BY RICH FOWLER, Staff Writer
CHAPEL HILL — Town, university, and business leaders gathered on Monday afternoon to welcome FRANK to Chapel Hill. This new gallery for the Franklin Street Arts Collective is set to officially open in the old Rite-Aid building on the 100 block of East Franklin Street in late January or early February 2010.
“We finally now have this great destination – arts destination – right here in our community,†said Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt.
The town helped create the space by partnering with the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership and making a $40,000 loan through the Small Art Business Loan Program.
Gordon Jameson, chair of the board of directors for the collective, said that they designed the 3,400-square-foot gallery to be flexible, with moving wall panels that will allow them to reconfigure the space to accommodate a wide variety of exhibits and performances.
Jameson wants to include local musicians, poets and authors in the gallery as well.
“I think it’s really important for us to be involved with the whole art community, even if they’re not actually showing in the gallery, because we need their support and we need to support them,†he said.
Twenty-five local artists joined the cooperative as members, and 50 regional and national artists will sell their work through the gallery as non-members.
Luna Lee Ray is a member of the new collective, and is a mixed-media artist who has been in business for 12 years.
“The idea of having something on Franklin Street is really exciting. The idea of having something that the town is pulling for and trying to help out, I think is great. As a collective it’s really more supportive of artists than a regular gallery,†Ray said.
George Draper, chair of the downtown partnership, said that the new gallery has the potential to bring a lot of new visitors to downtown.
“This is another major step in our revitalization efforts of downtown,†he said.