Kirk Ross
Nice to stroll through downtown the other day and finally pay a visit to the Ackland’s splendid new gift shop at the corner of Columbia and Franklin. In my younger days, I spent quite a bit of time in the copy shop that used to be catty-cornered from it, and via the vista afforded by the shop’s giant picture windows watched the gas station get torn down and the Top of the Hill building get built.
The folks at the store wanted to know a bit about the history of it, and I probably bored them with a few tales of The Happy Store, its fine selection of junk food and its efficient keg operation, which served a then very, very wet campus. This would be the early ’90s. Perhaps you remember it.
The new store is a delight, not just because it’s a wonderfully put together and inviting space, but because it lights up a corner that has been dulled for far too long. That it was quiet for so long is a cautionary tale about leaving key spaces at the mercy of the market. Its rebirth connects it to the Ackland, adding that last important link between the art spaces of the university and the town proper.
The importance of that connection is underlined this month with a 20-year retrospective of printmaker and musician Ron Liberti, who has been making public art in the form of band posters since moving to Chapel Hill in 1991. We’re old friends, so, yes, I am biased. Go see it.
To me, it is particularly significant that Ron’s show is hanging at the corner of Columbia and Franklin. It’s also significant that his work, along with the posters of several others, is going to be featured in the Davis Library Gallery for the next six months. That show, “From the Cradle to the Cave: 18 Years of North Carolina Poster Art,†is another example of the university’s growing recognition of the contributions of our local art community.
And while I celebrate that, it just exacerbates my disappointment that Chapel Hill – the town – still struggles when it comes to similar efforts. Maybe it’s a size thing, but Carrboro, Hillsborough and Pittsboro all seem to do a much better job of connecting with their artists and at being inclusive of those outside the mainstream. Chapel Hill, meanwhile, continues to put far too much of its stock and its money into big showy art and artists from elsewhere.
Since this is a touchy subject, let me just say that there are wonderful things being done featuring local artists, great university/town art collaborations and well-meaning art lovers in Chapel Hill by the truckloads.
But that doesn’t change the fact that in terms of public policy, there’s a strange imbalance in art funding. Specifically, all of the town’s art programs put together are dwarfed by the amount of funding that goes toward sculptures at public buildings made by someone from elsewhere. Under its Percent for Art Ordinance, which was put in place in 2002 and allocates 1 percent of selected capital projects for public art, Chapel Hill has poured hundreds of thousands annually into art for this town. The program is a nationally recognized success, yet very few projects have involved locals.
As a result, the program has been quietly criticized for years, not just because of who gets the work but because it seems to be inflexible. As one artist put it to me years ago when the conversation turned to the lovely $400,000 sculpture and sitting area at the town’s public works center on Millhouse Road: “We could have employed 10 local artists for a year.â€
Again, this column is not a knock on anyone’s art or what is valid or good, it’s about money and priorities in an exceptionally difficult economic era. The town is starting to make strides in recognizing and supporting local artists and engaging the community, and I would hate to see that dialed back in the name of belt-tightening.
There is money for art in Chapel Hill – and if I read the percent ordinance right, there’s nothing in it preventing the town from being more creative with how it uses the funds. It makes no sense to cut art programs while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on sculptures. We need some balance.
I think it is interesting to note that nearly half of the spots on the Chapel Hill Public Art Commission are vacant (and several are vacant on the Orange County Arts Commission). How can this agency best serve the artistic needs of the community when the community doesn’t want to serve and learn what those are? Public art is for all of us and we all get a say in it. Regardless of whether people feel they have the “right educational background” about art, they still have an opinion on it and should be encourage to share it.
Great points Kirk,
I guess part of the problem is that it is hard for public organizations to subsidize anything besides public scupltures, and there is a readymade market around those things, along with nonlocal artists who know how to speak the language and play that game. I think Paperhand’s success is interesting and is a good clue to what sort of arts this town reacts to and appreciates (family-oriented and alternative). But there is a definite inability to deal with more adult themes, which probably isn’t unique to carrboro. I will say that I personally find it much more rewarding financially to show work in other towns and have basically given up on Carrboro/Chapel hill (although local media in Carrboro has been very very kind to me!!)
I don’t think any gov agency is likely to overcome this. It would be nice if the more monied parts of town (real estate, unc and maybe even the hospital, which is full of, um, art) could chip in somehow. There’s lots of low hanging fruit there to help local artists. People like Ron L. have made serious contributions, in purely economic terms, to this town, it would be nice for them to reap some of that.