09.12.2007
Statesville prepares to crawl
 |
Diana McLaughlin, owner of Broad Street Gallery, has begun hanging artwork and preparing her gallery for the first Downtown Statesville Art Crawl. The event, promoting local artists, begins at 5 p.m. Friday afternoon. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) photo. |
Diana McLaughlin has been busy all week getting the layout of her selected art pieces just right along the walls and floor space at her Broad Street Gallery.
The shop is a featured stop along the inaugural Statesville Art Crawl.
Do people really crawl?
“I think that depends on how much they’ve had to drink,” McLaughlin joked.
“I think that depends on how much they’ve had to drink,” McLaughlin joked.
But the matter is a serious one to McLaughlin and others in the local art community.
“I think we should have been doing this already,” McLaughlin said. “A lot of cities and towns all over the country have them. In fact, Mooresville beat us to it. They already have art crawls.”
The idea has been cooking for about three years, said Dusty Rhodes, executive director of the Iredell Arts Council.
But it came together earlier this year.
“I’ve known about art crawls in other cities,” he said. “It’s typically when a group of five or six galleries located near each other have an opening on the same day. But in Statesville we’re handicapped in that way.”
Rhodes said there are only two galleries downtown, three if you throw in the Iredell Museum and four if you count the one at Mitchell College.
“So we had to improvise a little,” Rhodes said. “And came up with the idea of having other businesses downtown become temporary mini-galleries for the day.”
Enter Marin Tomlin who heads up the Downtown Statesville Development Corp.
“When I first started at DSDC a year-and-a-half ago I wanted something like this for the city,” Tomlin said.
“Other people wanted it too and then we just looked for the best way to make it happen.”
That’s when Theresa Golas came into the picture, so to speak.
Golas, the executive director of the Iredell Museum, said that when she found out how excited Tomlin was about the project, she knew it was going to happen.
“Marin and I and drove to Hickory and found out how they did their art crawls,” Golas said. “We saw what we liked and what we didn’t like and then we got some more people together.”
It has taken about eight months to get it all done, Golas said.
Part of that included bringing the Greater Statesville Chamber of Commerce into the fold and then finding artists and businesses who wanted to participate.
At last count, some 40 artists made the cut in what Golas called a juried event.
“That meant that people had to submit an application along with samples of their work,” Golas explained. “And a panel - or jury - decided which ones would be shown.”
One of the artists whose work will be shown is Hickory artist Judy Rider, who will have her scenic watercolor on display at the Broad Street Gallery.
Rider, who recently had a piece of her art accepted by the Watercolor Society of North Carolina, said she thinks the art crawl will be a win-win situation.
“I think it will be good for everyone,” she said. “I hope it catches on, I think Statesville is a good setting for an art crawl.”
Amy Queen, a Statesville artist whose medium of choice is oils, said she’s glad an event like this has come to here.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Queen said. “I just hope there are a lot of people and that it is successful enough so they want to do more of them.”
Nearly 20 businesses agreed to be part of the art crawl.
That means that seemingly unlikely places such as Plyler Men’s Store, R. Gregory Jewelers, Allure Salon and Day Spa and DJ’s Bridal & Tuxedo will spend Friday night as part of Statesville’s art scene.
The event includes live music, free wine-tasting and finger foods and a tour of the city.
Tomlin said the event accomplishes two big goals.
“It draws people downtown,” she said. “And it promotes art. And that’s a pretty good combination.”
The Statesville Art Crawl will begin at 5 p.m. Friday with a presentation at the Iredell Museum.
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
For more information about it, call DSDC at (704) 878-3436.