Goodwill participants who face intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses will realize their artistic dreams and potential when their work goes on display at the Charlotte Art League June 4. The exhibit, titled “Color My Dreams” features drawings, paintings and mosaics completed as part of the Employment Skills Training program at Goodwill.

See the WCNC News story

The third annual event kicks off Friday, June 4 with an opening night reception for the community at the Charlotte Art League Gallery, 1517 Camden Road in Charlotte, from 6 to 9 p.m. Goodwill participants will be on hand to show off their creations. The show will continue daily through June 25, with proceeds going to the artists.

“The ultimate satisfaction for the artists is when someone admires their work or purchases a piece,” said Diane Hoff Weekley, Director of Vocational Services for Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont. “Our participants may not be able to completely verbalize their emotions. This exhibit allows their imaginations to come to life. Art exploration is a great way to work with anyone in any walk of life to teach and train them for jobs.”

CAL volunteers spent several hours a month teaching art methods to Goodwill’s participants at CAL that culminated in stunning artwork, and helped develop and reinforce the confidence and self-management skills needed to succeed in today’s workplace.

Goodwill’s Employment Skills Training program works with individuals by providing 12 to 18 months of job skills training to gain and keep competitive employment.

About Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont

Goodwill operates 20 retail stores and has over 30 total donation sites in the Southern Piedmont region of North and South Carolina. Proceeds from the sale of donated goods fund job training and employment services for individuals facing barriers to employment such as lack of skills, experience or education. In 2009, Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont delivered services to nearly 18,000 individuals and diverted more than 55 million pounds of goods from area landfills.

“CAL Members – Recent Works” is CAL’s annual gift to the community. Consisting exclusively of new works by Art League members, the exhibit showcases the diverse and unique talents of our member artists. Each artist has spent the past year growing in knowledge, talent, productivity and skill, and the Members Only show presents an opportunity for our artists to step back and see how far they’ve come.

An integral part of artistic growth is the need to demonstrate, to explain, to showcase and to observe. Many of the artists exhibiting in the show will be on hand at the May 7 opening to talk about their work and artistic direction to interested observers and potential buyers, so “CAL Members – Recent Works” is a great opportunity to get the scoop from the creators themselves.

The show opens during the South End Gallery Crawl on Friday, May 7 at 6:00 PM, and runs through May 28th.

Every so often one of those can’t-miss events comes up on Charlotte’s arts and cultural calendar that just screams at you to drop everything so you can be there. Charlotte Art League is HOT! — a silent auction on Sunday to benefit CAL’s mission of community support of visual art — promises to be that event this spring.

Online ticket sales are now closed. You many still purchase tickets at the door.

As a mainstay of the South End art scene since 1996, the non-profit Art League has grown to become one of the city’s prime arts destinations, offering studio space, art classes, workshops, seminars and much more to go along with its monthly gallery shows of some of the regions top emerging talent. The May 2 auction will help CAL raise some of the funds necessary to complete a series of upgrades to the organization’s Camden Road facility that will make it more accessible to working artists and also enhance the quality of the exhibition space. (Hint: Air conditioning is on the list of upgrades. Anyone who has been to CAL during a July Gallery Crawl knows what “CAL is HOT! really means!)

The food, wine, and refreshments being donated by some of Charlotte’s best-known restaurants is probably reason enough to pony up the $15.00 ticket fee. Not to mention the company, which will likely be a who’s who of the Charlotte arts scene. But of course, the main reason is to have a shot at some of the goodies on the auction block, with proceeds going to support the Art League. New items are being donated daily, so the list below is by no means complete.

Auction Listing

• Over 30 original works of art
• Tickets to Carolina Actors’ Studio Theatre
• Two tickets to the Charlotte Symphony
• Facial, shampoo, and blow dry at Escape Salon
• 30 x 40 canvas with a floater frame from Campagna
• Weekend at Laurel River Retreat
• Dinner for four with two bottles of wine with Chef David Larousse
• Wine Tasting with Christine Ruotolo of Gallo Wines
• Dinner for two at Bonterra
• $50 gift certificate from Binders Art Supplies and Frames
• Printing services from Powerhouse Color Printers
• Private and group sessions at Alternative Fitness Pilates
• Gold hoop earrings at Sumpter’s Fine Jewelry & Watches
• Tickets to Charlotte Motor Speedway NASCAR events

Tickets are available at the door or online. See you there!

