Mount Pleasant Magazine May/June 2018

35 www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com | www.BestOfMP.com feature a venue. It’s wonderful. I can’t say enough about it,” she said. De La Maza’s colorful, vibrant pieces move regularly from the walls of Metto to customers. Perhaps it is her deeply personal style that drives the purchases. “My work is coming from my subconscious and from my soul. It’s really from my soul – the color, the lines, the images are really soul-driven,” she said. As for Parrish, she is happy to provide an avenue for display for the artists and doesn’t take any commission on sales. De La Maza said she has sold quite a few works, including one recent sale to the parents of a former elementary student of hers as a gift for his 29th birthday. “I was kinda surprised. It just tickled me that the parents contacted me,” she said. Artist Ellen Stoecker also has gotten attention for her art in an area coffee shop and said the process for getting her work displayed at Starbucks on Coleman Boulevard was relatively easy. “All you need to do is talk to the manager and show them the work. It’s super easy. And what a great venue,” she said. Stoecker sold her first ever pieces of art at Starbucks, with some of the sale money going to a special cause. “My big passion project is elephant rescue, and part of the money goes to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust that rehabilitates orphaned elephants and rhinos,” she said. Still other places of business use a different method to curate and procure art to display. Charleston’s Cafe, now closed but once located on Johnnie Dodds Boulevard near Anna Knapp, had a slew of artwork adorning its walls, many of them courtesy of Captain Bob. Bob Hellebush is 72 and is constantly in motion. A former CEO of an investment firm, he opened a Mount Pleasant office in 2000. He retired to the area in Artist Ellen Stoecker at Starbucks.