Charleston Library Society brings back Wide Angle Lunches Series. We offer you an hour of space in the center of your day – an hour to forget what’s going on at home, in the office, in your head, and re-focus. An energizing lunch, an expert’s insight into a new theme, a fresh perspective on a familiar topic. Emerge from the peaceful surrounds of the Charleston Library Society rested, recharged and perhaps also inspired.

Ruby Lerner and KJ Kearney, “Artists Collide With the World: Both Thrive”

For many Charlestonians, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about community and creativity is Enough Pie, the organization dedicated to using creativity to connect and empower the community of Charleston’s Upper Peninsula – or its visionary founder, Kate Nevin. In this Wide Angle first, Nevin will moderate a conversation with two people whose ideas about creativity and community promise to spark a lively exploration about how art intersects with urban planning, politics and social justice, or, in Nevin’s own words, “artivism.”

Ruby Lerner and KJ Kearney are both visionaries and practitioners in the art of creative community-making. Lerner is the founding Executive Director of Creative Capital, an innovative arts foundation that adapts venture capital concepts to support individual artists. Under her leadership, Creative Capital committed $40 million in financial and advisory support to 511 projects representing 642 artists. She stepped down from the organization in June 2016 to pursue consulting work and independent research, and beginning in January 2017 she will be the inaugural Herberger Institute Policy Fellow at Arizona State University and Senior Advisor to the Patty Disney Center for Life and Work at CalArts.

You may have read KJ Kearney’s name in the byline of his former column for Charleston City Paper, or in the news when he ran for South Carolina House District 15. A native of North Charleston, Kearney is committed to keeping Charleston conscious of its complicated cultural heritage and often-precarious present. He recently launched Charleston Sticks Together, in the words of the City Paper a “platform for reminding the city of its imperfections” – it sells pins that remind us all of the ugliness that lurks beneath and within the beauty of Charleston, urging us to take off our “Rainbow Row-colored glasses” and confront the challenges that bedevil true unity in this community.

For tickets, call 843-723-9912 or click here.

All lectures are $20 for members and $25 for nonmembers. A season pass is $75 for members and $95 for nonmembers.

The delicious lunches will be provided by Ladles.

To purchase tickets, call 843-723-9912 or click on the links above