CAL is honored to have artist Ashley Lathe as our program presenter for April 20. Ashley will introduce us to a new painting surface called Yupo paper. Yupo is becoming a popular surface for watercolor painting that adds new possibilities to a traditional medium. Ashley will demonstrate his process working with Yupo and discuss the characteristics of painting on plastic. Plastic? Yes, plastic. Yupo is a synthetic, made polypropylene, giving it outstanding durability and the strength of plastic film, combined with the special properties of natural paper. This “paper” has a super smooth and ultra bright white surface.

Ashley is primarily a watercolor artist though he also employs oils, printmaking and drawing skills to depict his preferred subject matter – “the overlooked in everyday life.” The influence of his graphic design and illustration background is most obvious in clean strong compositions and color.

Don’t miss this demonstration, which promises to be both fun and informative. Please join us! Visitors are welcome. This is a free event.

About the Artist

A native of North Carolina, Ashley Lathe began his art career via the commercial arts.  Graduating in 1992 from East Carolina University with a BA in Graphic Design and Illustration, Ashley worked for several years in web design and marketing. Following completion of post-baccalaureate classes at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, he taught art classes at the university level. In 2002, he made the final leap to full-time artist.

In 2009, Ashley was a selected by Center City Partners to produce and present a painting as the 2009 Center City Vision Award to Hugh McColl Jr. He was also selected as the local exhibiting artist in Greenlight, an exhibition of New York and Southeast artists in Bank of America Plaza curated by Joie Lassiter. His work was recently chosen for the cover of the new novel “West of Dodge”, a Kansas Memoir. He is a co-founder of Charlotte Artery, an artists’ co-operative, funded via a grant by the Arts and Science Council and the North Carolina Arts Council.  Ashley additionally serves as co-chair on the board of The Contemporaries, an arts-awareness organization affiliated with McColl Center for Visual Art.

Ashley’s work is represented in several corporate collections and publications including New American Paintings and Best of North Carolina Artists. He is a two-time McColl Center for Visual Art Affiliate Artist and an affiliate member of Artspace in Raleigh, NC. He has collaborated and directed community outreach projects with various organizations, including ArtsTeach through the Mint Museum of Art and Citizen Schools with McColl Center for Visual Art.

Currently his work focuses on the ability of watercolor to create and capture the subtle nature of change as landscape and metaphorical abstraction.

— Change in form, structure, character or condition.

— Glow from the pure white light of birth.

— Fiery emergence.

— The rich colors of life and transformation.

Also on exhibit are paintings and sculpture from art classes taught by CAL member Patricia Krok-Elder thru ArtWorks945 at the Urban Ministry Center.

Live music by Jamie Kay.

The show opens during the South End Gallery Crawl on Friday, March 5 at 6:00 PM, and runs through March 26th.

About ArtWorks945 at the Urban Ministry Center

The Urban Ministry Center’s ArtWorks945 is a vibrant art community comprised of Charlotte’s marginalized. Many of the artists here struggle with homelessness and urban poverty. Our artists, though so often marginalized by society, have powerful voices, and we get to see a little of each of their stories in the beautiful work they create.

The goal of ArtWorks945 is to use art as a vehicle to address and begin the process of healing deep-seeded wounds caused by homelessness. We seek to provide positive and affirmative activities, to engage in intentional outreach, to build cooperative community and healthy socialization, to create and support pathways for the artists’ personal development, and to help create connections between the homeless community and the larger community.

Over the past few months, one of CAL’s members, Patricia Krok-Elder, has been teaching a weekly class on Wednesday afternoons. So far she has taught self-portrait, grey-scale, color theory, and is now teaching a drawing class. Her main goal is to teach the artists to enjoy the process of creating, and ultimately, to learn to see.

CAL’s February show RHYTHM! explores how aesthetic building blocks normally associated with music can just as easily find expression in the visual arts. While meter, pulse and beat are concepts easily understood when experienced within a musical composition, the underlying proportions that define rhythm are just as important to visual composition. The show opens during the South End Gallery Crawl on Friday, February 5 at 6:00 PM, and runs through February 26th.

