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Thursday, October 1, 2009
Arts / News Exploring the ArtHouse
Posted By Teresa Hernandez on Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 11:49 AM
The ArtHouse. Have you heard of it? Not many people, it seems, have. Tucked at the end of a dead-end street just across the railroad tracks on 36th Street, the ArtHouse is part of the NoDa Crawl and one of my favorite galleries.
It offers weekly drawing classes and houses art in various media including textiles, sculpture, photography and paintings in its 12 studios. It has fine art but also supports many lowbrow artists who have been slowly infusing the Charlotte art scene over the years with graffiti, pop, punk, freak and comic-book art.
Every time I go, I look forward to speaking with the artists. I like their passion. And I always learn about some underground event that’s about to take place. In September, I ran into Diangelo Dia Bethune there. Bethune studied art in Greece, Mexico, and Kenya. You may have seen him walking the streets of Charlotte donning a Mexican wrestler mask. This was for his most recent exhibit, Hollywood Africans: A Visual Celebration of the Life and Times of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Later, while searching for wine in one of the studios, I ran into hip-hop/soul singer Jocelyn Ellis. Ellis is trying to create a movement where artists set no barriers for themselves in terms of genre. She also believes artists should help each other by sharing what they’ve learned. She wants to hold workshops to share her experiences so that other musicians don’t repeat her mistakes.
I got to speak briefly with Antoine Williams and Kali Ferguson as I was walking out of the studio. Williams is co-founder of GodCity, an artist collective started in 2005. His personal style is a mix of street, hip-hop and propaganda art often embedded with political and social messages. Some of his work has been featured on the cover of Creative Loafing and included in the permanent collection of The Mint Museum of Art.
Ferguson is a poet, singer, dancer and storyteller. Fluent in Spanish and English, she often gives presentations on the African and Latin American diaspora. Some of her other workshops include The Way to Harlem: Music & Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance and Black Banjos and Beyond: African Improvisation in the Americas.
As I was leaving, I visited with Kyla McDaniel and Sean Glover. McDaniel is a multidisciplinary artist who creates pottery, sculpture, prints, painting, photography and fiber art. We carry some of her small pottery pieces at Pura Vida Worldly Art.
Glover does paintings, commissioned work and faux finishing. He also holds a figure drawing group for all skill levels each Thursday from 6:30 - 9 p.m. Cost for each session: $10 regular, $5 students.
(The attached photo is a picture of me with a sculpture by Mark Doepker, another artist who's been featured at The ArtHouse.)
The ArtHouse is located on 3103 Cullman Ave. For more on the ArtHouse and the artists mentioned, visit:
• ArtHouse: www.thearthousenoda.com
• Diangelo Dia Bethune: www.dia1518.com
• Jocelyn Ellis: www.jocelynellis.net
• Antoine Williams: www.rawgoods.org
• GodCity: www.godcity7.net
• Kali Ferguson: www.kaliferguson.com
• Kyla McDaniel: www.kyla4christ.googlepages.com
• Mark Deopker: www.flickr.com/photos/markdoepker/
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