ART AND INNOVATION UPTOWN

By Christopher Gergen and Stephen Martin
Special to the Charlotte Observer
Printed June 26, 2011

The church was first built in 1926. A magnificent neo-Gothic structure on the edge of uptown Charlotte, its congregation once numbered 500 strong. But the decline of Charlotte's city center and an eroding membership base led the church to be sold in 1981. Four years later, a fire swept through the building and its singed carcass became a symbol of a bygone era.

Today, against great odds, it has emerged as a hub of creativity and a cultural touchstone for the community.

This unlikely transformation began when Bank of America bought the church in 1995. With funding from the bank, its Chairman Hugh McColl and the Arts & Science Council, a team of architects was given an unusual challenge: turn the church into an urban artist community.

Informed by best practices globally and artistic input locally, the result is stunning.

Spill over into the community

McColl Center for Visual Art boasts nine artist studios and more than 5,000 square feet of gallery space. The space lends itself beautifully to collaboration and artistic connection.

In the former bell-tower, Knight Foundation Writer-in-Residence P. Scott Cunningham types away on an old typewriter as he gazes up at the soaring rafters and windows above. A floor below, Cuban-born Quiesqueya Henriquez works on her collage and sculptures. Down the open hallway are Charlotte-based painter Isaac Payne and University of Chicago-trained, Vietnamese artist Thu Kim Vu.

The artists-in-residence program provides each artist with a stipend, materials budget, travel expenses and housing in a nearby apartment. There are three cycles of residents over the year. In the most recent cycle just 26 were accepted from a pool of 269.

The center also offers an "affiliates" program for artists within 50 miles. They don't receive the same material benefits but the creative advantages are undisputed - and spill over into the community.

To engage the citizens of Charlotte, each artist is expected to conduct two outreach activities during their residencies. For instance, artist Felicia van Bork worked with Project Art Aid and local cancer survivors to create paintings to raise money for the American Cancer Society.

San Francisco artist Daniel McCormick worked with the Nature Museum, Mecklenburg Parks and Recreation and students from Queens University of Charlotte to develop an eco-art installation designed to reduce erosion and clean storm water runoff in Freedom Park. The model proved so successful that the center is replicating it and establishing an environmental track to its residence program.

"Charlotte is dealing with the challenges of rapid growth and development which threaten our green spaces and water quality," says center President Suzanne Fetscher. "Our environmental artists create community partnerships that educate people about those challenges and involve them directly in environmental art projects. Beneficial art becomes the tie that binds people of all ages to improving their community."

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