In addition to the gallery exhibit, starting this month at the gallery crawl selected CAL artists will be speaking about their creative process, techniques, and other subjects relating to the development and production of their art. This month’s speaker is Jerry McQuay, a professional artist who works out of a studio at CAL.

Jerry was raised in Charlotte and graduated from CPCC with a Commercial Arts degree. He worked for many decades in the commercial sign trade, painting signs and logos by hand. When the industry switched over to digital medium, Jerry began to use his keen artistic talent to paint large scale paintings using vibrant colors and current themes.

Jerry will discuss the inspiration that led him to paint a montage of 9-11-01, among others. He will discuss the process of composition and his painting techniques and answer questions from visitors.

The January show at the Charlotte Art League invites the viewer to experience the many ways that artists can interpret the notion of a new beginning. New works in a wide range of media and styles are on display from January 8th through the 29th.

While the show’s call-for-entries asked artists to submit work exploring “new year” related themes such as breaking ground, setting into motion, opening doors, and so forth, wide latitude was given to artists in how they might imagine the concept of new beginnings. It’s not surprising, then, that the work on display treats the subject in very personal and refreshingly unexpected ways.

Fine art photographer Rena Hawkins interprets “new beginnings” as representing the new direction her work is taking and is showing her latest work resulting from her new approach. “Before, I would take photographs of existing scenes or compositions that I discovered. Now, I compose the photo in my mind first and envision it painted. Then, I take the actual shot and through various processing techniques and Photoshop, I manipulate the image so the final version matches my original vision.”

Artist Caroline Sandgren, who paints acrylic canvases that seem to explode with vibrant shapes and colors, also spoke to the personal nature of her work and her current source of inspiration. “I never put a piece out in front of the public hoping it will please someone – it has to please me first, or it won’t be shown. Right now, red is beautiful!”

“Beginnings” opens on Friday, January 8 at 6:00PM. The Charlotte Art League is a participant in the South End Gallery Crawl, happening the same evening.

They won’t all fit into your stocking, but any of the pieces on display at the Charlotte Art League’s December exhibit will definitely feel right at home under the tree on Christmas morning.

“Art To Go” is CAL’s annual holiday show, where everything on display is fourteen inches or smaller. In other words, the perfect size to give as a gift for that special someone. “In previous years, we’ve had a number of buyers tell us how the pieces they’ve purchased at this show were the first piece of original art that they or their loved one have owned,” said Jewel Reavis, Charlotte Art League President. “The small, reasonably priced works are an affordable way for someone to start a collection.”

Although holiday themes are certainly encouraged in show entries, don’t come to this show expecting to be surrounded by Santa studies or tacky Thomas Kinkade knock-offs. The exhibit boasts entries by an impressive array of serious, professional artists covering a wide range of subjects, media, and formats. Although the majority of the entries are framed landscapes, still-lifes, and abstracts, a few 3-D works are available for buyers thinking beyond the wall. The only unifying theme is the small scale.

Unlike most shows, where if you buy you must wait until the exhibit closes to take your acquisition home, “Art To Go” is a cash-and-carry show. Meaning that if you buy it, you take it home that day. CAL does not provide gift wrapping services, however — any paper left laying around here usually winds up with one of the resident artist’s doodles on it, and can be found framed and on the wall at the next month’s show!

“Art To Go” opens on Friday, December 4 at 6:00PM. The Charlotte Art League is a participant in the South End Gallery Crawl, happening the same evening.

Directions to Charlotte Art League

Our fall juried show, appropriately titled “Fall Into Art,” opened at the November 6th South End Gallery Crawl and will run through the end of November. Karen Dirksen, Assistant Director of Winthrop University Galleries and a fine art instructor at the school, served as juror for the show. Dirksen expressed surprise (in a good way!) at the variety of media used, and was struck by the high level of technique, control, and compositional skill demonstrated by artists working within each medium represented in the show.

FIRST PLACE $500 PRIZE

Sheila Carpenter
TREE OF LIFE
mixed media collage

SECOND PLACE $250 PRIZE

Michael Gentry
UNTITLED 9
fine art papers

THIRD PLACE $100 PRIZE

Julius Pratt
CHRONON
ceramic mixed media

MERIT AWARDS $50 EACH

Martha Wilder Harrington
OVER THE TOP
acrylic on canvas

Ann Rudd
SERVING
mixed media

Rudy Torrico
DUKE CENTER REFLECTION
photography