Every Tuesday, a group of around 10 local artists gather together to paint in the basement of the Church of the Apostles in Raleigh.
Following the departure of the church’s former art teacher, artist Sally Preslar started a group called the Midtown Artists in 2010. Preslar recruited two other church members who she knew were interested in continuing painting, and, through various art classes and events around the city, eventually attracted a larger group of painters.
Dennis Redmond, a former registered nurse at UNC, found the group four years ago after retiring on disability due to a tumor he had to have removed from his spinal cord. Redmond says he got bored sitting around the house when he was used to running around all day, so he started painting. He originally painted with acrylics but says he wanted to learn how to use oil paints, so Redmond took a class at a local art gallery. There, he met Midtown Artists member Linda Ayers, who invited him to join the Midtown Artists.
Preslar taught Redmond how to paint with oil paints and he quickly became friends with the other artists. “That group has really become my family, my best friends,” Redmond says. “When you find your tribe, you just know it.”
Last year, the Midtown Artists held a pop-up art show the weekend before Mother’s Day at a group member’s home to sell their artwork to the community. They set up their pieces on easels and tables and put out some cookies and lemonade, then sat out on lawn chairs, chatting with each other and anyone who happened upon the pop-up. Redmond says his favorite part of the pop-up is the camaraderie. “I love meeting people and talking to people—a lot of them want to learn more about the group,” he says.
The Midtown Artists planned to hold another pop-up during the weekend before Mother’s Day this year, but the coronavirus pandemic forced them to reschedule for September 19. The pop-up will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 301 Hudson Street in Raleigh.
Preslar says tables will be spaced 6 feet apart and whoever visits will need to wear a mask. She says she’s excited to see what everyone in the group has been working on recently.
“I love the reaction we get from the public about our pieces,” Preslar says. “It’s a lot of fun.”
WEB EXCLUSIVE The fight for voting rights for African Americans and people of color, as well as for racial equality, has been going on since even before the 1960s, when mass civil rights protests broke out over the right for equal rights for Black people as well as for their right to vote. Though the 15th Amendment prevents the federal government from denying any citizens the right to vote, ingrained racism and voter suppression targeting people of color has become even more apparent in the electoral system as of late.
Renowned artist Shepard Fairey believes voting rights are human rights, and that everyone should have equal voting access regardless of race or economic circumstance. In an effort to share this message on a larger scale, he collaborated with photographer Steve Schapiro, who documented many important civil rights protests in the 1960s, on a new 18-foot high mural for the exterior of the Cortez restaurant on Glenwood Avenue. The work, titled “Voting Rights are Human Rights,” was also created in response to George Floyd’s murder.
Photo by Joshua Steadman
Wyatt Closs of Big Bowl of Ideas, a creative production company that collaborates on projects surrounding themes of social justice, selected Fairey’s art for a national project called “Walls for Black Lives.” The project will support a national day of strike for Black lives on July 20. As part of the project, eight cities around the country—including Raleigh—now feature artworks supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.
Closs says he chose Raleigh as one of the participating cities because of its notoriety. “[Raleigh] is a flashpoint for voting rights and the minimum wage is too low, both of which disproportionately impact Black people, a metaphorical set of ‘knees to the neck’ for African Americans generally,” Closs says.
“Voting Rights are Human Rights” is Fairey’s first large-scale installation in Raleigh. Closs says the mural should last at least a month, but he hopes it can last until Election Day on November 3—because of the medium of the artwork, it’s hard to predict how long it will last. Raleigh Murals Project secured the location and local artists Taylor White and Sarahlaine Calva installed the mural at Cortez.
Closs says he hopes Fairey’s mural will make Raleighites pause and contemplate what’s going on in the world right now. “It’s really a message to folks that, not just that Black lives matter, but it’s important to channel the energy from [the strike] into civic engagement and voter participation and be a voice for change,” Closs says.
Fairey also created the Barack Obama “Hope” poster for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. In Wisconsin, Fairey will paint the same “Voting Rights are Human Rights” mural on the south side of the 12-story Railway Exchange building in downtown Milwaukee, which served as the city’s headquarter’s for President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. The piece is expected to be completed in time for the Democratic National Convention in mid-August.
WEB EXCLUSIVEDowntown Raleigh may be quiet right now but it’s also bright and colorful.
The Raleigh Murals Project, the Visual Art Exchange and Royale chef Jeffrey Seizer have teamed up to create a platform to elevate awareness around the issues that led to recent protests against racial inequality, injustice and police brutality, using art—and the plywood boards hanging on business storefronts downtown—as a medium.
“The Raleigh Murals Project believes that black lives matter and value[s] protests where voices of unity and justice can be heard,” reads a post on Raleigh Mural Project’s Instagram feed. “We want to amplify black voices in our community…We will do this by lifting the voices of those affected by systemic racism, prioritizing Black artists and artists of color and offering a platform to express those experiences and truths.”
Interested artists can email the Raleigh Murals Project about participating and the public is invited to donate funds or materials for the artists to use. Leftover funds will be donated to NAACP North Carolina.
Look out for new murals popping up all over downtown. Here are several you can visit right now.
Murals at State of Beer by Sorenaand State of Beer staff
Photo by State of Beer
Window mural at Garlandby Julio Sanchez and crew
Photo by Jenn Rice
Use Your Voice by @quercus_raleigh by @spclsigns, South Salisbury Street
My client wanted an intimate bar area with easy access for casual evenings with friends, so we created a space that felt collected and assembled from a mix of metals, woods, cultures and eras.
Italian-based jewelry designer Lora Nikolova brings her unique artwear to Raleigh.
Lora Nikolova’s creative artwear
Lora Nikolova has always been bored with traditional jewelry. She would see women wearing unremarkable necklaces on the street and think about how she could take elements from those same pieces and craft them into something extraordinary. “Extraordinary” is exactly how Nikolova’s self-named brand of creative artwear should be described: Her necklaces and earrings are just as much works of art as they are pieces of jewelry. Nikolova’s brand was born five years ago after the creative Bulgarian native graduated with a degree in theater design from the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, followed by the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan. During her studies, she painted, styled life photography sets for interiors and worked in theater, television and with big fashion brands including Burberry and Versace until she decided to dedicate herself to her true passion—jewelry design. Though theater and jewelry design are two very different disciplines, Nikolova found she could apply what she learned in school to her creative artwear brand. “From the theater scene, I found a way to communicate my art through the jewel; my bijoux are like little ‘abstract scenes,’” Nikolova says. “In these architectural meshes, I express my perception of forms in space and the links between them.”
Each of Nikolova’s pieces are handmade with a range of colors and materials in various sizes, including glass, resin, plastic and semiprecious gems, river pearls, metal and paper mâché, which she composes into unique abstract patterns that she describes as “artwork to wear.” Collections range from geometric-patterned necklaces constructed with funky elements to tassel-based earrings containing forms of eyeballs. Her jewelry is often inspired by abstract artists such as Joan Miró, Wassily Kandinsky and Alexander Calder, mixed with some of her own aesthetics and abstract interpretation. “Every collection is meaningful to me,” Nikolova says. “They’re complicated, like installations.”
Nikolova will showcase her jewelry at a trunk show at CT Weekends on February 13.
