Wednesday, August 26, 2009

A new art collective gallery coming to Chapel Hill

Karen and I attended the public meeting at the Chapel Hill Town Hall for the proposed Franklin Street Art Collective. I was fairly impressed with the homework they had done and the balanced view they took. I haven't examined the business plan yet but they seem to be using conservative financial assumptions -- a good thing. Amazingly enough they hope to be open by November!

Details (including the presentation, business plan and artist application) can be found here on the Town website but here are a few details:

- 30-40 artists in the collective who put up $500 to start, $20 month and pay a 25% commission on sales. Members are expected to work 6-8 hours month and make a 2 year commitment.
- An undetermined number of consignment artists can show their work but will pay a 50% commission.
- Artists can apply for both membership and consignment at the same time.
- Both categories will be juried and none of the those judging are involved in the collective.
- The application says that you must live within a 25 mile radius of Chapel Hill but I do not believe that is a hard and fast rule.
- They continually harped on wanting to have the highest quality art.
- Michael Brader-Araje, the building's owner, is a hero!



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice! I really hope this happens. I'm thinking of moving down there, I love Carrboro so!

Cheers,
Amy

Chris Beacham said...

The collective seems to be moving along as far as I can tell. I'm excited but I'd love to see more action down Carrboro way of course.

I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't been to the Picasso exhibit yet. My partner mentioned last night that we should get our act together and get over there. It doesn't close until January but that date will come knock, knock, knocking before we know it.

We love Carrboro and being able to walk to everything. Move down and you could become our Poet Laureate -- we need a new one! The Arts Committee, of which I'm a member, is in search mode.

But Brooklyn's pretty cool too. One Brooklynite niece who worked at Big Spaceship just left with her BF for a year or two in Asia. Another niece works at William Morris and also lives in Brooklyn.

Chris