Schemel drew on event planning experience from her former job in Chicago and decorated her apartment in Utrecht, Netherlands, with some of the gorgeous flowers available in Holland. Then she had her boyfriend, Matt, give some critical wardrobe help to their male friends; none had ever worn that peculiar Southern accoutrement known as a bow tie.
“Matt had to give a demonstration on how to tie one,” says Schemel (a photo of the class is included in the slideshow below). “As I’m sure you understand, this was quite funny considering Charleston is the bow tie capital of the world.”
Beyond the parties she’s hosted, Schemel has applied her artist’s touch to paper, painting watercolors of flowers. At the College, she says, she gained an appreciation for still life painting through the tutelage of studio art professor John Hull.
Schemel’s watercolor of an iris.
There’s just something so powerful about the objects we choose to love, the ones that make it into our lives, and in their wake, the ones that we neglect. My painting has evolved a lot over the years, but I’ve slowly found my way back to still life painting- but more specifically, flowers. Since moving here, I’ve started to revisit my love for nature. Right now I work on a number of different watercolor card series — I’ve become interested in the idea of an art that exists with the soul purpose of communication. The art of communication, if you will. The good, the bad, and the ugly — as humans, we want to send art as representation of that.
Schemel’s flora paintings on dinnerware.
After receiving encouragement from friends, Schemel has been selling some of her art through her website.
Schemel plans to spend at least the next five years living abroad on account of her boyfriend’s job. She’s practicing her Dutch, she says, and missing Charleston, at least every time A Charleston Affair rolls around in May.
“Charleston is something that doesn’t leave a person,” she says. “The College of Charleston means so much to me I wanted to share my love for it with others– even here, where literally no one would be able to point out South Carolina on a map!”
Drag images or use the buttons below to navigate through photos of Schemel’s Dutch Affair party!
